​Amid shutdown, Maine Head Start recipients could lose funds

Some of Maine’s most vulnerable children and families could be impacted by a cutoff in federal funding to Head Start, the early education program for low-income children, which will lapse for some programs at the end of the month if the government shutdown continues.
If the shutdown continues into November, 170 children and 81 staff members in Maine will be affected, according to the National Head Start Association.
There are 11 Head Start grantees in Maine that together operate more than 100 individual sites, plus three tribal programs. Grantees get their funding directly from the federal government, and renew their grants annually at the start of a given month.
The National Head Start Association said that six programs have already been operating without funding since the start of the shutdown, and is warning that 134 more across 41 states and Puerto Rico will likely be in the same situation as of Nov. 1. Those programs altogether serve more than 58,000 children.
One of Maine’s 11 grantees is on the Nov. 1 funding cycle, although the Press Herald was unable to confirm which program will be affected.
Thousands of children participate in Maine’s Head Start early childhood and pre-K programs. In 2024, the state’s federally funded centers served 2,434 children and received roughly $49 million.
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Cristina Salois is the chair of the Maine Head Start Directors Association, and the director of a Kennebec County-based Head Start program.
She said Head Start was created in the 1960s and began as a six-week summer program to prepare low-income students for kindergarten. Today, Head Start provides early childhood education, as well as health care, nutrition, social services, and even higher education and employment support for family members.
“Head Start does definitely play a role in local communities of bringing partners together to support vulnerable children and families, and any interruption will be felt,” she said.
Salois said her program will not be affected by the Nov. 1 cutoff, but a lapse in federal funding will require grantees to start making difficult decisions, and hunt for other potential sources of funding.
“The last thing anybody wants to do is disrupt services for families, because by design, we’re serving the most at-risk children and families in our communities,” she said. “But I would anticipate that programs will just reach that point that financially they can’t continue without the federal funds.”
Programs in other states have received support from state and local governments, but some of those funds have already dried up, and directors are asking employees to work without pay or are facing temporary closures.
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Salois emphasized that the shutdown extending into November will compound the effects for some of Maine’s most vulnerable families.
One way individuals can be eligible for Head Start is if they receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP; last year, 70% of those served qualified through SNAP. But because of the shutdown, those benefits, which help recipients pay for groceries, will not be available at the start of November for the 170,000 Mainers who receive them.
Maine grantees that aren’t facing a total funding cutoff are still worried about nutrition-related impacts.
At Bath-based grantee Midcoast Maine Community Action, Director Andrew Slater said a federal reimbursement program he uses to cover thousands of dollars a month in food costs won’t be available after the start of November because of the shutdown. That’s especially concerning, he said, because the organization was already trying bolster its nutrition offerings to make up for the SNAP cutoff.
“The loss of that will be serious and significant,” Slater said. “Our budgets are already so tight that a couple thousand dollars is a lot to us.”
Lily Lynch, from the Cumberland County-based Head Start grantee Opportunity Alliance, said Cumberland’s six early childhood education centers will continue to operate, but their main concern right now is how the families they serve will be affected by the loss of critical services like nutrition benefits.
Outside of the grantees that may see a lapse in all of their funding, Salois said the shutdown has already affected Head Start. The national training and technical assistance programs received a stop work order, she said, and the federal Head Start office staff was furloughed.