Federal cuts are impacting the Fort Worth area. Here’s how leaders are recouping the dollars

Leaders want to ensure Fort Worth receives a $25 million grant to expand passenger rail service in the booming city. 

The grant is vital to accommodate rapid growth that will affect roads and infrastructure in the nation’s new 11th largest city, they say. However, the money is in limbo as federal government officials review it as part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s review of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Five months into Trump’s second term, local agencies are still reeling from the impact of federal cuts, which included funding reductions to food banks and public health services as among the first cuts implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Some, such as Trinity Metro, are working to recoup the lost funding.

Dozens of federal agencies, mostly spread across Fort Worth and Dallas, make North Texas home to about 51,300 federal workers.

More than $300 million in cuts from federal funding affected more than 50 immunization clinics, 10 universities and resulted in severe cuts to public health agencies in Fort Worth and Dallas, according to a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth.

The total number of federal cuts — to employees and agencies — is hard to pin down, Veasey’s office said.

U.S. Rep. Craig Goldman, R-Fort Worth, said in an online post that the cuts would curb wasteful spending.

“In November, Americans voted for new ideas and a new path forward in how our government operates,” Goldman said in an X post on May 22. “This morning, the House GOP voted to send the One, Big, Beautiful Bill to the Senate to deliver on those promises.”

The bill, Goldman said, “lowers taxes, funds border security, promotes energy production, strengthens Medicaid, and cuts wasteful spending.”

A Goldman spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up email from the Report.

“Let us be clear, DOGE doesn’t even know how many workers they have or will cut and have frequently refused any transparency on the issue,” said Edward Do (Walrod), Veasey’s spokesperson.

Trinity Metro advocates in DC

Trinity Metro leaders, aided by a Fort Worth City Council member, recently spent three days in Washington, D.C., to help secure a federal grant promised for TEXRail expansion into the Medical District.

The grant is intended to facilitate the transportation needs of Fort Worth, now with more than 1 million residents. 

Trinity Metro president and CEO Richard Andreski and other Fort Worthians attended a national conference featuring more than 1,100 transit leaders discussing transit priorities for Trump’s second term and other issues.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy “spoke very supportively of transit, which for us is exciting to hear,” Anette Landeros, chief strategy officer of Trinity Metro, told the Report.

“They’re hoping to continue to fund and support transit is what we’re hearing, so we’re really excited about that,” she said. “(Duffy) really drove home the personal connection and understanding of how transit is connecting people to jobs, opportunities — so that was exciting to hear. We’re really quite encouraged by that.”

City Council member Michael Crain, a Trinity Metro board member who served in President George W. Bush’s administration, went along on the trip to “advocate on the growing needs of transit in Fort Worth,” Landeros added.

Crain went to Washington, he said, to “plead the case of why that (TEXRail) grant is so important.” 

“We did a lot of advocating on the value of this project,” Crain said, adding that he emphasized the project’s return on investment that will bring transit-oriented development south of downtown Fort Worth. “We have to invest in transit.”

Food insecurity rises

In March, the Tarrant Area Food Bank announced it faces a shortfall of $4.2 million — the equivalent of 2.5 million meals — after the U.S. Department of Agriculture canceled two federal programs that provided about $1 billion in funding to schools and food banks to purchase food directly from local farmers and suppliers.

The food bank initially lost $1.9 million in funding and the elimination of 39 truckloads of food in funding as a result of the cancellation of the 2025 Local Food Purchase Assistance Program and the Commodity Credit Corp. supplemental food purchases. 

About $660 million was cut from the Local Food for Schools program as well. 

Now, the agency is seeing increased need as data shows more Fort Worth-area residents are food insecure.

In Tarrant County, about 572,050 — or 1 in 7 people — face hunger issues on a daily basis. Of that number, about 187,440 are children, the study shows.

“Families will choose to do without food,” Julie Butner, president and CEO of the Tarrant Area Food Bank, previously told the Report. “Anytime you have a mom or a dad making that decision for themselves, they’re also making that decision for children. When children go without food, it has a long-range impact because now children are going to school hungry; they can’t learn. All of that creates a local burden. It’s concerning.”

Food pantries such as the First Street Methodist Mission in Fort Worth and Community Enrichment Center in North Richland Hills also are seeing more clients on a daily basis as needs grow.

Concerns about health cuts

To help cover the cost of what could potentially be more than $5 trillion in tax breaks, Republicans in the U.S. House narrowly passed a bill May 22 that will cut at least $880 billion from federal programs, including Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs. 

Over 270,000 Tarrant County residents — 12% of the county’s population — were enrolled in Medicaid as of September 2024, according to Texas Department of Health and Human Services data. 

Medicaid will be slashed by about $700 billion, while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will lose about $300 billion under legislation advanced to the U.S. Senate by one vote.

“I’m just really worried that without something happening, if we make these cuts, that it’s going to really be bad, not just for Texas, but for moms around the country,” Veasey said during a mid-May forum, adding that he fears emergency rooms will see increased pressure and more patients going into debt for self-pay options.

The cutbacks were among several in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that Veasey’s office has been monitoring. 

In April, Tarrant County Public Health announced the layoffs of 63 people whose positions were impacted by nationwide cuts to federal grants.

The positions, eliminated throughout March, were tied to four programs that lost grant funding. 

Tarrant County officials have identified 21 additional public health programs that are similarly funded by federal grants and could see the same fate, according to an April 2 presentation to county commissioners. 

Possible sale of area properties

The federal government may also sell off some assets after several North Texas properties were listed for sale in March then later removed.

Among them is the Fritz G. Lanham Federal Building, 819 Taylor St., in downtown Fort Worth, that houses the U.S. General Services Administration and other federal offices such as the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service and the National Labor Relations Board. 

The building, opened in 1966, is named for a Weatherford native who served in Congress from 1919 to 1947.

On April 25, the U.S. General Services Administration listed the 894,000-square-foot Fort Worth Federal Center at 501 W. Felix St. as available for “accelerated disposal” and could be among the properties the federal government’s real estate arm is looking to sell. 

The building houses several federal offices along with the local branch of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and warehouse space, according to a building description on the government site. 

Fort Worth — one of the busiest rail hubs in the nation — could lose its field office for the Federal Railroad Administration.

The $157,720 annual lease for the FRA’s 5,835-square-foot Overton Centre Tower II office in southwest Fort Worth was initiated in 2014, but was set to expire in 2029. DOGE listed the office for a lease termination in August 2025, with no result in savings, likely because of lease termination penalties.

It has not been announced whether the office will be relocated.

Military contracts continue

Although billionaire Elon Musk has called for scrapping the military’s stealth F-35 fighter jet program, billions of dollars in government contracts have been awarded to Fort Worth-based Lockheed Martin Corp.

Funding supports 17 suppliers with about 49,000 direct and indirect jobs related to the Fort Worth assembly of the F-35 jet fighter.

On April 8, Conti Federal Services, a global construction and engineering firm that specializes in military and secure construction, announced it completed the renovation of Maintenance Hangar Building No. 1643 at Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth.

The company was also awarded $24 million to construct an F-35A Flight Simulator Facility and Squadron Operations/Aircraft Maintenance Facility at the Fort Worth base as well as the renovation of a critical loading dock on base under CF2 Construction LLC, a partnership between Conti Federal Services and Cherokee Nation Environmental Solutions.

With federal funding under review, it’s important for local leaders to advocate for what they need, officials said.

“It is a conversation we need to have, especially as our city continues to grow,” Crain said.

Eric E. Garcia is senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected]. 

Robert Francis is business editor at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at [email protected].

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