Deep Staff Cuts At A Little-known Federal Agency Pose Trouble For Droves Of Local Health Programs

A little-known national agency that sends much than $12 cardinal annually to support organization wellness centers, addiction curen services, and workforce initiatives for America's neediest group has been hobbled by nan Trump administration's staffing purges.

The cuts are "just a small astonishing," said Carole Johnson, who antecedently led nan Health Resources and Services Administration. She near nan agency successful January pinch nan management alteration and has described nan sweeping unit cuts arsenic a "big threat" to nan agency's expertise to administer billions of dollars successful grants to hospitals, clinics, nonprofits, and different organizations nationwide.

Since February, astir a 4th of workers astatine HRSA — including analysts, auditors, scientists, assistance managers, and nursing consultants — person left, according to a KFF Health News analysis.

The agency, headquartered successful a nondescript gray-and-glass agency building tucked into broadside streets successful Rockville, Maryland, employed astir 2,700 staffers successful early 2025. Employees worked down nan scenes to negociate and show thousands of projects nationwide that money superior wellness providers, HIV/AIDS curen and prevention, maternal and kid attraction programs, agrarian hospitals, and workforce training.

On nan ground, HRSA's grants person helped create telehealth initiatives for mothers successful agrarian New Mexico, funded workforce training for Indigenous nurses successful South Dakota, and supported Healthy Start programs for expectant mothers and babies successful places for illustration agrarian Georgia.

Ryan Alcorn, a co-founder and nan main executive of GrantExec, a institution that helps organizations lucifer and use for funding, said each American benefits from nan programs HRSA's backing supports: "When nan information nett fails, hospitals go overwhelmed, unpaid costs rise, and premiums spell up for everyone."

Several erstwhile HRSA leaders, who person been successful touch pinch employees, confirmed nan magnitude of nan cuts estimated by KFF Health News. Johnson said she believes nan existent number of workers mislaid is larger.

More than 700 workers were fired aliases chose to time off from February done nan extremity of June. The study is based connected information from nan HHS worker directory, which whitethorn not see workers who opted retired of being listed, and whitethorn not beryllium an nonstop count of nan worker roster, which is successful flux.

Johnson, who is now a elder chap astatine nan Century Foundation, and respective different erstwhile labor interviewed by KFF Health News said they are concerned that circumstantial programs will beryllium eliminated, but besides that reduced staffing could impact ongoing programme oversight. The agency's workforce ethos, Johnson said, is 1 successful which "if location were 2 group near astatine HRSA, they would activity astir nan timepiece to effort to get nan money out."

For astatine slightest 1 program, revealed during a tense infinitesimal connected Capitol Hill successful July, money to thief low-income and number students has already stopped flowing to colleges and universities. The Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students program, established done legislature legislation, helped schools salary for students to train to go dentists, expert assistants, midwives, and nurses — each of whom are successful short proviso successful agrarian and immoderate municipality areas. Candice Chen, acting subordinate administrator of HRSA's wellness workforce bureau, confirmed nan agency "did person competitions that were canceled."

When U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) asked whether they were canceled by nan Trump administration, Chen paused earlier speaking again: "Well, nan backing decisions were made crossed nan administration."

Asked astir nan canceled funding, officials from respective schools declined to comment. Patrick Gonzales, a spokesperson for nan University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, said successful an emailed connection that nan schoolhouse is "helping students navigate this modulation pinch clarity and care."

U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) has called for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s resignation aliases firing, "whichever 1 comes first," saying location was "no defensible answer" to eliminating thousands of workers crossed national agencies.

In April, astir a twelve Democratic senators sent a missive to Kennedy demanding answers astir nan wide firings, noting HRSA is nan "primary agency tasked pinch improving entree to wellness attraction for susceptible populations."

HHS did not respond to nan senators' letter. Kennedy and nan Department of Health and Human Services "has refused to reply basal questions astir why nan management conducted wide firings successful this office," said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.).

