Grant Expectations

Spring has arrived in Alexandria, and that can only mean one thing: the thermostat finally hit 60 degrees and we’re all going completely feral it’s budget season. The city’s proposed FY26 budget was just released and there’s so much to dig into, especially if you’re a local governance sicko like us. So we’re going to keep things simple by narrowing in on one particular, totally manageable sliver of it that’s on a lot of people’s minds: the impact on our city’s finances of the federal government being systematically dismantled by a ketamine addict.

The problem is… we’re not economists, or accountants, or any other kind of person who knows how to do numbers good, so we’re going to need some help. Fortunately, we know someone who can guide us through this discussion. Someone who’s helped us through uncertain economic times before. Of course we’re talking about the prince of recession pop, the bard of being broke and partying like there’s no tomorrow: Pitbull, aka Armando Christian Pérez, aka Mr. 305, aka Mr. Worldwide, who offered us many words of fiscal wisdom circa 2008-2014 that are still relevant as we think about our budgetary issues today. So put on your bald caps and aviators and let’s get to it. ¡Dale!

The federal government influences our municipal budget in several ways. The city’s economy depends on federal employment (13,000 feds living in Alexandria), contractors (in the defense and tech sectors among many others), and agency office presence (including the NSF and PTO). But since those impacts are broad and hard to quantify, we’re going to focus for now on the money that the city of Alexandria receives in federal grants–not quite akin to Pitbull’s “hundred Gs all cash in my Gucci duffle bag,” but close enough for our purposes. 

Looking backward, our city has gotten federal funding for some pretty cool and important stuff in recent years. Just as Pitbull rapped “Live in hotels, swing on planes, blessed to say money ain’t a thing,” we too were lucky to receive substantial federal resources during the Biden administration. Covid relief funds supported flooding infrastructure projects, the King Street 100 block closure, and the guaranteed income pilot program that changed the lives of hundreds of Alexandria families while turning the brains of countless ALXnow commenters into goo. The Biden era’s two big climate and infrastructure bills provided us millions of dollars to modernize buildings, buy electric school buses, and carry out other projects that you can see on this nifty new map. Other recent federal grants and earmarks have helped us build affordable housing and plan Duke Street in Motion.

Altogether, this federal funding has been super useful because it has allowed Alexandria to support initiatives that are new or creative or experimental in some way, which we might not be able to pay for with local tax revenue.

Looking forward, federal funding plays a role in our budget for next year as well. To be clear, it’s not a huge component when you look at the overall numbers. “Federal revenue” (mostly reimbursement for detaining federal prisoners at the jail) comprises less than 1% of our general unrestricted funds. But federal money makes up a bigger chunk–17%–of the “special revenue” (i.e., grants) dedicated to specific projects or programs. All told, our budget anticipates receiving over $50 million from federal sources in FY26. However, this is probably an undercount because some of the income classified as “state revenue” in the budget is federal funding passed through Virginia. It’s difficult to untangle all of this. We don’t have time to sort it out right now. We have day jobs!!

Anyway, these are some non-comprehensive examples of the important programs we’re planning to fund with federal grants next year: after-school snacks and summer meals for low-income kids (via USDA), emergency preparedness planning (via DHS), and mental health and substance abuse residential programs (via HUD). Speaking of HUD, they must have been listening when Pitbull said, “I knew my rent was gon’ be late about a week ago, I worked my ass off but I still can’t pay it though,” because their funding is supporting the city’s continued work on Zoning for Housing to help improve housing affordability and accessibility.

But wait, there’s more! The Alexandria Department of Community & Human Services gets money from various federal agencies to cover critical programs like child welfare, early childhood care, adoptions and foster care, and refugee resettlement. The city’s capital improvement plan includes federally-funded transportation projects including curb extensions to help kids walk to school more safely. And last but not least, while the ACPS budget is prepared separately from the city council budget process, we’d be remiss not to mention that our schools receive federal funding for nutrition and special education, on top of “Title I” funds that go to school systems with high numbers of low-income students to help close achievement gaps.

So that brings us to the big question: are we actually going to see any of this money in FY26?? As you’ve probably heard by now, the world’s richest man has decided that our country spends too much money on helping kids not starve, so it’s time to tighten some belts. As a result the administration is slashing spending by absurd amounts, even clawing back grants that were already announced–it’s chaotic and more than a little bit scary.

The upshot is that we really can’t depend on receiving anything moving forward, and we need to be clear-eyed about what losing this money would mean. The impact wouldn’t be huge on the city’s budget as a whole, but the effect could be devastating on the specific programs that are supported by grants. When Pitbull memorably rapped “This the last 20 dollars I got, but I’ma have a good time ballin’ tonight,” he may have been acknowledging the fact that some of the grants we received in previous years still have funds remaining, and we should carefully make the most of what’s left. But realistically, we’re going to have to look for other sources of funding if we want to keep these programs going. Can we shift money from other efforts? The city’s operational budget has been shrinking every year, so there’s not a ton of extra cash to go around. Can we plug gaps with targeted tax increases or user fees that don’t burden our most vulnerable residents? Can we look to the state? To private philanthropy? To Pitbull?? Does he want to buy the naming rights to renovated city hall??? Armando… call us.

