Massive cuts to federal health care grants are hitting Kansas City-area public health departments and nonprofit health care organizations, raising concerns about whether the area will have adequate resources to meet future health emergencies.
On March 24, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services without warning canceled more than $12 billion in grant funding to states. Those funds, including millions for Missouri and Kansas, paid for public health basics like vaccines for children, infectious disease tracking, community health work and funding for mental health and addiction treatment.
Public health officials said the Trump administration’s action could undo years of work trying to bolster public health systems after the COVID pandemic laid bare major shortcomings. They worry that progress made may soon be lost.
“That’s what keeps me up at night,” said Marvia Jones, director of the Kansas City Health Department. “The progress that we made at the height of the pandemic and in the ensuing years will be impacted greatly by this loss of funding.”
‘Genuinely alarmed’
The canceled federal grants included $11.4 billion sent to states through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Congress appropriated that funding to help states shore up public health programs during the COVID pandemic.
Once the worst of the pandemic had passed, the funding was continued to help states improve labs, data systems and other infrastructure so they would be better prepared for future health emergencies.
Canceled grants also included about $1 billion that came through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to help people facing mental illness and addiction issues, which grew worse during the pandemic.
The federal funding was sent to states in the form of block grants, then state agencies redistributed some of it to local health departments or health organizations. After the Trump administration canceled the funding on March 24, states immediately lost any funds that hadn’t been spent from the multiyear grants.
Cara Sloan-Ramos, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, said in a statement that the agency “is genuinely alarmed” about the termination of grant funding. KDADS will not be getting about $7.4 million in grants it had been allocated.
Other information about how much grant money Missouri and Kansas lost was not clear. But the “Wall of Receipts” posted online by the Department of Government Efficiency, Trump’s makeshift cost-cutting agency known as DOGE, lists total “savings” of:
- $363.7 million from grants awarded to Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services.
- More than $7 million from grants to Missouri’s Department of Mental Health.
- $31 million from grants to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
- And $11.6 million from grants to the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services.
Figures published by DOGE related to earlier cost-cutting efforts have been called out as questionable, however.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not reply to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the agency told news outlets that grants were canceled because they were related to the pandemic.
“HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayers’ dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” the spokesman, Andrew Nixon, said in a statement.
On April 1, a coalition of attorneys general and other officials from 23 states sued the Trump administration over the cuts.
Health departments feeling the cuts
Although the total impact of the canceled grants may not be understood for some time, local health departments and nonprofits are already feeling the loss.
Jackson County Public Health, for example, said it lost $1.1 million it had been expecting from three federal funding streams. As a result, the health department immediately laid off three employees who worked on monitoring communicable disease outbreaks in local schools.
In addition to losing staff, county health officials said the loss of canceled funds would hamper the agency’s ability to monitor disease trends in high-risk settings like long-term care facilities, schools and nursing homes. It also would force the county to provide fewer community-based vaccine and preventative service clinics. Officials also said the lost funding would mean fewer resources dedicated to addressing vaccine disparities across the population.
“Public health infrastructure is the foundation of a healthy, resilient and thriving community,” Jackson County Public Health Director Bridgette Shaffer said in a written statement. “These funding losses will challenge our ability to protect vulnerable residents and respond effectively to emerging health threats.”
Shaffer said the agency would look for new funding sources so programs could continue.
The Kansas City Health Department lost funds in three major areas, Jones said, including:
- Funding to upgrade the agency’s laboratory.
- Funding to buy additional COVID vaccine doses for people who can’t afford to pay for them.
- And funding for eight community health workers tasked with connecting vulnerable patient populations with preventive care services and other resources.
Jones said the community health worker salaries had been shifted to a different grant, keeping their positions safe for now. But other losses may mean Kansas City is less prepared for the next health emergency.
“I worry that instead of being in a better position,” Jones said, “we’re going to repeat the same cycle.”
Charlie Hunt, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, said his agency lost some funds intended for providing vaccines for children. But he said the agency is large enough and has enough alternative funding sources to absorb the current federal cuts without serious disruptions. Hunt said he will be watching the federal government’s next moves closely.
“I’m looking ahead to what’s going to happen in the next federal fiscal year, for example,” Hunt said. “If that funding does get cut and we end up unable to maintain existing capacity, then, yes, I think this could have some detrimental impacts.”
People need to understand the many roles played by local health departments, Hunt said.
Health departments’ work at risk
Families without insurance or resources can turn to the health department for basic childhood vaccines so their children can attend preschool and day care. Health departments also do work like helping connect people to resources for rent or utility assistance.
And health departments track down sources of foodborne illnesses and do case investigations and contract tracing to help prevent infectious outbreaks from spreading. Right now, Hunt said, his department is closely monitoring a measles outbreak in Texas that has made its way to southwestern Kansas, and so far includes 23 cases in six Kansas counties.
“All of that is at risk if that funding goes away,” Hunt said. “Ultimately, we will not be able to do our job as effectively because we don’t have the resources that we need and the staffing that we need.”
Seeing the Trump administration’s cuts, he said, “is very discouraging.”
A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said the agency is “assessing the full impact on affected programs, funding streams, and personnel supported by these grants.”
“We understand this decision by the Trump administration raises concerns regarding the operations and services that many Kansans rely on every day,” Jill Bronaugh, KDHE spokeswoman, wrote in an emailed statement.
In a March 26 letter to local health departments and other funding recipients, Janet Stanek, KDHE secretary, told organizations to “immediately discontinue spending any funds” from affected grants.
Susan Crain Lewis, president and CEO of Mental Health America of the Heartland, said she received notice of her agency’s canceled grants after she had already spent several hundred dollars on a grant-funded behavioral health program for a Kansas school. And she had to scramble to cancel a training scheduled in Iola, Kansas, to teach law enforcement employees how to deal with people who have mental illness.
“We were ready to start loading cars practically,” Crain Lewis said. “We were leaving tomorrow.”
The training has been canceled, and now Crain Lewis’ organization, which relies on federal funding for about a third of its annual budget, is facing a loss of around $50,000 of federal funds it had been counting on. It will be difficult to absorb.
“The amount that the federal government is going to get back from cutting my little programs is inconsequential,” she said. “They get maybe $50,000 back. That is nothing to the federal government. But it is massive to this agency. And it is massive to the people we serve.”
This story was originally published by The Beacon, a fellow member of the KC Media Collective.
