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Public health budget request seeks to restore programs cut after ARPA/CARES funding shifts
Summary
Officials told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee the Division of Public Health Services is asking to restore multiple ongoing programs and fund one-time data and infrastructure projects after pandemic-era federal funds wound down.
At a Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee hearing, state health officials outlined a budget request for the Division of Public Health Services that would restore several programs moved from ongoing to one-time funding after large CARES Act and ARPA grants wound down.
The department asked the panel to restore an array of ongoing programs and to approve one-time infrastructure and data modernization projects. Division manager Keith Bybee said public health is “a big one,” directing members to detailed pages in the budget book and to the agency’s SharePoint for program-level detail.
Why it matters: committee staff and the department described the 2025–26 budget as partly structural. Officials said the decline in pandemic-era federal grants caused a mismatch between prior appropriations and actual spending; the department has asked the committee to restore many programs to baseline so services now supported by expiring one-time money can continue.
The department said the division had 256.52 full-time-equivalent positions established and four vacancies as of Aug. 31, 2024, and that roughly…
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