The point is, we should strive to be like Mr. Worldwide when he says “You know me, I’m off in the cut, always like a squirrel lookin’ for a nut” by continuing to creatively explore all available opportunities. And we know we’re not saying anything that Jim Parajon hasn’t thought about a thousand times while lying awake between the hours of 2:30 and 3:30am, but it’s important for normal people to make their priorities known during the budget process. And since we are very normal [Editor’s note: …okay] we’re urging the city to do whatever it can to stay bold and forward-thinking instead of scaling back at a time when people are going to need more help than usual. Fellow extremely normal people [Editor’s note: you know what, never mind] should weigh in with their own priorities here or at public hearings on March 10 and 15. In the meantime, take good care of yourselves, and to anyone who’s going through tough times (which is basically all of us right now), just remember:

Things You May Have Missed Because You Have a Life 

• Finally! Innovation is happening at the innovation campus! This list of projects already underway is very cool, for example it’s great to see that students are learning real-world skills like how to “program and build a small rover to drive it through obstacle courses” to prepare them for navigating through the King/Braddock/Quaker intersection.
• Pizzeria Paradiso is back (kind of, it’s a pop up) and it’s honestly wild the lengths this city will go to commit to the Too Much Pizza bit, now even bringing back characters killed off in previous seasons.
• Speaking of old favorites turning up again, Council Connection has returned! The new podcast from Vice Mayor Sarah Bagley and Councilmember Kirk McPike is an ears-only version of that 5,000 word local affairs round-up that Justin so laboriously lovingly dropped in our inboxes each month. Check out the first episode of the podcast now to enjoy banter about parking minimums and Sarah’s A+ segue game.
• Fun fact: fabulous florist furnishes free flowers for furloughed feds! How’s that for proving that we know more than one word that starts with f?
• The on-again off-again (depending on when you’re reading this it could be on-again again) trade war being pursued by the Big Business Brains currently in charge of the White House hit close to home, with Port City owner Bill Butcher explaining to local news that he gets some ingredients from Canada, and his bottle caps from Mexico. When Jesse’s grandchildren ask what he did during the Dumbest War he’s going to get a faraway look in his eye and tell them about his escapades as a Smokey and the Bandit style blockade runner, delivering truckloads of contraband bottle caps to keep Optimal Wit under $20 a six-pack.

Local Discourse Power Rankings

1. Ready For It? (Last week: NR). The pop-up bar in Del Ray has for several years now been one of the more interesting and creative small businesses in the city. If you’ve only made it there for their now-annual reinventions as a Halloween bar (Nightmare on the Ave) and a Christmas bar (Joy on the Ave) you’ve missed some genuinely fun turns as an Alpine lodge après-ski, an 80s Miami nightclub, a gay pride bar, and more. Each time they put meticulous effort into decor full of fun and creative details that make a night out memorable (and Instagram-worthy). But absolutely nothing they’ve previously done can measure up to Eras, their new Taylor Swift themed bar. One of us has already been and while it might surprise you to learn which one [Editor’s note: literally no one is surprised you’ve already been, Jesse] we can report that it’s absolutely 20 pounds of Swiftie-ness in a 10 pound bag. This place is going to be insanely popular–already evidenced by them getting shut down by the fire marshal on their opening day for being too crowded. We know of multiple groups of middle school aged fans eagerly coordinating when their parents can take them in to make friendship bracelets and drink mocktails, so if you’re planning your own visit maybe pack earplugs.
2. Irish Goodbyes (Last week: NR). This would usually be the spot where we crankily roll our eyes about how our (otherwise wonderful) St. Patrick’s Day parade is held weeks too early (only missed holding it in February by one day this year, great work everyone!) but given that it’s a parade celebrating a man who kicked a bunch of snakes out of his country, the timing this year actually feels pretty perfect. Come to think of it, probably wouldn’t hurt to run this parade back a few more times, maybe do it every Saturday, maybe adjust the parade route to go past a certain senator’s house in Old Town until he gets fully inspired by the life of a man who kicked the goddamn snakes out of his goddamn country and yes we are using italics here to make sure that this metaphor hits the Mark. Honest to god, there’s not enough green beer in the world for this shit. How is it only March 7th.
3. Good News Only (Last week: NR). If you haven’t been following the public meltdown happening in the Zebra’s Facebook comments, allow us to catch you up. Over the weekend someone at the Zebra posted an old picture of the George Washington Masonic Memorial lit up in blue and yellow alongside a bunch of Ukraine flag emojis. A member of the Bring Integrity Back to Alexandria group then shared the post with a message blaming this type of “petulant and self-destructive” partisan display for the mass firings of federal workers. After which the Zebra account deleted the original photo and posted an apology for daring to write something that betrayed any sort of viewpoint whatsoever, causing the comment section on the apology post to blow up with hundreds of grievances, recriminations, and for some reason, poems. Guys, this comment section has everything: people accusing the Zebra of “wearing blinders on the road to fascism,” the guy in charge of the Masonic Memorial trying to explain that the photo was from 2022, debates over nuclear weapons policy and the national debt, former mayoral candidates bravely sticking up for Vladimir Putin… The whole thing is a good time and we can’t recommend it highly enough if you’re bored or just need somewhere to dump your opinions about bike lanes, Congressional Democrats’ resistance strategy, how windy it’s been this week, or the Supreme Court’s recent decision narrowing EPA’s authority under the Clean Water Act.
4. Is Our Children Learning (Last week: 2). Not content with merely teaching Catch 22 in English class [Editor’s note: we have no idea what they still teach in English class] last week ACPS decided to let us all experience a little taste of it by sending multiple text messages directing us to read an email that did not exist. After this fun experience in circular communications futility, they eventually sent an email to explain that those texts were just meant to go to families that were exposed to the PowerSchool data breach. So if you’re keeping score at home, we were supposed to ignore the text about the email that didn’t exist but read the email about the text that we didn’t need to get, everything is fine and remember just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.
5. Off the Veep End (Last week: NR). In between berating and alienating our allies, getting his ass dragged by Vermonters, having his book banned in Lithuania, and being memed as “a round-faced baby, an emo rocker, an alien, a toddler with a propeller hat and gargantuan lollipop, the painter Bob Ross, a minion from Despicable Me,” our vice president somehow found time to put his Del Ray home on the market. It was listed for $1.69 million, eliciting the most reluctant “nice” of all time from his former neighbors. We actually had kind of a fun time perusing the interiors on the Zillow listing. Did you know all the appliances in the house are white? Because that tracks. Unfortunately it sold before we even had a chance to go to the open house and see what Judy Lowe Park looked like from inside the barricades. It all feels like the end of an era, which we can only commemorate by saying farewell to JD and we look forward to meeting whoever moves into the house next, who given our luck will probably be Big Balls from DOGE.

