Maine will lose $91 million it received from the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic, after President Donald Trump’s administration announced this week it is canceling about $12 billion in grants to states.
Although distributed to Maine and other states during the pandemic for COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and other responses, the federal grants also helped with tracking, preventing and controlling infectious diseases such as bird flu and measles. The Trump administration reportedly cut about $11 billion in grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and about $1 billion from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said termination notices began Monday. Maine Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson Lindsay Hammes on Thursday confirmed the value of the grants to Maine that were cut.
The abrupt move comes as Trump and “government efficiency” czar Elon Musk have sought to aggressively slash federal spending and agencies. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also announced Thursday a restructuring of his department that will cut 10,000 more full-time jobs and ultimately bring its workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 employees.
“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,” the federal health department said in a statement.
Matt Wellington, associate director of the Maine Public Health Association, said Thursday public health professionals are “used to operating on a shoestring budget” and that the cuts “just pulled out the laces.”
“At a time when we’re experiencing an intense flu season in Maine, a measles outbreak in multiple states across the country and the looming threat of bird flu, we should be investing in systems and programs that protect people from infectious diseases, not dismantling them,” Wellington said.
The cuts are also “potentially devastating” for Maine’s already “fragile” behavioral health system, said Adam Bloom-Paicopolos, executive director of the Alliance for Addiction and Mental Health Services in Maine, which is made up of 32 community behavioral health providers that serve about 80,000 Mainers annually.
“We’re super concerned about this,” Bloom-Paicopolos said.