Could Ada County budget get DOGE’d? Commissioner says Elon Musk sets good example

In his opening remarks at a budget meeting with Ada County department heads, Commissioner Ryan Davidson hinted that he may aim to take a page out of Elon Musk’s book.

He urged county officials to “be cognizant” of the freezes and cuts the tech billionaire has implemented as head of the federal Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which President Trump established through an executive order.

“We keep a close eye on our department heads, so we’re not going to find a lot of inappropriate spending,” Davidson said. “But I think just be wary of Elon’s example, that sometimes a fresh set of eyes, a fresh way of looking at things can be beneficial and can cause conversations that maybe there are different ways to do things.”

Musk and Trump have sought to hobble or dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Department of Education. In late January, the Trump administration froze trillions of dollars of federal grants and loans until they were deemed to be aligned with Trump’s ideological agenda, although the freeze was temporarily blocked by court orders. On Tuesday, Musk said the federal bureaucracy was “riddled with fraud and waste” without offering evidence, The New York Times reported.

“It’s just a good omen to me that our country is going through maybe the first-ever real audit of government programs we’ve had in my lifetime,” Davidson told the county department heads on Friday. “I’m excited to see how it plays out and how that trickles down to Idaho.”

It could trickle down to Ada County. Most of the county’s budget — about $390 million in fiscal year 2025 — is funded by local property taxes. But some departments lean more heavily on federal grant money and could take a hit if the federal funding freeze becomes permanent, Trent Tripple, the Ada County clerk, told the Idaho Statesman.

Without federal funding, 11 of the 123 positions in the county’s Juvenile Detention Department could be at risk unless other funding sources were identified, said department Director Cody Ward. Seventeen other positions are funded with a combination of federal and state money, Ward told the Statesman by email.

The county’s Emergency Management and Community Resilience Department, which prepares for and manages crises like flash floods and wildfires, is nearly 40% funded by federal grants. The Sheriff’s Office funds some of its gear and equipment through federal grants, Tripple said.

“Overall, county-wise, (federal funding) is not a massive part of our budget, but it does affect us, and it would affect those departments disproportionately,” Tripple said by phone.

Tripple and Davidson said they didn’t anticipate county funds would ultimately be affected by federal cuts, because the funds had no connection to diversity, equity or inclusion-related programs — which have been a primary focus of the Trump administration’s cuts. But for some, the speed of the freezes and lack of clarity about what programs were included spurred anxiety, Tripple said.

“I can tell you for a fact that the emergency-management folks last week were not feeling great about life,” Tripple said. After a federal judge stayed Trump’s attempted funding freeze, “they’re OK right now, but again, they’re not sure if that’s just a delay,” he said.

Trump’s approach is more disruptive than past administrations have taken.

“Most administrations, from my understanding, when they come in will review all that stuff while it’s going on, before they make any decisions,” Tripple said. “This administration, I guess, chose to just freeze all of them while they were reviewing them.”

“The freeze itself, I don’t think is a huge concern,” Tripple added. “It would be disruptive if it were allowed to go forward.”

Ada County keeps a lean budget, with help from federal spending

In December, Ada County commissioners broke ground on a 97-acre park at Expo Idaho, which they celebrated as “something priceless” and “a gift to everyone who lives, works and visits Ada County.”

Commissioners have highlighted their ability to bring the project to life without drawing on local tax dollars. Instead, they drew on federal funds disbursed through the American Rescue Plan Act, a stimulus package passed in 2021 to help the country recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Expo Idaho park project is funded entirely by ARPA, Davidson told the Statesman.

Though Davidson is “generally against federal funding philosophically,” he told the Statesman, the commissioners accepted ARPA funds because they didn’t come with any strings attached — and because “if we gave it back to the feds, we’re not saving any money, because that’ll just go to another city for them to spend.”

“That’s kind of the system you’re trapped in — not taking the federal money doesn’t save tax dollars. If it did, you’d probably get a lot more states rejecting it,” he said. “It needs to be done at the source, and I think that’s the benefit of what Elon is doing.”

Most of the county’s grant funding comes in yearly allotments, so any federal spending cuts would likely not be felt until next year, Tripple said. And the county sets aside some extra funds for contingencies, which could help make up for lost grant funding in the short term.

Davidson said he would welcome a federal audit of the county’s budget, and said the county tries to keep a “tight lid” on its spending.

“If we could locate anything frivolous and unnecessary, then we could definitely cut, but we scour the budget,” he said.

At the national level, some Republicans in Congress have tried to push back “in subtle ways” on Trump’s spending freezes, seeking carveouts for programs in their own districts even as they’ve praised Trump’s efforts to cut spending, The Times reported Wednesday.

In the House, for example, a group of Republicans from farm states introduced legislation Tuesday to preserve the federal Food for Peace program — which purchases crops from American farmers and distributes them to people in need overseas — by moving it from USAID to the Agriculture Department.

For now, Ada County leaders don’t anticipate the county will actually lose much in the way of federal funding, given that much of what the county receives pays for “essential services for the local community,” Tripple said.

“Right now, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of Plan B discussion,” he said. “I think the probability of this happening is extremely low. The possibility of it happening exists, and therefore we can’t completely ignore it.”

“I haven’t looked at it enough to know, if every single federal dollar was shut off, how is that going to affect us?” he added. “We haven’t looked at that just yet, but probably should.”

See what Ada County spends

Find Ada County’s budget breakdown at adacounty.id.gov/clerk.

How much does Ada County pay employees? Search our 2024 database

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