Alaska Department of Health eliminates 30 positions, dissolves a public health program after federal funding cuts
A dozen federal grants to the Alaska Department of Health were terminated effective March 24 amid broad funding cuts, department spokesperson Shirley Sakaye confirmed Thursday, including funds awarded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that were set to expire by 2027.
"Funds were utilized for time-limited projects that increased public health infrastructure and capacity," Sakaye said by email.
As a result of the cuts, the department is dissolving the Healthy and Equitable Communities unit, which was launched in 2021 in response to health access and outcome disparities across the state that came into sharp relief during the pandemic.
The unit focused on "creating partnerships across Alaska to ensure that the conditions in which Alaskans live, work and play support opportunities to lead healthy lives," according to a department webpage that was removed earlier this week. The program had staff in Anchorage, the Mat-Su region, Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Homer, Kodiak, Juneau and Ketchikan.
Now, partnerships established by the department are set to be abruptly discontinued, leading to what could be significant impacts, including in rural communities where access to health services is limited.
The 12 canceled grants originally amounted to more than $185 million, of which $135 million had already been expended, according to a list of canceled grants maintained by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The state lost out on $50 million in future funding, but because of the sudden cancellation of the grants, the state may also lose out on improvements it was planning to make through previous expenditures because projects will be abandoned midway.
Among the terminated grants was a $96 million award toward improving epidemiology and laboratory capacity for preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases. More than $24 million from that grant had yet to be spent and was canceled.
The cancellation also impacted a $40 million award for immunization and vaccines for children, of which $16 million had not yet been spent when the grants were canceled.
Alaska has seen a drop in vaccination rates among children in recent years. For example, a decade ago, about 94% of kindergartners were vaccinated against measles, mumps and rubella. As of last year, that rate had dropped to 84%, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The grant cancellations also impacted more than $7 million for a "national initiative to address COVID-19 health disparities among populations at high-risk and underserved, including racial and ethnic minority populations and rural communities," administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than $1 million out of a $4.7 million grant to address substance use was canceled. Roughly $700,000 in mental health grant funding was canceled.
Julie Cleaton, policy committee chair for the Alaska Public Health Association, said the association opposes the cuts to public health funding.
"We've always been underfunded, and this will not help. The state is already feeling the impact of these federal cuts," Cleaton said in an interview Thursday.
Cleaton works for the state Department of Health as a data analyst for the Alaska Cancer Registry but was not speaking on behalf of the state, she said.
"The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear to a lot of people in government that we weren't well-prepared. We're not working off of a healthy baseline population, and there are a lot of improvements to be made there. So there was some funding that went out because of COVID-19, but a lot of it was to prevent future outbreaks, to improve our systems and to get everyone healthier, not just specifically for COVID-19, but for everything," Cleaton said.
Cleaton said that the Healthy and Equitable Communities unit — now disbanded — had been "positioned in several communities across the state to try and get to more rural locations that don't usually see enough public services."
"We've been trying to work to help everyone get on a more even footing, health-wise, and this will just be a setback to that," she said.
Ingrid Stevens, former president of the Alaska Public Health Association, said that Alaska will also be impacted by other cuts to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"A primary concern is the supply of data," she said.
Stevens, who works in the Alaska tribal health system, said that Alaska could lose critical data that the federal government collects and shares with states through surveys, including ones pertaining to mental health and substance abuse.
"Those national bodies are the ones that give us guidance. They do all the research and they relay that down to the states so states can implement that research to help improve public health," said Cleaton. "If we don't have that national guidance, who's going to do that research?"
Cleaton said that impacts of the loss of public health programming may not be felt immediately, but their long-term effects could be significant.
"We've been seeing declining vaccination rates for several years — and now we're getting measles outbreaks. So it may take time to really feel the impact, but it will hurt what we do," Cleaton said.
A federal judge on Thursday temporarily barred the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from terminating certain funding streams, after a coalition of Democrat-led states sued to restore the grants they had been awarded.
Asked why Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor had not signed on to the case, state Department of Law spokesperson Patty Sullivan said that the federal funding — much of it not set to expire until 2027 — "was always only temporary in nature."
"The ultimate outcome of the case is uncertain, and Alaska, like other states around the country, does not have state funds to fill the gap caused by the federal cuts," Sullivan wrote.
'A general sense of anxiety'
Broad cuts to federal spending — led by tech billionaire Elon Musk — are set to have a disproportionate impact on Alaska, which receives a large share of federal funding per capita, economists, union leaders and nonprofit leaders have said.
Already, 230 Alaskans in the federal workforce had filed for unemployment insurance since February, when mass firings began, according to Alaska's Director of Employment and Training Services Paloma Harbour.
But this is likely the first time that Alaska state employees have lost their jobs due to federal funding cuts under the current Trump administration, according to Heidi Drygas, director of the Alaska State Employees Association, a union representing most state employees, who said the terminations impacted both permanent and non-permanent positions.
Department of Health staff were laid off in communities including Anchorage, Juneau, Wasilla, Fairbanks, Homer, Valdez and Petersburg, she said.
Drygas said the Department of Health was proactive in involving the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development to help impacted employees find other jobs with the state, which has a high vacancy rate across departments.
The Department of Health — which has around 1,300 employees — had a 12.5% vacancy rate as of last month, a spokesperson said.
But Drygas said that state employees are anxious — not just about layoffs that occurred this week but about potential imminent impacts of federal funding cuts, including future layoffs.
"There is a general sense of anxiety," said Drygas. "Especially with employees that work under federal grants or they have federal counterparts that they work with on a daily basis."
"What we're worried about is what comes next," she added. "It's just a really difficult time for state employees."
Drygas said she anticipates future impacts, and hopes Alaska's congressional delegation will do "whatever they can to protect our federal funding."
Alaska's two Republican U.S. senators said earlier this week that they were in touch with the Trump administration over the funding cuts to the Department of Health.
U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan has been "working with state health officials to gather more information about how these reorganization efforts impact Alaska," spokesperson Amanda Coyne said Wednesday.
Coyne said that Sullivan had "an extended phone call" with Trump's Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which "focused on extending some of the grants at issue, and on larger solutions as part of HHS's reorganization efforts that would address Alaska's unique health care needs and challenges."
None of the canceled grants have since been reinstated, the Alaska Department of Health confirmed late Thursday.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski is "tracking the grant funding cuts, and her office is engaging with the administration," spokesperson Joe Plesha said. "The sudden loss of funding and the loss of these positions will make a real impact in Alaska, and the Senator is focused on finding solutions to continue the progress that has been made with these funds."
The office of U.S. Rep. Nick Begich III "is monitoring these funding cuts and the direct impacts on Alaskans," spokesperson Silver Prout said in a written statement.
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