Federal funding cuts fuel anxiety among California public health employees

After the federal government announced it was suspending $11.4 billion in funding allocated to local and state public health agencies last month, the union representing employees with the California Department of Public Health alerted its members.

“These significant cuts could lead to layoffs for State workers and serious disruptions in the essential services we provide to Californians,” the union said in an email to state scientists.

CDPH officials confirmed the department was positioned to lose at least $840 million in funding for disease monitoring, vaccines for children, testing and more that was initially allocated during COVID-19. The cuts also targeted mental health-related grants, which would have cost the California Department of Health Care Services roughly $120 million, a CDPH spokesperson said in a statement.

A federal district judge temporarily blocked the federal government from withholding the $11 billion for public health initiatives last week after states, including California, sued.

Even if those grants eventually come through, the turmoil at the federal health agency has wiped out support and infrastructure California public health employees rely on, said Hannah Johnson, the financial secretary of the California Association of Professional Scientists, UAW Local 1115, which represents CDPH employees.

Since the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began reshaping the federal health department, CDPH employees said their counterparts at the CDC have been laid off and federal data systems the state department uses have disappeared.

“You can’t do public health in a vacuum,” Johnson said. “We need that holistic project management and strategy, and we need that partnership with the CDC to be able to do public health effectively.”

Johnson said diseases like tuberculosis don’t stop at state’s borders; partnerships with the federal government are necessary to keep all Americans healthy and safe.

“We see what’s happening at the federal level and we can’t say that ... we’re going to be immune from that” uncertainty, chaos and confusion, Johnson said.

The public health department has been closely following the CDC’s restructuring and funding changes.

Prior to learning about the loss of the COVID-era grants, Director Dr. Erica Pan wrote to reassure CDPH employees who were anxious about how the seismic shifts at the federal level were trickling down to the state’s health agency.

“We can and should anticipate more changes in the coming months,” Pan wrote to employees in February. The director noted that state jobs, regardless of the funding source, are authorized through California’s budget. If federal funding is cut, the state has processes to protect staff.

“The State is required to initiate various mitigation measures prior to any impacts to permanent positions or employees,” Pan wrote.

In a statement, Pan said that the department was still working to evaluate the repercussions of the federal health agency’s actions.

On Friday, CDPH leadership provided employees with an update of which specific grants would be impacted and urged staff working on programs funded with this money to complete the grant work.

“We are doing everything we can to navigate this abrupt notification together,” the CDPH director’s office wrote in a Friday email, “and we hope that we can all demonstrate care and compassion to our colleagues and teammates who are affected.”