The future of a popular career development service program in Peoria is in jeopardy as the Trump Administration cuts funding for AmeriCorps.
PeoriaCorps, the AmeriCorps-based program operated by the City of Peoria, helps volunteers build employability and leadership skills by helping to maintain green infrastructure sites.
One group of PeoriaCorps volunteers is set to graduate from the six-month program Friday night, while another five participants are currently in a term that is supposed to last until July.
Peoria City Manager Patrick Urich says the city has been supplementing participants’ wages with some of the settlement money from the lawsuit that led to the closure of the E.D. Edwards coal-fired power plant.
“So we’re looking into if we can keep that funding up through May 13,” said Urich. “Then we’ll come back to council with some recommendations on keeping the cohort through July of this year. And then we’ll see what the future brings as far as the program, but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to be moving forward after that.”
Urich would not go as far as to say PeoriaCorps definitely will end, noting that more than 140 members of Congress from both parties have signed a letter urging the administration to reverse course on the AmeriCorps cuts.
“Annualized with the number of individuals that we’ve had through the program, a couple hundred thousand dollars a year has been what we’ve been operating it with,” he said. “So we’ll just have to kind of wait and see what happens. If there isn’t any federal funding going forward, that’s a decision point that the city council will have to make.”
PeoriaCorps participants complete up to 900 service hours and earn industry credentials and CPR and First-Aid certifications. They’re given biweekly living allowances and become eligible for national level education scholarships upon completion of the program.
The program targets individuals ages 18-28, but there’s no restriction on older participants.
“We’ve had the PeoriaCorps program for at least five years now,” he said. “We’ve been using it to help to train individuals that have now gone to work for the City of Peoria and have gone to work for many companies throughout the city as well.”
