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With across-the-board federal budget cuts now assured, officials in north-central Montana are making similar comments — most everything in the region will be impacted, but it still is too early to know exactly what will happen.
"What are we expecting by sequestration?" Hill County Commission Chair Mike Wendland said in an interview last week. "We really don't know."
The automatic cuts, known as a sequester, were put in place in 2011 as part of negotiations by a joint U.S. House and Senate committee tasked with reducing the deficit. Because the committee, called the Supercommittee, could not come to an agreement, automatic cuts were scheduled to go into effect this year.
Congress and President Barack Obama, pointing fingers at each other and across the Republican-Democrat aisle, said for more than a year that targeted budget cuts could avoid the across-the-board actions, and Congress passed an extension delaying the implementation of sequestration until March.
Now, three weeks later, an agreement still has not been made, with the House and Senate, and Democrats and Republicans, still presenting alternate plans on how to manage federal cuts and reduce impacts of sequestration.
But cuts are coming.
Havre Public Schools Superintendent Andy Carlson said last week that the impacts in Havre will be delayed — the cuts to their programs will not happen till the start of the next fiscal year, on July 1.
"Right now, it's not having any impact," he said. "We know that much."
But all federal money will be cut 5.4 percent in July.
Carlson said that means a loss of about $64,000 to Havre Public Schools, with about $25,000 of that coming from the IDEA Program, which helps fund special education.
Montana State University-Northern Chancellor Jim Limbaugh, in a message put out on the university's Internet newsletter before the sequestration went into effect, put some other numbers to it on three federally funded programs.
The Student Support Services program's budget will be reduced by approximately $13,000; two students will not receive Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, and two students will not be able to participate in the federal work-study program, Limbaugh said.
"Also, please be aware that some of our students may currently receive benefits from other federally-funded agencies that indirectly support their attendance at MSU-N through the provision of supplemental assistance related to housing, food stamps, etc.," he added. "If these programs are affected, a residual impact may be the ability of some of our students to continue their education."
Other cuts could impact research and operations of other parts of the university system. Kevin McCrae, a deputy commissioner of higher education, and Tracy Ellig, communications officer for Montana State University, said how the cuts will affect research grants in the university system are mostly unknown. The different federal agencies and organizations have latitude on how they will implement the cuts, and most have not yet announced what they will do.
One, the National Science Foundation, has announced its plans, which are to continue with the grants already awarded and to cut the amounts granted in the future.
Some impacts will be seen faster. Allyson Hagen, spokesperson for the state Office of Public Instruction, said Impact Aid that helps offset losses to school revenue due to land being tax-exempt — such as for military reservations or Indian reservations — takes effect this fiscal year.
Voyd St. Pierre, superintendent of Rocky Boy Public Schools public schools at Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation, said that increases the impact there.
Rocky Boy schools' budgets are 52 percent to 54 percent federal money, St. Pierre said.
"We do rely heavily on Impact Aid … ," he said. "It does affect our school a little more."
And, as others speaking on the topic noted in general for all communities, it could have a major ripple effect on Montana reservations. St. Pierre said that federal cuts will affect housing, law enforcement, health care and other programs on the reservation, compounding cuts to school funding — which in turn, also will affect other aspects of life in the reservation communities.
"It's, unfortunately, a domino effect," he said.
Carlson also said the different effects will be interrelated.
"We really do believe our school is connected to our community, and that's part of how we operate." he said. "Everything that we do has a connection to something out there. …
"You think about children that are coming into the schools, and is sequestration affecting mom and dad and their livelihoods?" Carlson asked. "How is that going to impact how that child learns?"
Part of the issue is that the federal cuts will come in the midst of the nation trying to recover from the recession and in the midst of other cuts and questions.
Ron Gleason, administrator of Northern Montana Care Center, said the sequestration will create 2 percent cuts in Medicare that go into effect April 1. That will affect the care center, Northern Montana Hospital, Northern's clinic, anything that accepts Medicare payments, he said.
That is on top of freezes to Medicaid, loss of revenue due to requirements of the Affordable Care Act, cuts to avoid the "fiscal cliff" that took place in December, and other issues, Gleason said.
