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To the University of Maine System community,
Across Maine’s public universities, more than 2,900 faculty, professional staff, and student workers are fully or partially funded through federal sources, and many of us regularly interface with federal employees and services.
As you may be hearing, there is an increasing possibility that the federal government will be temporarily unable to operate due to a lapse in appropriations when the current federal fiscal year ends on Tuesday, Sept. 30. We expect you may have questions about how this might impact you and our public universities and want to share with you what we currently know and what we are doing to prepare for a potential federal shutdown.
UMS begins planning for lapse in federal appropriations
While there is considerable uncertainty, including whether a shutdown will even occur, we want you to know that System and university leaders are actively preparing (as we have done for prior possible shutdowns) so that we can mitigate impacts to the extent practicable if there is a lapse in federal appropriations. Specifically:
- System leadership has begun meeting daily, as we did during the pandemic;
- System and university leaders have compiled and are analyzing each university’s federally funded awards, projects, and positions, as well as available federal agency guidance; and
- The UMS Office of Human Resources has established a rapid response team to coordinate workforce planning and support.
As a public institution, we generally cannot internally fund positions previously supported by the federal government (i.e., backstop), even temporarily. However, we are developing contingency plans that consider our workforce and activities, as existing financial resources allow and in a manner consistent with the expectations of relevant UMS collective bargaining agreements and forthcoming federal guidance and directives. You can expect to hear directly from the appropriate supervisor at your university if you need to take any action or make changes in your activities.
Our priority is our students and their education, as well as maintaining research progress and experiments, including preserving animal and plant life.
Because most federal financial aid, such as Pell grants, has already been disbursed for Fall 2025, the System does not currently anticipate any change in our students’ ability to access aid for their education this semester. In the event of a federal shutdown, we will share additional information and guidance related to other federal student services and support as it becomes available.
Initial federal shutdown guidance
While our System has experience navigating past lapses in federal appropriations — notably the 35-day shutdown in 2018-19 — there is considerable uncertainty about how the current Presidential Administration might implement this process and how long a potential shutdown could last.
Late Wednesday, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed federal agencies to consider undertaking a permanent reduction in their workforce, beyond the employees who would be furloughed effective Oct. 1 if there is a lapse in appropriations. Federal agencies are required to regularly update and make publicly available their contingency plans, detailing which functions would and would not continue in the event of a lapse in funding. We are hopeful these plans will be posted soon and will make them available to you.
During past government shutdowns, the majority of federal employees were not allowed to work, including checking and responding to emails and calls, participating in meetings, reviewing proposals, processing payments, and maintaining government-run public resources, such as websites — although some grant submission portals remained active and some drawdowns/payments that did not require federal personnel continued.
As has been our practice this year, in the event of a stop-work order from a federal agency, please immediately notify your university’s office of sponsored programs and University of Maine Office of Research Administration Director Chris Boynton (christopher.boynton@maine.edu).
System launches web resource
We expect this situation will rapidly evolve in the coming days and so have additionally created a System webpage to provide updates at www.maine.edu/federal-shutdown-planning. We are in regular communication with Cornerstone Government Affairs, which provides federal government relations services for our entire System and is based in Washington, D.C., and with various professional associations of which our universities/employees are members. As we receive new and relevant information from these partners and other sources, we will post it on this website.
While much is uncertain, we are reminded at this time of the essential partnerships and investments from the federal government that sustain UMS education, research, and public service. I know we all remain hopeful that a compromise will be reached that maintains critical government services and programs for the benefit of Maine’s public universities and all Americans.
Sincerely,
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