In spite of this, WRCNU leadership is warning the public that the organization may be impacted by the wide breadth of proposed cuts to federal services and agencies currently being undertaken by the Trump administration.

This week, the WRCNU Facebook page posted a message from WRCNU board chair Buz Marthaler stating he’d received an email from a local official with the Combined Federal Campaign saying that the Trump administration is contemplating whether or not to discontinue the program. As of Wednesday, there are currently no official announcements about the future of the CFC.

Marthaler told the Standard-Examiner on Tuesday that, as a veteran, he’s had plenty of experience with the CFC.

“It’s a way for military and civilian federal employees to donate to various charities,” he said. “There’s between 5,000-6,000 charities that use this program. The federal employees go through a listing of those that are qualified — which we have to do an application every year through the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) to verify that we are still qualified to do that — they are able to select one or more charities and have funds automatically pulled from their paychecks, or they can do one-time payments in cash, or however they want to do that. That is gathered by the CFC and dispersed back to the various organizations.”

He said the WRCNU pays a nonrefundable $200+ application fee each year to be listed as a charity that federal workers can contribute to through the CFC.

“This is a government agency that is actually run with the money that we put in,” he said. “That is going to the government to pay the administration costs. And then, when they disperse it, which is about nine months of the year, we get a check or an ACH in our account for whatever funds they have pulled from these employees’ paychecks.”

Marthaler said there is a net-zero cost to the government — and by extension, taxpayers.

“If they were to cut that program, they’re not saving anything; they’re just taking money away from potential nonprofits throughout the country that are using this,” he said. “We’ve already put in our $200. If they were to cut this program for some reason, then we lose our nonrefundable $200 application fee.”

He said the WRCNU stands to lose much more than just its $200 application fee for the year. While totals can vary, Marthaler said the organization typically brings in around $3,000-$4,000 each year through the CFC.

“We get no state or federal funding whatsoever,” he said. “It’s all public donations, so every penny really does count.”

Mathaler said even if the program remained intact, local cuts to the federal workforce could also have an impact.

“We’ve got a lot of people out at the IRS that have supported us,” he said. “If any of those people are losing their jobs, that money goes away from us, because as soon as they lose their jobs, there’s no paycheck and anything they had pledged to us isn’t going to come. We aren’t even going to know how that affects us until the end of this year once we see what does or does not come in.”

The potential loss of CFC support comes at a time when the organization has faced stiff political headwinds at the local level. In 2023, the the WRCNU received an eviction notice as Ogden City pressed forward on plans to expand the adjacent George S. Eccles Dinosaur Park. The organization finished moving out of the Carol Conroy Browning Animal Shelter, which it had occupied since 2011, last year and is now housed in a temporary facility on Washington Boulevard that opened last October which is able to provide scaled-back rehabilitation services. The WRCNU has purchased land in Harrisville along Highway 89 for construction of a permanent facility, but these plans remain dependent on fundraising and are years into the future.

Marthaler said the loss of CFC support would have a huge impact.

“Right now, we’re caring for several eagles that are going through surgeries and things like that,” he said. “It would probably remove veterinary costs for up to four or five eagles if they had to go into surgery like we’re doing right now. … It would have to come out of other funds and right now we’re trying to increase our funds so we can hopefully build on our new property and get our forever home eventually. Any penny that is taken away from us impacts our future.”

He said there aren’t any alternatives to the program beyond increased private donations from the public.

“We’re constantly trying to increase our monthly sustainers and things like that, which are slowly coming around,” he said. “There’s a few private grants out there that we have put in for this year, but there’s not a lot in the area of wildlife rehabilitation.”

Marthlaer said for anyone in the public who opposes the loss of CFC support for the WRCNU and other nonprofit entities, there is an action they can take.

“We’re not supposed to get political — we’re not chartered to do that, especially with the IRS and things like that, so we have to be careful with that,” he said. “What we are asking though is if this kind of stuff that’s going on right now with the administration bothers them — especially in the way they’re handling it and the way that it’s affecting nonprofits — get a hold of their local representatives and tell them to speak up and try to put the brakes on and put some sanity into this.”

For more information on the WRCNU, visit https://wrcnu.org/.