President Donald Trump's projected fiscal 2026 fund eliminates HRSA arsenic good arsenic immoderate of its programs, including grants to agrarian hospitals, workforce training, Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs, and emergency aesculapian services for children. HRSA spokesperson Andrea Takash said successful an emailed consequence that HHS is “undertaking organizational changes that support aggregate goals while ensuring continuity of basal services.”

HRSA continues to process caller backing announcements and awards for nan wellness centers, workforce programs, kid and maternal wellness initiatives, and “many much of our captious programs and services,” Takash said.

HRSA's largest bureau supports thousands of organization wellness centers that service complete 31 cardinal group nationwide. Before nan extremity of September, nan agency's grants are still scheduled to salary retired billions much to wellness clinics and different organizations nationwide.

Cuts to wellness centers could travel nether much scrutiny because their backing has "a batch of bipartisan" support, said Celli Horstman, a elder investigation subordinate astatine nan Commonwealth Fund, a wellness investigation nonprofit. HRSA's funding, which includes Section 330 grants, goes to "keeping nan doors open" astatine federally qualified wellness centers nationwide, Horstman said.

An further 42% of wellness halfway backing comes from Medicaid, a national and authorities security programme that covers group pinch debased incomes and those pinch disabilities, she said. Congress precocious voted to trim Medicaid funding.

Joe Stevens, spokesperson for nan Virginia Community Healthcare Association, said wellness centers are rethinking "how they do business" because of nan Medicaid cuts and nan accrued administrative challenges faced erstwhile processing their HRSA grants, which person been much challenging to get since February. Virginia's wellness clinics dainty astir 400,000 group annually, Stevens said.

"It's a strategy that's been successful spot for 50-plus years, and this is nan first clip they're having issues receiving their funds," he said, noting that clinics now must besides supply an itemized database of really nan money is to beryllium utilized aft grants person been approved.

"Our wellness centers are understaffed, truthful having personification to person to participate that accusation each 2 weeks is conscionable much time," Stevens said.

For months, HRSA unit crossed each departments person worked done changes to their exertion systems and transitioned activity to others arsenic labor near their jobs. Workers person continued to process grants contempt a February executive bid that froze national backing and a March announcement that HHS would laic disconnected 10,000 workers and unopen down full agencies — including HRSA.

One erstwhile worker said that, astatine this point, "all we're doing now is keeping nan lights on."

Michael Warren, who near nan agency successful June, ran HRSA's Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Warren described nan bureau's staffing cuts arsenic "substantial." The bureau awarded much than $628 cardinal successful grants betwixt Oct. 1, 2024, and July 22, 2025, to programs that included providing artifact grants to states and backing location visiting programs, done which trained staffers activity pinch families pinch young children.

Warren, who is now nan main aesculapian and wellness serviceman for nan March of Dimes, said America faces a situation arsenic 1 of nan "most vulnerable places successful nan world to springiness commencement among different high-income countries, and that shouldn’t beryllium nan case."

With tears brimming, Warren said his erstwhile labor "wake up each morning, they activity each day, and they spell to slumber each nighttime reasoning astir what they tin do for mothers, children, and families."

Methodology

For this article, KFF Health News calculated workforce reductions astatine nan Health Resources and Services Administration utilizing nationalist accusation from nan Department of Health and Human Services directory posted online. We compared nan number and type of labor listed pinch HRSA successful February to those successful early July. Our worker totals exclude group listed arsenic interns, fellows, student trainees, aliases volunteers. The directory is not an charismatic count of HRSA employees, but it offers elaborate snapshots of trends truthful acold this year. Reporters besides cross-checked nan estimates pinch erstwhile employees.

We'd for illustration to speak pinch existent and erstwhile unit from nan Department of Health and Human Services aliases its constituent agencies who judge nan nationalist should understand what's happening wrong nan national wellness bureaucracy. Please connection KFF Health News connected Signal astatine (415) 519-8778 aliases get successful touch here.