BALTIMORE — For the second time in as many months, Maryland is suing the Trump Administration over its alleged withholding of AmeriCorps funds.
Last month Maryland District Court Judge Deborah Boardman ordered the federal government to reinstate hundreds of millions in frozen AmeriCorps funding, in addition to rehiring more than 700 organizational workers who'd been let go.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown and a coalition of 23 other Democratic led states are now amending their prior complaint with new claims against the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The states say OMB is still holding back $38 million in funding for things like AmeriCorps Senior Companion and Foster Grandparent Programs.
AmeriCorps members serve in various roles, such as teaching, building and rehabilitating homes, restoring and improving State parks, and offering up assistance to low-income, homeless, and elderly residents, specifically throughout the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland.
During Fiscal Year 2024 AmeriCorps awarded Maryland $21 million in funding, supporting 4,949 members across the state.
"That year, AmeriCorps State and National Planning Grants supported 25 service programs across Maryland, such as Civic Works Service Corps, Maryland Refugee Corps (operated by the International Rescue Committee), Maryland Reading Corps, Teach for America Maryland, City Teaching Alliance–Baltimore, and HabiCorps (operated by Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake)," the lawsuit states. "These programs worked across 174 locations and involved 672 participants."
This year Brown accused OMB of abruptly terminating Frostburg University’s ASTAR program which provides literacy courses, environmental research, and food assistance.
Despite Boardman's existing order, Brown says ASTAR continues to be hamstrung by OMB.
"Currently, ASTAR has enrolled members serving at Frostburg’s Center for Literary Arts, the Children’s Literature Center, the PAWS Pantry (a student food bank), and the Biology Department," Brown writes in the lawsuit. "Of the current ASTAR members who are expected to receive education awards, 11 are enrolled Frostburg students; they are expected to use most or all of their $20,000 in education awards to pay tuition at Frostburg."
Aside from Frostburg, Salisbury University also benefits from around $490,538 in AmeriCorps funding.
Their ShoreCorps consists of 178 members, who've reportedly put in 53,000 work hours for 57 government and nonprofit entities in rural parts of the Eastern Shore.
"Many ShoreCorps members serve at the university itself, by volunteering at Food for the Flock (the campus food pantry), the Office of Student Support Services (which mentors first-generation and vulnerable students), or Sammy’s Stash (which provides professional attire to students for interviews, internships, and jobs), or by participating in the Presidential Citizen Scholars Program (which partners with local government to research and act on community needs)," the lawsuit states.
While conceding Congress's power to allocate funding, the government says agency heads appointed by the President have discretion as to how that money gets disbursed.
Such decisions, they contend, are not subject to judicial review under Brown's argument of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
Maryland judges have ruled similarly in other cases on APA grounds, only to be overturned on appeal pertaining to matters like DEI grants and mass layoffs at government agencies.
Especially when it comes to government grants and funding complaints, the Supreme Court recently said the Court of Federal Claims, not District Courts, have exclusive jurisdiction.
Right now the Trump Administration has yet another appeal pending before the high court on terminated NIH funds.
In that filing Solicitor General D. John Sauer writes the following.
"Claims for terminated grant funds are monetary, contractual disputes that they may take up laterin the Court of Federal Claims without any cognizable irreparable harm. The government, by contrast, has an overriding interest in ensuring that discretionary funding decisions align with the President’s priorities."
