The city of Austin announced March 21 that the federal government cancelled $9.7 million in federal funding requests for various community projects, according to a city news release.

President Donald Trump signed a continuing resolution last month that funds the government until September 30, which marks the end of the 2025 fiscal year. However, the resolution also canceled all Congressional Community Funding requests, in which congressional members petition federal funding for projects in their respective districts.

U.S. representatives Lloyd Doggett and Greg Casar submitted 10 community funding requests on behalf of the city for fiscal year 2025, according to a city memo. The funding per project requested ranged from $250,000 to $2 million. According to the memo, some of the initiatives the city requested funding for were the restoration of the Waterloo Greenway Creek in Downtown Austin and strengthening violence intervention programs.

“While the news that anticipated funding for these important community projects will not be available this fiscal year is certainly disappointing, we will not abandon these efforts,” Mayor Kirk Watson said in the news release. “The City will continue to prioritize and seek to identify ways to fund important projects.”

Erika Dzangare, deputy officer for the grant division of the Intergovernmental Relations Office, said the process of identifying important community projects and filling out the funding application can take the city several months to complete.

“We did the work to receive buy-in from the community to get these requests submitted,” Dzangare said. “The fact that, due to the continuing resolution, they will not be submitted or even be evaluated, (is) tough to swallow.”

Although the federal government canceled the Congressional Community Funding requests filed for fiscal year 2025, Dzangare said the city will review the projects and potentially resubmit at least 80% of them for the 2026 fiscal year.

“If there was not an opportunity for us to resubmit, then we would have to scramble to identify other ways to fund these particular projects,” Dzangare said. “But the fact we can resubmit … it is a possibility they will be funded for fiscal year ‘26, so I would say not to worry.”