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Federal budget cuts and sweeping reductions in the federal workforce dominated Del. Patrick Hope’s March 1 town hall at Yorktown High School, where workers described lost jobs, financial strain and growing uncertainty about Virginia’s ability to absorb the fallout.

Questions also touched on the Arlington County Board, Dominion Power’s financial obligations and Medicaid’s future. But the strongest reactions came as federal employees and contractors shared personal accounts of the workforce reductions, drawing repeated applause from the crowd.

Hope, a Democrat representing Virginia’s 1st District, said one-third of the state budget comes from the federal government. That includes $14.6 billion for Medicaid and $1.4 billion each for highways, social programs and transportation.

Virginia also receives more federal contracting money than any other state, Hope said, including $13.5 billion in Arlington and more than $40 billion in Fairfax County.

Sarah Scheening, a former small-business contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said her company collapsed in two weeks. She and her co-founder loaned the business $380,000 from their personal savings to cover employee salaries and severance payments.

Scheening said the federal government still owes the company hundreds of thousands of dollars for work completed in 2024. She also described gathering nearly 700 signatures for a petition sent to the governor about the effects of USAID reductions and the potential for similar cuts at other agencies.

Another speaker broke down in tears while describing the pain of being prevented from doing his job. He said his letters to sympathetic senators felt meaningful, while appeals to other lawmakers seemed destined for the trash.

A lifelong Arlington resident who grew up in Halls Hill noted that few people in the room looked like him. He said one of his four children had voted for President Donald Trump, prompting a family history lesson. Black communities, he told attendees, have endured comparable hardship for years, and the current pain could push others to take action.

One Arlington resident of 30 years worried that the gathering was reaching only people who already agreed with one another. She asked how opponents of the administration’s actions could connect with voters who might now regret their decisions.

Virginia weighs the financial fallout

Hope said Virginia had completed a productive 46-day legislative session, but federal actions had made the situation increasingly unstable. He said responsibility for responding rests with Congress, state and local governments, and residents themselves.

Lawmakers could reconvene if conditions require it. Hope said that if Virginia’s budget falls $200 million into the red, the governor must prepare a new spending plan within 20 days for legislative reconsideration. The state currently has a substantial surplus.

Hope also reviewed bills passed by the General Assembly and sent to the governor, including measures to increase the minimum wage, ban assault weapons, close the “boyfriend loophole,” legalize retail marijuana and lift restrictions on collective bargaining for public employees.

He predicted that Gov. Glenn Youngkin would veto those measures, arguing that Youngkin had already vetoed more legislation in two years than any previous Virginia governor had over a full four-year term.

Virginia has formed a special bipartisan committee to examine federal workforce reductions and has already held a hearing, Hope said. His office created a resource page and is helping process unemployment claims. State revenue could also be directed toward businesses that hire displaced federal employees.

An attendee who works in the legislative branch pointed to openings at the Congressional Research Service, Congressional Budget Office and Library of Congress. A recently retired Library of Congress employee, who worked there for 51 years, expressed hope that legislative branch agencies would avoid becoming targets.

Crowd searches for a way to respond

Much of the discussion turned to transforming frustration into coordinated action. Attendees questioned how the country reached this point and how to reach people who are unwilling or unable to follow the rapidly changing situation.

Some urged a more aggressive response. One attendee proposed organizing large numbers of residents to contact the same lawmaker on the same day with a unified message. Another called for greater pressure on the governor and lieutenant governor, noting their lack of town halls.

A former National Park Service employee who now owns a business recalled using sustained media pressure against the secretary of the interior to defeat an earlier hiring freeze.

A retired Arlington County employee argued that opponents of the cuts were relying on outdated communication methods and needed to compete more effectively on social media.

Hope closed by urging residents to remain engaged, contact his office and continue the discussion through his website. He characterized the political fight ahead as a “contact sport.”