Washington state is losing about $160 million in public health funding as part of the Trump administration’s latest purge of federal grants.
The money is part of $12 billion in cuts nationwide this week to funding for infectious disease tracking, mental health services and drug addiction treatment that could cost thousands of jobs in public health departments nationwide, according to news reports.
Most of the money is congressionally approved COVID-era funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Washington state, the cuts will mean over $130 million in discontinued grants to the state Department of Health.
The canceled money funds disease monitoring, reporting and work on vaccines for COVID-19 and other viruses, Department of Health spokesperson Marisol Mata Somarribas said. It also supports DOH computer systems related to these efforts.
One of the programs impacted is Care Connect, which the department launched early in the pandemic to provide food and other needs to people with COVID so they could isolate. The program later shifted to meet long-term needs of those suffering from long COVID, among other things.
The funding cut impacts work carried out by more than 200 full-time department employees, as well as staff at local health departments, tribal health clinics and community-based organizations, Mata Somarribas said.
She added the department was still assessing the funding loss Thursday.
The Trump administration terminated another $34 million in Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration funding for the Washington State Health Care Authority, according to U.S. Sen. Patty Murray’s office.
Those dollars fund grants to local organizations working to provide mental health assistance and combat the opioid crisis.
In a statement, Murray said the news “could mean cuts to essential health services and layoffs of staff on the frontlines working to keep communities healthy, address public health threats and outbreaks, tackle the opioid epidemic and mental health crisis, and so much else.”
This is the latest in the Trump administration’s two-month siege of federal funding that has resulted in preliminary rebukes from judges telling the administration to reverse course. Meanwhile, on Thursday, the federal Department of Health and Human Services announced the layoff of 10,000 employees, including about 2,400 at the CDC.
“The reality is that, when we take funding away from public health systems, the systems just do not have the capacity, because they’re chronically underfunded over the decades,” Dr. Umair Shah, Washington state’s health secretary from late 2020 to January of this year, told The New York Times.
In their operating budget proposal released this week, Washington state Senate Democrats included a reduction of 230 full-time employees in the Department of Health, which is currently budgeted for about 2,350 employees.
Many of those are tied to the loss of federal COVID-era funding, said state Sen. June Robinson, D-Everett.
“It’s a rough time,” Robinson said over the weekend. “Public health always is funded in cycles of, you know, epidemics, and this is the downturn now.”
Washington State Standard is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Washington State Standard maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Bill Lucia for questions: info@washingtonstatestandard.com. Follow Washington State Standard on Facebook and Twitter.
