“Mike Lawler said he ‘secured’ $33M for Hudson Valley community projects. What happened?” [LoHud]

Last month, Mike Lawler joined JD Vance and Elon Musk in eliminating $33 million in community project funding for New York’s 17th Congressional District. Lawler’s vote cut funding for new police vehicles, water safety, pedestrian walkways, and infrastructure improvements.

According to new reporting from LoHud, Lawler held a press conference showcasing his “secured” funding just weeks before the 2024 election.

“That money,” LoHud reports, “was far from ‘secured.’”

Even worse, after Lawler voted to defund Community Project Funding for his district, he failed to notify local recipients, including the Sheriff of Rockland County.

“I’ve been waiting to hear back from the Congressman on how to proceed,” Rockland County Sheriff Louis Falco told LoHud. “I have not heard that the money was not approved.”

DCCC Spokesperson Justin Chermol:
“After jeopardizing Medicaid coverage and bowing to an out of control billionaire, Mike Lawler canceled funding for projects to rebuild critical local infrastructure, fund the police, and improve life for his constituents. Next year, New Yorkers will put their trust behind a common sense leader willing to stand up for their community, not a MAGA doormat who will always bend the knee.”

LoHud: Mike Lawler said he ‘secured’ $33M for Hudson Valley community projects. What happened?
By David McKay Wilson | April 1, 2025

• During his freshman term in Congress, Rep. Mike Lawler gained a reputation for bringing home the bacon through the House of Representative’s Community Projects program, which gives lawmakers the opportunity to shower funding for public works initiatives upon municipal governments.

• Lawler, R-Pearl River, burnished that brand in the final weeks of his hard-fought campaign for reelection in 2024. At an Oct. 16 press conference hosted by Rockland Sheriff Lou Falco, a phalanx of public officials were on hand to applaud the congressmember’s earmarks. Lawler announced that he’d “secured” $33 million for 15 projects in Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties.

• It was a smorgasbord of popular pork-barrel spending for public projects across the 17th Congressional District. There were water projects for Pleasantville, Sleepy Hollow, Ossining and Carmel; sidewalks for Ramapo, West Haverstraw, Orangetown and Croton Falls; sewers for Yorktown; roads for New Square and Suffern; and public safety projects for Peekskill and the Rockland County sheriff.

• This style of government spending, which goes through individual legislators, can reap substantial public-relations benefits for an elected official, such as the huge campaign-style sign that has stood in a downtown Mahopac park since April 2024, thanking Lawler for a $2 million grant.  The size of a legislator’s bundle of earmarks can be used as a marker for a lawmaker’s power on Capitol Hill.

• There was a sense of certainty that sunny October morning.

• The press conference had its desired result, with the Rockland County Times, an online news site, the next day announcing “Lawler secures over $32 million in local infrastructure funding for fiscal year 2025.”

• That money, however, was far from “secured.”

• Community Projects would not make Continuing Resolution funding bill

• It turned out that none of the $33 million that Lawler promised on Oct. 16 had been approved in a bill that passed both houses of Congress. Lawler’s projects had passed through a gauntlet of approvals in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. But there had yet to be a vote on the House Appropriations bill in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

• Then Lawler voted with all but one of his House GOP colleagues on March 14 for the fiscal year 2025 Continuing Resolution […]

• But that vote eliminated the entire House Community Projects program for Fiscal Year 2025, said Alexia Sikora, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee. […]

• I asked Lawler’s press shop to whom had the Congressman made it clear that the money was not yet approved by Congress, noting that his press release stated that while the appropriations process was ongoing, he had already secured the funding.

• There was no response.

• Some grant recipients unaware that funding was not approved

• Rockland Sheriff Louis Falco learned from Tax Watch on March 27 that the money Lawler promised in October would not be forthcoming in 2025. Gone this year was $7.1 million in federal funding for the Rockland County Sheriff’s office, which had plans to purchase amphibious public safety vehicles to help with rescues during floods as well as seed money to begin work on a new public safety training facility.  

• “I put in a grant applicant and was told we were selected to receive the funding,” said Falco, who won reelection in 2023 on the Democrat and Conservative lines. “I’ve been waiting to hear back from the Congressman on how to proceed. I have not heard that the money was not approved.”

• In the town of Ramapo, where Lawler said he had secured $5 million for pedestrian safety improvements, town officials still believed the money would be forthcoming when contacted on March 27.

• “That’s what we believe until we are told otherwise,” said Jeff Posner, the town’s grants coordinator. “We are still hopeful.”

• In Pleasantville, Mayor Peter Scherer said village officials were optimistic when Lawler announced in October that he had secured $2.2 million for the village’s $6 million project to replace its aging water towers. Then came the climatic vote on the Continuing Resolution that zapped the pork-barrel spending. He learned about the vote’s impact on his village in a recent online meeting between Lawler and municipal officials.

• “The CR that was passed eliminated all those things,” said Scherer. “It was disappointing that our funding was bumped for the 2025 fiscal year. Mike Lawler has indicated optimism about the new year. But you can’t predict. It’s hard to keep up.”

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