MORGAN COUNTY — In a Fox News interview last month, billionaire Elon Musk, the de facto leader of the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stated that the initiative’s stated goal of cutting $1 trillion — or 15 percent — of the federal government’s budget could be fully realized by as soon as the end of May.
Regardless of whether that timeline is actually met, cutting such a colossal amount of money in such a short time is sure to create quite the aftershock in communities across America.
Morgan County, for one, is already feeling it.
Since assuming office in January, the Trump administration, through the use of executive orders and DOGE, has targeted a number of government agencies for cuts. These moves out of D.C. have impacted and will continue to impact communities everywhere, affecting programs ranging from local libraries all the way to emergency services.
Additionally, newly passed laws at the statehouse in Indianapolis will have a significant impact on local services here in Morgan County, particularly when it comes to public schooling.
In the wake of these state and federal changes, The Correspondent reached out to a number of local leaders to gauge how the people of Morgan County might be impacted. All of them expressed a common theme — uncertainty.
Many of the budget cuts have caught these local leaders by surprise, and managing the effects is going to be a challenge. Top-down orders seem to come daily, many of which have been met with fierce opposition and legal challenges at the national level. Several leaders have said that this uncertainty, along with the whirlwind pace of change, has made it difficult to prepare for what’s ahead.
Books unavailable
When Donald Trump signed an executive order last month downsizing the Institute of Museum and Library Services — a small agency with just 70 employees, all of whom are now on administrative leave as of March 31 — it felt “personal” to Krista Ledbetter, the director of the Morgan County Public Library.
After all, the IMLS budget is only around $290 million, making it a small fish in the massive pond that is the federal budget. If the goal is to significantly reduce federal spending, cutting the IMLS won’t further those ends very much.
But despite its small size, the IMLS has quite the reach, with the program delivering nearly $160 million annually to libraries across the country, including almost $3.6 million in Indiana.
That money pays for a number of services, including research databases, programs enabling libraries to share materials across long distances, and initiatives that ensure people with visual or print disabilities have access to books and resources, amongst other things.
But the future of the IMLS is now in doubt — and so is the federal spigot upon which local libraries have long relied.
“I’m all for efficiency in government,” Ledbetter said, “which makes this executive order ironic, because it’s going to cut the things libraries have done to make themselves more efficient.”
One of the services primarily funded through the IMLS is Evergreen Indiana, a collaboration of Indiana libraries that makes use of a shared catalog system so that libraries across the state are able to share books and other materials.
Imagine you go to the library in Martinsville looking for a book, but it’s not available anywhere in Morgan County. With Evergreen Indiana, this isn’t a problem — if a book happens to be somewhere like West Lafayette, Evergreen’s catalog will find it and transfer it to Martinsville.
Before March 31, Evergreen was handled by a team at the Indiana State Library, but if IMLS is permanently defunded, libraries across the state will lose that support. Other programs, like the statewide collection of databases providing research materials to students (INSPIRE), and funding ensuring libraries are stocked with materials to the blind and visually impaired, could also be finished as a result of Trump’s executive order.
Ledbetter said the moves happening in D.C. have her and other library employees concerned about the future. She said the loss of funding from the IMLS could result in reduced hours of operation in county libraries, potentially followed by reductions in staff.
“This is a huge blow,” Ledbetter said. “We’re dealing with a lot of uncertainty. We’re here to help our community, but this is gonna hamper us at a time when people especially need a public library.
“Historically speaking, people use the library even more when the economy gets worse — things are looking to be going in that direction.”
The next flood
At the beginning of April, Morgan County was battered with some of the largest rainfall totals in the state. Areas throughout the county received an excess of 6 inches of rain, with Martinsville getting more than 7. Several roads were still closed days afterward, and the community experienced significant flooding.
Abigail Worth, the director of the Morgan County Emergency Management Agency, said residents didn’t need to worry about getting the help they needed after the recent flooding, assuring The Correspondent that the agency was equipped and prepared.
But what about the next flood?
One federal agency that has been in the news constantly over the past few months is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA. The agency has been a target of DOGE and the Trump administration, with President Trump suggesting to reporters that he may “get rid of” FEMA, an agency that has existed since 1979.
Worth said if that happens, it could be more challenging for Morgan County EMA to adapt.
FEMA has a somewhat surprisingly wide reach here in Morgan County. FEMA operates the National Fire Academy in Maryland, for example, which trains first responders from throughout the country — including Morgan County. Classes at the Academy were halted last month amid a funding freeze, something Worth said would especially hurt small communities like Morgan County.
And while the overwhelming majority of Morgan County EMA’s funding comes from local taxes, FEMA has provided a significant amount of grant money to the county in the past to pay for things like flood gates and tornado sirens — items especially dire during spring in central Indiana.
“We’re gonna have to figure out how to resolve (possibly losing access to grants),” Worth said. “It’s concerning to not have that certainty we had before. We kind of just have to stand by and wait for the impact.”
Competing for less
There has been a lot of unease in public education this year.
At the federal level, Republicans have lobbied for the elimination of the Department of Education, and Trump has mandated his Education Secretary to significantly reduce the workforce at the agency.
Public schools are fighting their own battles here in Indiana, too. In a recent interview with The Correspondent, State Sen. Rod Bray of Martinsville said school districts will be “expected to tighten their belts,” as lawmakers push for legislation like Senate Bill 1, which will slash property taxes and thus a source of revenue for local schools.
As of presstime, the Indiana Senate has voted to send Gov. Mike Braun the bill, which he is expected to sign, despite previously saying it didn’t cut enough taxes.
With these changes on the way, The Correspondent spoke with Metropolitan School District of Martinsville Superintendent Eric Bowlen, who acknowledged he was worried about how a district with an already constricting belt was supposed to make it even tighter.
Bowlen said the reductions in property tax revenue — which funds school districts’ Operations budgets — combined with the rising cost of things like buses and fuel, have had a damaging impact on the district.
The MSD of Martinsville, along with more than 90 percent of public school districts throughout the state, have needed to make 15 percent transfers annually from their Education fund — which pays teacher salaries — to their Operations fund, which pays for things like utilities and bus drivers. These transfers, necessary for districts to function, come at the expense of teacher pay.
“Inflationary costs have been tough for us to manage, and (Trump’s) tariffs could make that even worse,” Bowlen said. “We’ll just have to do what we can to adjust.”
Bowlen was particularly critical of how steep the planned tax cuts are at the state level, saying that the several local bodies which are funded through property taxes would now be competing for the same dwindling dollars.
“What is the end game here?” Bowlen said. “(Indiana) already has low taxes compared to a lot of other states, and we’re near the bottom on teacher pay. How much are they going to keep cutting?”
Mooresville Superintendent Jake Allen has also lobbied against a handful of legislation currently under consideration at the statehouse, including SB 1.
“(SB 1) includes cuts which could lower Mooresville’s operations revenue by millions of dollars over the next few years,” Allen wrote in a district newsletter last month. “Just as taxpayers must account for inflation in essential costs such as fuel, utilities, and insurance, school districts face the same rising expenses — only on a much larger scale.”
Martinsville’s superintendent also had some worries about potentially losing federal funds as a result of changes at the Department of Education. While school districts are mostly funded at the local level, the DOE funds programs like Title 1, which provides funding to districts with a high percentage of low income students — such as those in Morgan County.
Bowlen said the national changes could potentially be good if the federal money was still given to the states, but was nevertheless concerned about uncertainty.
“We’re trying to survive,” Bowlen said. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
