The budget bill President Donald Trump signed July 4, nicknamed the “big, beautiful bill,” reduced or eliminated some funding for local health programs in Summit County.
“The good news about those that have been eliminated?” Summit County Health Director Phil Bondurant said. “They were not large items, large dollar-item programs. So we're able to absorb those costs or stop doing those programs without significant impact to our department.”
He said in his report to the board of health July 7 it was some of the first “good news” about department funding in a while.
While the budget bill was making its way through the House and Senate, the health department sounded the alarm about millions of dollars in potential losses. It had Summit County councilmembers “quite concerned” about the impact to the overall county budget, too.
But now, it looks like the full-time staffing cuts Bondurant and county leaders were concerned about won’t happen.
“While we have had to terminate some contracts with employees that we had, I believe that, at this time, we're going to be able to retain all of our full-time employees and staff,” Bondurant told the health board.
The health department is organizing a town hall-style meeting for its own staff members for July 14 to discuss the details.
“We don't have all of the details of that yet, but I do know with a fair amount of confidence that we are going to be fine moving forward with some of the reductions we're able to absorb with our restricted use account to get us through the end of this year,” Bondurant added.
The federal grant cycle starts in July, halfway through Summit County’s budget year. That means the health department was counting on federal money in its FY2025 budget.
The Summit County Council is expected to pass next year’s budget in December.
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