Chair Schulman questions DOHMH on disease surveillance and federal funding

Thank you.

Before I begin, I want to mention we've been joined by Councilmember Gennaro and Ressler.

Oh, and sorry, Councilmember Aldabal, as well as Maloney and Deputy Speaker Williams on Zoom.

Oh, okay.

And Jay Sanchez.

Okay, the fiscal 2027 executive plan reflects a $23.8 million reduction in federal funding for DOHMH compared to the fiscal 2026 adopted budget.

We know that much of this decreased funding is tied to the expiration of the federal epidemiology and laboratory capacity and COVID-19 grants by July 31st, 2026.

In anticipation, the executive plan includes a baseline of $17.6 million, of which $11.3, as you mentioned in your testimony, is city funding.

And 70 positions for disease outbreak resilience to help sustain core surveillance and disease control activities previously funded through these temporary federal grants.

At a time when public health agencies are responding to emerging infectious disease threats and monitoring outbreaks around the world, such as hantavirus and Ebola, it is important to understand whether this investment is sufficient to maintain the city's disease surveillance laboratory.

and preparedness infrastructure in the face of declining federal support.

Will the $17.6 million investment fully replace the funding previously provided through the expiring ELC and COVID-19 grants?

If not, what funding gap remains?

Yeah, thank you for that question, Chair.

And I think let me just step back and share a little bit about the environment that we're operating in.

The funding that you're referring to was sort of this really large one-time investment from the federal government.

And I think it is sort of the same story of how public health has been funded for decades, which is these boom-bust cycles.

The reality is that this administration gets it.

This mayor gets it.

OMB gets it.

They understand that that's not how you can fund public health.

You have to be able to have stable funding to provide the services that people need.

And this investment is what we need.

We have the services now to be able to deliver what New Yorkers require of us.

You know, the $17.6 million is going to allow us to, number one, deploy staff in places, for instance, like hungry settings where we see a lot of outbreaks and clusters form.

Places like shelters, places like nursing homes.

So having these disease investigation specialists for that.

It also gives us the ability to shore up the systems that our staff use, the platforms, the technology.

And so I think that, you know, look, there's always more work to do, but at the present moment, we have what we need.

Okay, great.

What program services or positions previously supported by ELC and COVID-19 grants will be sustained with this funding, or is it basically how you respond?

Exactly.

We don't really expect any service disruptions or cuts to programming moving forward because of the investment that we have.

Okay.