MDH asks Legislature to replace federal COVID-era funding, raise fees to sustain drinking water, licensing and inspections

Minnesota Department of Health Commissioner Brooke Cunningham told the House Health Finance and Policy Committee on Feb. 10 that the department needs new state funding to replace federal COVID-era dollars and additional fee authority to sustain core public-health services.

“Our mission is to protect, maintain and improve the health of all communities,” Cunningham said as she summarized MDH proposals in the governor’s budget package.

Cunningham told lawmakers that MDH is seeking two general‑fund cost proposals, several fee increases and a smaller operations adjustment to cover rising personnel and operating costs. Chief items in her presentation included a request to compensate for an expected drop in federal infectious‑disease funding, increases to multiple licensing and inspection fees, and statutory changes affecting asbestos and X‑ray oversight.

Why it matters: MDH and local public‑health departments together handle drinking water protection, immunizations and outbreak response, newborn screening and other population‑level services. Cunningham said those services operate on a small fraction of overall state health spending — local public health accounts for about $400 million statewide compared with roughly $67 billion spent on health care — and that public‑health staffing per capita has declined in recent decades. She told the committee that about half of MDH’s public‑health funding comes from the federal government and that losing COVID‑era infrastructure funding would reduce the state’s ability to detect and respond to new infectious‑disease threats.

Major proposals…