With just 46 days remaining until the end of fiscal 2025, the Trump administration has yet to issue a single notice of funding availability out of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
The absence of these notices has prompted some to question whether the intention is to ignore the money appropriated by Congress for juvenile justice.
“Zero. That’s the answer to ‘How much $ will US DOJ issue in FY25 for youth justice?’ wrote Liz Ryan, who led OJJDP during the Biden administration, in a post on her LinkedIn page. “It will be zero unless Congress weighs in or [the Department of Justice] takes some quick action.”
The inaction on 2025 funding follows an earlier purge of Justice Department funding from previous years that saw about $170 million in youth justice grants cancelled. While some of those grants got restored on appeal, many nonprofits and local governments were left with difficult choices about continuing projects focused on violence prevention, protecting kids in correctional facilities and more.
The process of getting federal grants out the door each fiscal year generally takes several months and often wraps up just before the clock strikes October. It starts with a notice of funds being available, which highlights the eligibility criteria and other rules for hopeful grantees. Then, grantees usually have 60 days to get an application in, which is reviewed and scrutinized by both the funding agency and, in many cases, peer groups. All in, it might take 120 days.
We are way past anything resembling that at OJJDP. If the agency intends to make grants this year, it will have to do so in an unusually hasty manner. If not, that is a matter of mystery. Youth Services Insider has heard from some legal sources that the money would revert back to the Treasury; others speculate that as long as grants were funded by Congress to run for more than one year, the agency could go beyond the September 30 end of the fiscal year and still make grants.
Here are just a few of the program areas funded by OJJDP every year:
- Grants to states for compliance with federal juvenile justice standards
- Mentoring and out-of-school time programs
- Delinquency prevention
- Finding and helping missing or exploited youth
Youth Services Insider asked the Justice Department point blank if it intended to make any juvenile justice grants this year. The response from Tannyr Watkins, an Office of Justice Programs spokesperson, was less than clear: “The Office of Justice Programs’ FY 2025 Notices of Funding Opportunities…are being posted on a rolling basis as they are finalized.”
We asked Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, if he was concerned that the administration might punt on funding Congressionally-appropriated money. The response from Hannah Akey, his deputy press secretary, suggests he’s noticed the lagging process.
“Chairman Grassley’s office has been in touch with the Department of Justice and will continue monitoring the agency’s roll out of federal grant funding,” she said in an email.
The Department of Health and Human Services has also been slow to issue and compete many youth-related grants this year. Last month, funds for runaway and homeless youth were announced abnormally late, leaving providers just a few weeks to get applications in while trying to interpret new requirements.