White House Releases Budget Request for FY 2027: Top Highlights for Counties

Key Takeaways

On April 3, the White House released the Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budget request, outlining the administration's proposals for budgetary spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2026. The President’s budget requests cutting non-defense discretionary funding by 10 percent, or $73 billion. This budget proposal reflects the administration’s priorities but is unlikely to be passed in its current form and will need to be approved by Congress to be implemented.  

See full budget request See NACo's full analysis 

Top Highlights for Counties:

The budget request:

• Eliminates the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides energy cost and weatherization assistance to low-income households
• Eliminates the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG), which supports anti-poverty programs with a focus on housing, health, employment, income and civic engagement outcomes
• Cuts the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) non-disaster grant programs by $1.5 billion
• Eliminates the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and the Home Investment Partnerships (HOME) programs, threatening vital tools for communities to address housing and community development challenges
• Reduces homeless assistance grant funding and restructures the Continuum of Care and Emergency Solutions Grant programs to prioritize transitional housing and conditional treatment in lieu of “housing first” approaches
• Eliminates the Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, limiting rural communities’ ability to expand access to capital, support small businesses and drive local economic growth
• Reconfigures workforce development funding under the Make America Skilled Again Act
• Functionally eliminates the Economic Development Administration, threatening critical support for economically distressed communities
• Cuts $1.7 billion in state and local grants at the U.S. Department of Justice, including eliminating almost 30 grant programs entirely
• Cuts the Clean and Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Funds by $2.5 billion, which would impact counties’ ability to maintain and improve water infrastructure without raising rates for residents
• Eliminates Community Facilities Grant Program, which funds community development projects and essential services in rural communities
• Reduces funding for the Essential Air Service program by significantly curtailing eligibility for program participation, which could cause rural counties to lose access to commercial air service
• Ends funding for the BUILD program through the U.S. Department of Transportation, a flexible discretionary grant program that counties have used for a variety of road, bridge, transit, airport, port and multimodal projects
• Cuts the National Institute of Health’s funding by $5 billion
• Unifies all federal wildland firefighting assets under the U.S. Wildlife Fire Service within the Department of the Interior, including those currently under control of the U.S. Forest Service
• Enhances mandatory budget authority for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund, with $55 billion requested for FY2027 and $54 billion requested as an advance appropriation for FY2028
• Reduces the budget of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) by nearly 25%, cutting certain stakeholder engagement offices and eliminating other programs deemed duplicative of existing programming at the Federal or state level  
• Eliminates all election security grants made available via Help America Vote Act (HAVA) from $45M in FY2026 to $0 indefinitely

Next steps

NACo will continue to monitor the budgetary and appropriations process for impacts on programs that affect counties and will provide an in-depth analysis of the President's full FY 2027 budget request in the coming days.