The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is revoking $230 million in federal grants from North Carolina, and Cumberland County organizations could be impacted.
Cape Fear Valley Health and Fayetteville State University would be among the local agencies and institutions taking the biggest hit, according to state health officials and the office of North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson. The Cumberland County Department of Public Health could also lose some temporary staff, the department’s director told CityView.
The cuts stem from HHS’s pullback of $11 billion in pandemic-era funding that went to the country’s state and local health departments. A federal judge in Rhode Island on Thursday temporarily blocked the funding revocation while a lawsuit against HHS brought by North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson and the attorneys general from almost two dozen other states plays out in court.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is still determining exactly how the loss of federal funding will impact the state and communities like Cumberland County.
Fayetteville State University
Fayetteville State University is among 14 universities in North Carolina receiving grant dollars to provide substance use disorder recovery programs. The money is administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), one of the 13 agencies under HHS. The funding helps pay for FSU students’ substance use services, which include counseling and a live-in recovery community.
In 2021, the federal Substance Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Block Grant provided $79,945,161 in funding to North Carolina for substance use treatment and prevention for universities and other organizations. The grant allocated money between September 1, 2021, and September 30, 2025, meaning organizations still had about six months to draw down the funds before HHS’ revocation in March of this year.
In a declaration attached to the lawsuit against HHS, ClarLynda Williams-Devane, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ chief deputy secretary and deputy secretary for operational excellence, said $24,517,127, or about 30%, of the grant remains unspent.
Cape Fear Valley Health
Cape Fear Valley Health’s emergency medical services (EMS) program was also allocated funding from the Substance Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Block Grant. It is one of six EMS programs in North Carolina receiving this funding. The others are in Davie, Durham, Gaston, Surry and Orange counties.
The grant supports Cape Fear Valley Health’s EMS Bridge Medication Assisted Treatment Program. The program helps paramedics treat patients who’ve overdosed on opioids but refuse to be taken to the emergency department. Instead of taking them to the ED, paramedics can prescribe buprenorphine — an opioid use disorder treatment drug — and follow up with the patient for up to seven days until they can be referred to treatment.
Cape Fear Valley Health was awarded grant funding in 2023. However, NCDHHS told CityView that the health system has yet to draw down any funds.
“Cape Fear Valley Health will continue to work with our government partners and elected leaders to ensure we have resources to provide excellent care for all our patients,” Chaka Jordan, Cape Fear Valley Health’s vice president of marketing and communications, told CityView when asked about the impacts of the HHS grant cuts on the health system.
NCDHHS said Cape Fear Valley Health is also receiving other pandemic-era funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan. The act gave federal funds to address the pandemic, paying for efforts like vaccination programs. It also provided money to stimulate the economy through $1,400 checks for eligible families, expanded unemployment benefits and increased Child Tax Credit payments to help families afford to raise their children.
At Cape Fear Valley Health, the American Rescue Plan paid for the health system’s peer support services in its emergency departments. These are counseling services offered by people certified through the state and with experience living with a mental health and/or substance use disorder.
“We are still working to assess the impact [of the HHS cuts] on these programs in Cumberland County,” an NCDHHS spokesperson said.
The Cumberland County Department of Public Health
The Cumberland County Department of Public Health is one of the state’s 77 health departments impacted by the federal grant funding loss.
The county health department received funding from one grant revoked by HHS, which came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 Vaccination program. The CDC is another agency under HHS.
However, the public health department already spent all allocated funds, Jennifer Green, the department’s director, told CityView. According to The Hill, HHS couldn’t say how it planned to recoup funding that has already been spent.
Still, the county public health department didn’t come out completely unscathed. Green said the cuts will impact temporary contract staff assigned to the department by NCDHHS. She said impacted staff “worked on tasks related to communicable disease control and medical records” in Cumberland County.
While NCDHHS is determining the full extent of the federal funding losses on those positions, it is certain the cuts “will result in the loss of more than 80 jobs” across the state agency, NCDHHS told CityView, and The News & Observer first reported.
Jackson says the cuts are unlawful
NCDHHS said it’s working with the North Carolina Department of Justice to support Jackson’s lawsuit against HHS. Green said the county department is also monitoring the lawsuit.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island. It is a joint suit with 22 other state attorneys general and the attorney general for the District of Columbia, prompted by HHS revoking billions in federal grants first provided to the states in response to the pandemic.
In a statement to NBC News, Andrew Nixon, the HHS director of communications, said the federal department “will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.” The cuts are part of U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to restructure and slim down the department, which included cutting 10,000 full-time employees from its agencies this week (some of which could be reinstated, according to The Hill).
The revoked grants provided funding for local communities to address infectious diseases and mental and substance use disorders, paying for services like vaccines and behavioral health crisis programs.
On March 25, HHS notified NCDHHS about its termination of six grants and funding supplements through various federal grant portals. NCDHHS said the grants were used for immunization efforts, funding for the North Carolina Immunization Registry, infectious disease monitoring and response, behavioral health, substance use disorder services and other services.
The notices stated “the end of the pandemic provides cause to terminate COVID-related grants and cooperative agreements.”
“These grants and cooperative agreements were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic,” a sample notification of grant termination from the CDC provided in the lawsuit against HHS reads. “Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out.”
Jackson and the other attorneys general in the suit argue that revoking already congressionally appropriated funds is unlawful. While the funds were given during the pandemic, the lawsuit states HHS approved their extended use past the official end of the public health emergency in May 2023. It states the federal department has scheduled some funds to be available until June 2027.
“That money supports rural hospitals, health care workers, emergency services, and public health programs that protect seniors and families across North Carolina,” Jackson said in his press release announcing the suit. “There are legal ways to improve how tax dollars are used, but this wasn’t one of them. Immediately halting critical health care programs across the state without legal authority isn’t just wrong — it puts lives at risk. That’s why we’re going to court.”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.