Federal Cuts to Damage Local Education, Health Institutions
Recent cuts by the U.S. Department of education, and Health and Human Services, are already causing rollbacks of one program, and raise concerns about what future changes will mean.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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The federal government’s clawing back billions in COVID relief funds has rattled both the education and health communities across the nation in recent days.
Here in the Fredericksburg area, the cuts have hit unevenly.
Public Health
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control announced it is reclaiming some $11.4 billion in COVID 19-related funds that were to be spent by local and state health departments and other health organizations throughout the nation. Twenty-three states have joined in a lawsuit, claiming the cuts are illegal. Virginia was not listed as one of the plaintiffs.
Locally, these cuts will affect both the Rappahannock Area Community Service Board and the Fredericksburg City school system.
According to Amy Umble, communications coordinator at RACSB, the cuts in COVID funding have caused the organization to cancel “a session where we planned to train Fredericksburg City Schools staff to provide Teen Mental Health First Aid,” an evidence-based suicide prevention curriculum.
Umble said the school wanted to provide the program to every 10th grader. RACSB was going to use the one-time funds from the Recovery Act to train school employees.
“This one-time expense,” Umble said, “would pay continual dividends, because once trained, the employees could provide Teen Mental Health First Aid to students each year.”
The program would have come at a time when, Umble said, “there has been a dramatic increase in youth reporting mental health concerns. … We know that [this program] saves lives, and the teens who received this training could carry the knowledge and tools with them throughout their lives.”
In addition to the cuts in COVID funding, Umble says she is also concerned how the layoffs and early retirements at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services — about 20,000 people — may impact RACSB locally.
“We rely on SAMHSA,” the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, “to process our funding requests and to provide us with important data. While budget processing and data reporting might not sound significant, these could impact the services we provide.”
Also of concern are the discussions surrounding Medicaid. “Cuts there,” Umble said, “could devastate our agency.”
Last year, Umble said that RASCB “served 1,757 individuals with developmental disabilities whose care is covered by Medicaid. We also provided mental health and substance use disorder services to 5,189 people. About 40 percent of them would lose coverage if Medicaid expansion is targeted.”
Education
Also last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it would suspend the extensions that had been granted to school districts across the country to spend down their COVID-19 funds. Exact numbers for how many dollars are being pulled back are hard to come by, but K-12Drive puts the total at about $4.4 billion.
Maryland has been particularly hard-hit, facing “hundreds of millions” in lost revenue. In Michigan, the cuts mean about $40 million lost, and New Jersey projects it will lose about $85 million, according to Politico.
Locally, the Fredericksburg, Spotsylvania, and Stafford school districts don’t appear to be affected by these cuts.
Jennifer Brody, the chief financial officer for Fredericksburg City Public Schools, told the Advance via email: “FCPS expended all Covid funds as of the September 30, 2024 deadline. We did not have any terminated funds.”
Rene Daniels, director of communications and community engagement for Spotsylvania County Public Schools, and told the Advance via email: “I checked with our finance department and we have already expended our COVID funds and do not anticipate any impact.”
Finally, Sandra Osborn, chief communications officer for Stafford County Public Schools reported via email: “We have allocated all of our COVID funds.”
This story was updated on April 3 to include new information from RACSB about the affected program.
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