Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee reviews Division of Public Health Services budget, seeks restorations and data modernization

The Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Monday heard an overview of the Department of Health and Welfare’s Division of Public Health Services budget as the department requested restorations of several programs and funding for data and workforce modernization.

Keith Bybee, division manager for budget policy analysis, presented the division’s request and structural changes and directed members to the budget book. “Public health services is a big one,” Bybee said while walking committee members through program lines and one‑time versus ongoing funding.

The division’s budget is organized around five program areas: physical health services; emergency medical services and preparedness; laboratory services; suicide prevention and awareness; and health care policy initiatives (including administration of the State Healthcare Innovation Plan, SHIP). Director Alex Adams and Division Administrator Elke Shaw‑Tulloch answered committee questions after Bybee’s overview.

Why it matters: committee members flagged this division for detailed review because it manages large trustee and benefit payments, federal grant carryovers, and several programs that were moved from ongoing to one‑time funding in recent years. Alex Adams said the agency used a “0‑based” approach to ask whether each program still makes sense and described the division’s 2026 request as “a healthy exercise.” He told the committee the changes produce an approximately $10 million…