Chair Schulman on other federal funding stream concerns
Schulman asks about other federal funding concerns. Martin describes the general climate of concern, recalling when ~$100M was cut and later restored through court injunction, and emphasizes the importance of city government stabilizing funding.
Are any public health services, surveillance activities, laboratory functions, or preparedness efforts expected to be reduced as a result of expiring federal funding?
No.
Beyond ELC and COVID-19 grants, are there other federal funding streams that DOHMH is concerned may be reduced or eliminated in future years?
I know, it's a loaded question.
Yeah, you know, how much time do we have, right?
Like, I think, you know, this is one of the things that keeps me up at night, you know, the idea that the federal government can just sort of decide on a Tuesday that they want to, you know, remove our funding, and this is what happened.
It happened.
About a year ago, about $100 million.
We were able to fight back.
We went to court, got an injunction.
Thanks to the advocacy of this council, thanks to the advocacy of Letitia James, we got that money back.
But, you know, there's nothing specific that we're concerned about right now other than the just general climate of concern.
And that's why it's important for, you know, city government to stabilize this funding.
And that's what we're seeing here in this exact budget.
No, and I'm very glad to see it.