Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Federal cuts lead to Utah losing $98 million in grants and 37 jobs.
- CDC funding cuts affect state programs.
SALT LAKE CITY — Federal health officials cut $11.9 billion in COVID-19-related funds to state and local health departments last week. In Utah, local health and human services officials say that translates to $98 million in unspent grants and the loss of 37 jobs that will terminate months earlier than expected.
"The COVID-19 pandemic is over and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was expected to begin getting the money back 30 days after the termination notices were sent, according to the statement.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that six grants were impacted, each targeting public health functions and behavioral human services.
Utah's department has 187 staff positions that are funded at least in part by the money that is being withdrawn. "These positions are largely limited to the divisions responsible for carrying out the department's public health functions, and many of these positions were temporary."
"We are sorry to see these positions end early," said Tracy Gruber, director of the Utah department. "We consider them all public health heroes, many of whom joined our department when we needed to ramp up operations to keep Utahns safe during the global pandemic. These staff came in to serve the public at an incredibly difficult time."
Gruber said the department will provide resources to those being laid off, their termination effective April 11, including access to job search support through the Utah Department of Workforce Services. The department is also encouraging those in the group who are qualified and interested to apply for other jobs within the department. The news release expressed "hope that we can retain the talent that has been showing up for this department since the pandemic."
The Utah department said that "in addition to staff reductions, external partners including local health and mental health authorities receiving funding through these terminated grants have been notified their contracts will be terminated."
Some county health departments are also expected to lose staff and grants.
Most states losing money
"This is just one in a series of many, many cuts we're seeing across health agencies across the country," Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said on CBS News 24/7 last week.
Among programs jeopardized, she told CBS News, is wastewater surveillance to spot infectious diseases and toxins in water, as well as where measles could be circulating amid a concerning outbreak.
"And state (and) local health departments really depend on that CDC money. The CDC functions as a funnel of funding to the state and local level, and in some cases, it's 90% of their budget," Gounder said.
The money had been allocated to the states under the American Rescue Plan, and states had already received the money, much of it being used to shore up the public health infrastructure. The spending deadline was Sept. 20, 2025, though the contracts awarded could run through 2026.
Additionally, more than 24 grants funded by the National Institutes of Health have been canceled, according to CBS, which reported that "although the COVID federal public health emergency has ended, the virus is still killing Americans: 458 people per week on average have died from COVID over the past four weeks, according to CDC data."
States are just beginning to announce how they'll be affected. Minnesota, for instance, said it will lose about $226 million in grants.
Colorado officials told Colorado Public Radio that the state will lose $250 million for public and behavioral health services. That article said the money was being used by 60 programs that provide a wide range of services and was designated for such issues as "addressing COVID-19 health disparities, vaccines for children and lab capacity for prevention and control of emerging infectious diseases."
California is still trying to figure out what the impact of the grant funding termination will be.
News of the cuts came just before the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it would cut 10,000 jobs and close half of its regional offices, though it didn't say which ones.
Deseret News reported on that last week, noting that the cuts are focused on health agencies and that another close to 10,000 more jobs ended with early retirement and the "Fork in the Road" buyout initiated by the Trump administration and the federal department, which is now headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
