ICYMI: WHYY Reporting Details How Ryan Mackenzie “Cost Pennsylvania Millions” in Public Safety Funding

Major recent reporting from WHYY outlined how Mackenzie “cost Pennsylvania millions” by voting for a budget that stripped previously-approved Community Project Funding for public safety initiatives. Mackenzie’s vote slashed funding “for police equipment, flood control, emergency communications upgrades and a major opioid interdiction and prosecution initiative in Monroe County.”

WHYY reports that Mackenzie even failed to notify local recipients that he and House Republicans were pulling back their funding. A Monroe County Commissioner “said he never received” a call from Mackenzie, and “described the loss as a serious setback to their effort to combat the spread of illicit opioid distribution.”

DCCC Spokesperson Eli Cousin:
“One of the very first votes Ryan Mackenzie cast in Congress was to rip away millions of dollars in funding for policing and public safety initiatives across the Lehigh Valley. That tells you everything you need to know about Mackenzie: He’s just another career politician who puts politics ahead of keeping his community safe.”

Read key details from WHYY below:

• Pennsylvania communities lost millions of dollars in federal funding this year after a congressional standoff forced lawmakers to pass a short-term spending bill that stripped out all Community Project Funding grants for fiscal year 2025.
• For communities in the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos, that meant losing support for police equipment, flood control, emergency communications upgrades and a major opioid interdiction and prosecution initiative in Monroe County.
• Monroe County Commissioner John Christy said he believed the county had secured more than $2 million for an antiopioid task force designed to help prosecutors and detectives track drug distribution networks and pursue “death by delivery” cases.
• Then, suddenly, it was gone.
• Christy told WHYY News that he learned of the cuts only after months of assuming the money was on its way.
• “We thought the money was coming,” Christy said. He learned otherwise when former U.S. Rep. Wild, who had championed the project. The county confirmed it with their federal contacts.
• Christy described the loss as a serious setback to their effort to combat the spread of illicit opioid distribution in a region that serves as a channel to the New York drug trade and where overdoses account for hundreds of deaths each year.
• Wild’s office had submitted Community Project Funding requests for 15 projects for the fiscal year 2025 federal budget for the area — a mix of public safety upgrades, county initiatives and law enforcement tools that she said had broad bipartisan value. She was surprised to learn only after she left office that they hadn’t been funded.
• “It was very disheartening,” she told WHYY News. “Once something has passed through appropriations and been approved and the recipient has been notified, it’s my understanding that it’s pretty unusual to have it be rescinded.”
• “These weren’t partisan projects,” Wild said. “There’s a long negotiation process to get them and to get your money or to get your application approved. [Applicants] have to back it up with all different kinds of paperwork, and it’s not a small deal.”
• Wild also blames Republicans for the loss of the funding, including her successor Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh, who voted for the continuing resolution, which passed Congress mostly along party lines.
• “He’s making this big, big deal on social media about how he got this money for this firehouse and I’m thinking, ‘Well, maybe you should tell people about the ones that you killed too,’” she said.
• A spokesperson with Mackenzie’s office said that they did reach out to what recipients they were aware of and invited them to reapply for fiscal year 2026.
• Christy, however, said he never received such a call […]

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