Kane County health department says $700,000 federal grant cut will remove four positions

Kane County health officials told the county Public Health Committee on May 21 that a federal-level change to grant funding will cost the department just over $700,000 and result in the elimination of four positions tied to that grant.

"We are going to lose just over $700,000 in funding because of this," Kane County Executive Director Michael Isaacson told the committee, and said the department "had to eliminate 4 positions" associated with the grant. Isaacson said the department was able to move three employees into other, existing grant-funded roles and that one of the four positions was a vacancy, so no current staff were laid off at this time.

The department described the loss as sudden: the Illinois Department of Public Health notified the department in March that the respiratory surveillance and outbreak-response grant had been eliminated at the federal level and that a related state-level lawsuit and temporary restraining order left payment uncertain. "We don't have any assurances on payment for that grant, and we have no way of predicting what's going to happen," Isaacson said.

The department emphasized its heavy reliance on categorical grants and explained why the loss directly reduces staff. "Each grant is a project," Isaacson said. "It is time bound, and it has its own specific deliverables." He told committee members that when grants go away, corresponding positions and programs typically also end because the department has limited unrestricted local funding to absorb losses.

Isaacson and other staff also described the department's long-term local funding picture. The health department receives about $2 million annually from a special public health property tax levy and "we get 0 funding from the general fund," Isaacson said, stressing that the property-tax support has remained flat for more than a decade. That lack of flexible, local funding limits the department's ability to sustain programs when grants end.

Committee members and staff discussed the budget implications and the need to press for restored state funding. Isaacson said he planned to give testimony before the Illinois House appropriations committee that evening seeking restoration of cuts to the local health protection grant; he told the committee the department lost about $150,000 statewide from a 2024–25 reduction and hoped to win reinstatement of some funds.

No committee vote or formal policy change resulted from the briefing; the discussion was presented as an informational budget update with a request that the board consider funding options during the county budget process.

Ending

Isaacson said the department will continue to move staff where possible and pursue grants, but warned that future reductions would be more painful: "We're out of vacancies. So if the next cut comes, we're not going to be in as positive a situation."