Trump administration pulls millions in pandemic-related funding from Rhode Island
(WJAR) — The Trump administration is pulling $31 million in funding to the Rhode Island Department of Health, as it seeks to end programs born from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were notified by CDC that four grants we had received to support our capacity in various areas of the Department post-COVID-19 have been terminated. While the work funded by these grants goes beyond responding to COVID-19, CDC’s cause for terminating these grants was the end of the COVID-19 pandemic,” RIDOH spokesman Joseph Wendelken wrote in a statement to NBC 10 Wednesday.
Rhode Island is not alone in losing pandemic related funding.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday it was taking back more than $11 billion from state and local health departments around the country.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s office issued a statement Wednesday criticizing the cuts.
The grants in question were expected to bring nearly $100 million to Massachusetts during the next year, and much of that funding has already been obligated for spending, according to the news release.
It states the Trump administration is “moving to terminate the unobligated portions of the grants” and Healey’s spokesperson told NBC 10 they are still assessing the impacts.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, now under the leadership of Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote in a statement, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”
Healey said in her statement, “This is yet another example of President Trump and Elon Musk undermining the health and wellbeing of the people of Massachusetts and people across this nation. Massachusetts depends on this funding to provide behavioral health care, prevent and treat respiratory illnesses, and ensure that community-based organizations, including community health centers and workers, have the resources they need to care for patients.”
The federal money to Massachusetts is used for programs like treatment and testing of respiratory diseases, supporting vaccine infrastructure, and to counter vaccine disinformation, according to Healey’s news release.
Wendelken wrote that the funds being pulled from Rhode Island include grants that “partially support vaccination work, some of our epidemiology and laboratory capacity work, work to address health disparities, and community health workers.”
NBC 10 asked if programs will be eliminated and if jobs will be cut.
“We are assessing the impact now,” Wendelken wrote in his statement to NBC10.
He noted on-going construction of the new State Health Laboratory in Providence is not affected.
The four Democratic members of Rhode Island’s congressional delegation condemned the action.
“It’s outrageous that the Trump Administration is clawing back these vital resources. We should be expanding access to public health—not gutting programs like these to pay for tax breaks to benefit the wealthy,” Rep. Seth Magaziner said in a press release issued by the group.
Sen. Jack Reed stated, “Penny-wise and pound-foolish sums up this latest Trump move. Clearly the Trump Administration has learned no lessons from their botched COVID-19 response during President Trump’s first term nor their current mismanagement of measles outbreaks across the nation. The programs being targeted were critical in helping states respond to and recover from the pandemic and helped to create new public health infrastructure that will be critical to responding to future public health emergencies.”