He said an analysis by the Montana Hospital Association shows the cuts will lead to $12.5 million in lost revenue from Medicare for Northern over the next 10 years — and Northern Montana HealthCare still is waiting to see what will come out of the state Legislature, as well.
"It's going to be a difficult budget year for us," Gleason said.
Carlson also said what the final impacts will be depends on a variety of factors. Havre Public Schools already is looking at a loss of nearly $2 million in oil and gas revenue — that revenue went from about $2 million four years ago for both the high school and elementary budget to about $40,000 in each budget this year.
That, along with trying to predict what will happen in the Legislature, makes it difficult to plan, Carlson said.
"When you (take) sequestration and you couple what we're seeing in our oil and gas revenues were going to have to be pretty strategic," he said. "It's going to make us (have to) be that much more accurate in the years ahead.
"There's definitely some concern, looking forward, as to how we're going to continue to operate as we have till now," Carlson added.
Wendland said that, while the county receives little federal money directly — some programs do use significant grant funding, such as the Hill County Health Department — cuts will impact the county budget, and cuts in other programs will directly and indirectly affect the county government.
For example, money that comes to the county from the state Department of Transportation starts in the federal budget and is transferred to the state. Another example is programs administered by the state Department of Commerce, regularly used by county and city governments to fund infrastructure and other projects, start with funding from Washington.
"Not everybody out there in the public see that as federal dollars, but it is federal dollars," Wendland said.
And the impact of other cuts will affect the county, such as cuts to farm and ranch programs, he said.
"Agriculture programs, will they be affected or how will they be affected?" he asked. "It could be huge to a county."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has discussed what impacts will be.
Stephanie Chan, assistant press secretary for USDA in Washington, said part of the impact will be in personnel cuts.
"Furloughs and other reductions in a number of USDA agencies that would limit the ability to provide program oversight, leading to potentially higher levels of erroneous payments and/or fraud," Chan said in an email to the Havre Daily News. "Even small increases in improper payments have large public costs given the magnitude of programs involved."
Other specific impacts include furloughs to meat and poultry inspectors, which could lead to packing plants shutting down temporarily, reducing the supply of meat and increasing prices as well as creating lost wages and lost revenue for companies, Chan said, as well as cuts to rental assistance to more than 10,000 low-income Americans, cuts to programs to prevent wildfires, reductions in conservation programs and programs to prevent and treat agricultural pest and disease outbreaks.
A variety of programs administered by the state Department of Public Health and Human Services also will be cut, ranging from Early Head Start and Head Start to the Low Income Energy Assistance Program, from childhood immunization programs and breast and cervical cancer screenings to family violence prevention programs.
Jon Ebelt, spokesman for the department, said its staff members still are analyzing what the impacts of the cuts will be.
Part of what the impact will be depends on how the state Legislature acts.
Carlson said if a bill sponsored by Sen. Llew Jones, R-Conrad, Senate Bill 175, passes unscathed from the House, Havre should be able to survive and even move forward.
That bill, which took one-and-a-half years in the crafting and included Jones working with a multitude of state education associations and groups, passed from the Senate in close to its original form, Carlson said. Seeing it pass from the House is probably his biggest priority this Legislature, he added.
"We're happy it made it out of the Senate in the way that it did," Carlson said. "It brings us back to some of the levels that started to go away in 2008; it gives us some local property tax relief; it gives us the ability to continue in the direction we're headed."
Gleason said that what the Legislature does with a variety of bills on its plate also will have a major impact on how the sequestration will affect health care.
Local officials say they are trying to make sure the local programs still will operate as well as possible with the reduced federal funding.
St. Pierre said that, at Rocky Boy schools, the top priority will be to keep people in their jobs. The district is planning to prioritize items in its budget if more cuts need to be made, he added.
"As we look at reductions, like every other district across the nation, our primary goal is to retain staff. … We will do our best to preserve instructional programs for kids, to keep our instructional programs whole," he said.
Carlson echoed that, saying the Havre district will try to find ways to reduce costs for supplies and materials and support rather than employees.
"Our No.1 priority will be personnel," he said. "When you're talking to your principals in the buildings, that's their number one priority also. …
"We'd rather have an individual in the room and try to plan a way to secure the materials and supplies that they need to work with."
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