2 weeks Ago
Key staffers tasked with tracking infectious diseases, providing health care and connecting residents of Utah’s most populous county to services are on their way out at the Salt Lake County Health Department. The reason: a Trump Administration decision this week to claw back $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related funding from state and local health departments across the nation.
While the money was doled out in response to the pandemic, not all of the funds were supporting COVID-specific work. The funding had been scheduled to continue until next year. In Salt Lake County, that’s forced the layoffs of 17 employees, including epidemiologists, nurses and community health workers.
It’s “not easy to absorb” the loss of such experts, spokesperson Nicholas Rupp said, as the department tries to safeguard public health. “It’s going to be difficult. We are going to cover those areas as best we can,” Rupp said.
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Losing epidemiologists means the remaining epidemiologists will have more diseases to track, right? It’s the same amount of work spread over fewer people.” An epidemiologist who worked for the Utah Department of Health shared her notice of separation with The Salt Lake Tribune. She said the state had expected millions more in funding — and time to figure out how to sunset or continue to fund programs and staff.
The Tribune agreed to not identify her because she is concerned that being named could affect her job hunt. The Utah Department of Health and Human Services said it is preparing a statement about the loss of federal funding. One of the biggest impacts of federal cuts will be to infectious disease surveillance, said Carrie Butler, executive director of the Utah Public Health Association.
That “is very scary, especially as we are seeing emerging threats,” she said. The result will be that public health institutions will be “on the defense,” she said, and less prepared to prevent diseases before they turn into larger, and more costly, issues. The association, she said, has already had to let go of an employee who was developing a training and certification program for community health workers, the professionals who help Utahns navigate and get connected to health care.
Those are the kind of employees the Bear River Health Department said it has laid off. They helped residents get access to care, from mental health and substance abuse treatment to immunizations and home visits to new parents. The department serves more than 160,000 people in Box Elder, Cache, and Rich counties, and has 112 employees, according to its website.
It’s not clear whether the Trump administration has the authority to unilaterally take the funding — appropriated by Congress — back, The Hill reported this week. Other similar cancellations of grants have led to lawsuits, and states said they were looking at their options, The Hill said. The Weber-Morgan and Utah County health departments said they are not laying off staff.
Utah County “made a concerted effort not to rely on COVID funds moving forward from early 2024, and the health department followed suit,” spokesperson Aislynn Tolman-Hill said. The health department had previously used the federal funds to staff and run COVID-19 programming like vaccination campaigns, Tolman-Hill said. In Weber County, health department spokesperson Lori Butters said: “While these events have accelerated our planning, we have been able to adjust in a way that results in no immediate reduction of force.
” Tooele, Summit and Wasatch county health departments did not immediately comment. Note to readers • This is a developing story and will be updated..
