DENVER (KDVR) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is undergoing a major restructuring, with layoffs and federal grant cuts nationwide, including hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of grant terminations in Colorado.
At the end of March, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the restructuring of the department responsible for the country’s health and human services, saying in a social media post that the department will be doing “more with less.”
The department plans to downsize by laying off 10,000 jobs, along with 10,000 people who chose to take early retirement and voluntary separation offers that were encouraged by President Donald Trump’s administration.
HHS said it anticipates the changes will save $1.8 billion per year, but along with the changes came massive grant cuts across the country, including several awarded to organizations in Colorado.
These HHS grants in Colorado were terminated
HHS provided a 51-page list of grants terminated since late March, as of April 4.
The following list includes confirmed Colorado-based locations where grants were terminated, but may not include every grant termination connected to Colorado. FOX31 will update this list if more state locations are confirmed. The list doesn’t include national organizations that may be in Colorado.
In total, the remaining money that was left when the Colorado grants were terminated tallied to over $219 million. With these grant terminations, organizations could be losing out on expected funding for programs, research and other work.
Michele Ames with the University of Colorado said most of the CU grant terminations on the list were from the Anschutz Medical Campus. However, she said some of these terminations are being appealed. Ames said there are often appeals or court actions, and this list is just a “snapshot in time” and is subject to change.
At the start of April, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined several other states in filing a lawsuit against the HHS for “abruptly and illegally terminating $11 billion in critical public health grants” across the states. In a press release, Weiser said Colorado stands to lose more than $229 million from these cancellations.
Meanwhile, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, along with 37 of his Senate colleagues, urged Trump to address the impacts of the mass layoffs, arguing that this could have “devastating impacts” on Americans’ health.
“Your plan to eliminate 20,000 HHS employees and consolidate core agencies is an unprecedented and baseless assault on the federal workforce and the hundreds of millions of Americans who rely on the Department’s services,” wrote the senators. “If you do not reverse course, you will do irreparable damage to our nation’s human services, health care delivery, public health, and scientific infrastructure – making Americans sicker and leaving our communities ill-prepared for future threats.”
The full list of terminated grants across the nation, which totals hundreds of millions of dollars, can be found on the HHS website.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