Overheard in ALX

One commenter in the Zebra Facebook comment melee mentioned above reached for a classic analogy to describe their feelings about the situation:

“Like Nero playing the flute as Rome burned....”

The flute? Wasn’t it a fiddle? Listen, if we’re giving Nero fun new instruments to play we should at least let him take a crack at the brass section of the orchestra so he can produce the true music of this political moment: sad trombone noises.

One Awesome Thing in ALX

There are few things that any of us can do to more positively impact the future of this city than getting involved in the lives of young Alexandrians. And while many of us volunteer and contribute to activities and causes our own kids are involved in, we think the truly special examples are those instances where adults in our community look for ways to support young residents that aren’t their own kids. Whether it’s coaching, mentoring, or just showing up in ways big and small–being there for someone, setting an example, and showing you care about their well-being can absolutely change the trajectory of someone’s life.

There is no finer example of this than the local non-profit Cornerstone Craftsman, which recently cut the ribbon on a brand new training and education center on Eisenhower Avenue. Founded and run by Roberto Gomez, the organization mentors local teens and trains them in a building trades pre-apprentice program with the ultimate aim of helping them launch their own small businesses. It’s a remarkable program that not only helps build individual skills but also contributes to meeting local workforce needs. Most importantly, it’s a way to make young city residents feel seen and valued, to illustrate different ways they have a stake in the success of our community, and to empower them to become the best version of whatever it is they strive to be. While the most straightforward thing that Cornerstone Craftsman provides is training and skills, on a deeper level what it really provides is hope. And given what feels like a short supply of that essential emotion these days, it’s wonderful to see this organization growing and thriving and setting an example for the rest of us to aspire to.

Longtime readers know that one-third of our paid subscription revenue goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we make a donation in the name of ALXtra readers to a local organization. We’re thrilled to make the fourth such donation to Cornerstone Craftsman–if you’re interested in additionally supporting them, you can do so here.

Housekeeping Note

It’s our 50th issue of ALXtra! 🥳 It’s also our first issue on Ghost after moving off of Substack. Please let us know if you have any subscription-related issues or just want to share any feedback about the new platform. Thanks as always for reading!

You can follow Becky @beckyhammer.bsky.social and Jesse @oconnell.bsky.social on Bluesky, or you can e-mail us anytime at alxtranewsletter@gmail.com.

ALXtra is a free-to-read newsletter about current events in Alexandria, Virginia. Subscribe to get it delivered directly to your inbox. Paid subscriptions give you access to the comments. Revenue from subscriptions gets used in the following ways: 1) a third goes into a charity fund, and every time that fund hits $500 we’ll make a donation to a local charity in the name of ALXtra’s readers and we’ll feature and write about that organization, like we did here, here, and here; 2) another third of the money will go toward investments in the newsletter; and 3) the final third of the money goes toward self-care for your two intrepid authors.