PORT ANGELES — The federal shutdown is putting Clallam County’s Recompete program at risk.
County analyst Angi Klahn told commissioners the U.S. Economic Development Administration is closed during the shutdown, freezing the grant that funds the North Olympic Recompete Coalition. That means no reimbursements for partner agencies and no pay for two county staff tied to the project.
“The EDA website went dark back in August for the normal fiscal shutdown — a little earlier than usual. But with the current government shutdown, it hasn’t reopened, and it won’t reopen until the shutdown is over. We were expecting to be reimbursed for these costs in October, but right now we don’t know when that will happen. This is also affecting our other Recompete partners, which is terrible timing because this is when we’re trying to move things forward — and we’re going to lose momentum,” said Klahn.
Klahn says the county can cover only about $60,000 in short-term costs if overhead is stripped out.
“What we’re holding onto right now is about a hundred fifteen thousand dollars — that’s everything, including my salary and indirect costs. If we remove my budgeted salary, that drops to around eighty-one thousand. And when we take out the indirects, we’re down to about sixty thousand,” said Klahn.
Klahn’s salary is shared as an analyst with the board of commissioners.
Partners are already feeling the cash-flow squeeze: Peninsula College is weighing furloughs; the North Olympic Development Council says it will run out of money to reimburse subawards in November; and Olympic Community of Health issued a similar warning.
If the shutdown continues, the county is preparing to pause Recompete on November 30, with formal notices to employees and partners by mid-November. The board will revisit the issue in the next couple of weeks.
Clallam County Recompete is a large-scale economic development initiative, led by the county in partnership with tribes and local organizations, that aims to close the “prime age employment gap” in the North Olympic Peninsula. It is a component of the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s (EDA) and receive about $35 million to revitalize natural resources and maritime industries through workforce training, support services, and job creation.