Multiple speakers asked the subcommittee to avoid cuts to Department of Health programs and to consider the real-world effect of flat budgets.

Pat Sweeney and Brandon Roste of Healthy Wyoming told the committee the agency could not absorb cuts without "devastating impacts to our neediest community members," and urged lawmakers to at minimum hold funding steady for developmental-disability waivers and community supports.

Nathan Cook, who runs Chrysalis Treatment Center, said ARPA-funded wage increases for direct-care staff ended and that his provider network had to reduce participants and staff. "Since 2020, we went from about 40 to 50 participants ... to 19 participants," Cook said, and said employees fell from about 48 to 20 after emergency funding ended.

Sheriff John Harlan emphasized the jail and criminal-justice impacts of reduced behavioral-health capacity, saying detention is expensive and that treatment alternatives reduce repeated bookings and community costs. Local public-health officials and an Episcopal foundation representative described partnerships that support post-treatment transitions, Meals on Wheels and senior services, and warned that capped senior-service formulas and property-tax changes constrain local budgets.

Why it matters: Witnesses framed many Department of Health programs as essential to community stability—developmental-disability waivers, senior programs, public health clinics and community mental-health centers all rely on stable funding or face service reductions.

Committee members repeatedly emphasized they intend to examine budget options carefully once the governor's budget is released and to seek sustainable, prioritized spending that avoids unplanned fiscal cliffs.