Resources to Report on Federal Cuts in Your State

The federal government is in the middle of a historic restructuring—and the story is harder to cover than it should be.

Since January 2025, the Trump administration has disrupted federal programming, federal funding and the federal workforce with unprecedented speed and severity. The full scope of these changes is still unfolding. Some cuts have been reversed under court order, only to be reinstated. Others remain in active litigation, creating genuine uncertainty about what is permanent and what is temporary. Agencies have stopped publishing data they once updated routinely. The programs that were eliminated quietly, without a press release or a lawsuit, are often the hardest to find.

The state-by-state field guides below will help you cut through the noise.

Produced by the Partnership for Public Service, each guide documents executive-branch cuts that have directly impacted communities across five states. The guides are organized by sector, sourced to primary documents and existing reporting, and written to help you identify the stories that have not been told yet. To help you accurately assign responsibility for the changes taking place, all of this material focuses on actions taken independently by the executive branch.

These resources are not exhaustive, and they are not a final verdict. Federal courts are still reviewing many of the actions documented here. Contested status and legally unsettled cases are noted explicitly, and we cite where dollar figures or jobs counts are confirmed.

Use these guides to find the local hook, identify gaps in coverage and connect with sources who can tell you what these changes mean on the ground.

Looking for a source, data or a second set of eyes on a federal spending question? Our team can help.

Tell us what you’re working on, and we’ll follow up within two business days.

What we can turn around in two business days:

Data: We maintain data on federal spending and the federal workforce, and we can pull it for the geography your story covers, at the city, county, congressional district, state or national level. That includes:

Federal spending flowing to your area, and what it pays for.
Changes to that spending under the Trump administrations.
Federal workforce presence—how many federal employees work in your area, which agencies they sit in, and how they break down by occupation and location.
Changes to that workforce since January 2025, including reductions in force, deferred resignations and attrition.

For requests beyond basic data points, members of our research team can meet with you to walk through your question and help answer.

Other Requests: Have a question outside of the two-business day scope? Ask anyway. The list above is what we can turn around quickly, not the limit of what we can help with. If your requests falls outside it, submit it and we’ll let you know within two business days whether can pull it, how long it would take or who else might have it.

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Help reporters get it right.

Journalists across the country are covering how changes to federal agencies, funding and the workforce are affecting their communities, and they need people who know how these systems actually work. This form adds you to the Partnership’s source network. When a reporter has a question in your area of expertise, we’ll reach out to you first and ask if you’re interested. We will spread requests across the network and won’t come back to you repeatedly. We never share your contact information without your permission.