Lawsuit prevented $184 million in cuts to AmeriCorps programs

Attorney General Kathy Jennings and a coalition of her colleagues have prevailed in preserving funding for AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteerism.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has agreed to release over $184 million in funding that AmeriCorps plans to award to service programs in Delaware and across the country. OMB’s attempted cuts threatened the survival of those programs—including more than $750,000 in funds for AmeriCorps programs in Delaware.

“The president’s inexplicable vendetta against kids and literacy ends exactly as it started: a bizarre, unjustifiable, and illegal spectacle,” said Attorney General Jennings. “Now these funds can return to the classrooms and communities where they belong.”

On April 29, Jennings co-led a coalition challenging the administration’s plans to eliminate nearly 90 percent of AmeriCorps’ workforce, abruptly cancel its contracts, and close $400 million worth of AmeriCorps-supported programs. In June, the Court granted a preliminary injunction that reinstated hundreds of AmeriCorps programs that were unlawfully cancelled and barred AmeriCorps from making similar cuts without formal rulemaking. In Delaware, the injunction preserved more than $1 million in funding for nine organizations:

• Reading Assist ($305,370)
• Children’s Beach House ($283,500)
• WeProsper Family Organization ($132,300)
• Leading Youth Through Empowerment ($130,941)
• Literacy Volunteers Serving Adults Northern Delaware ($129,330)
• West End Neighborhood House ($120,879)
• TeenSHARP ($49,140)
• Family Promise of Northern New Castle County ($40,721)
• Spur Impact Association ($40,720)

Although AmeriCorps was forced to comply with that order, OMB later tried to withhold over $184 million more in funding for outstanding AmeriCorps service programs, notably including the Delaware Foster Grandparents Program, which connects senior citizens with special needs children in need of tutoring or mentoring.  In response, Jennings and the coalition filed an amended lawsuit in July that added OMB as a defendant, filing a subsequent motion for a preliminary injunction on August 8.

On the deadline to respond to the coalition, the Trump administration informed the Court that OMB would release all withheld AmeriCorps funds, which AmeriCorps will distribute to programs nationwide as quickly as possible.

This relief means that service programs in Delaware and across the country will be protected from the administration’s devastating attempted cuts.

AG Jennings co-led this lawsuit together with Maryland, California, and Colorado. They were joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Hawai‛i, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin, and the governors of Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Federal litigation filed by AG Jennings, including her lawsuit to save AmeriCorps, has preserved more than $215 million for Delaware since January 1, 2025.

Print