A bit-known federal company that sends more than $12 billion annually to help group well being facilities, dependancy remedy companies, and workforce initiatives for America’s neediest individuals has been hobbled by the Trump administration’s staffing purges.
The cuts are “just a bit astonishing,” mentioned Carole Johnson, who beforehand led the Well being Sources and Providers Administration. She left the company in January with the administration change and has described the sweeping employees cuts as a “large menace” to the company’s capability to distribute billions of {dollars} in grants to hospitals, clinics, nonprofits, and different organizations nationwide.
Since February, a few quarter of employees at HRSA — together with analysts, auditors, scientists, grant managers, and nursing consultants — have left, in response to a KFF Well being Information evaluation.
The company, headquartered in a nondescript gray-and-glass workplace constructing tucked into facet streets in Rockville, Maryland, employed about 2,700 staffers in early 2025. Workers labored behind the scenes to handle and monitor hundreds of initiatives nationwide that fund main well being suppliers, HIV/AIDS remedy and prevention, maternal and youngster care applications, rural hospitals, and workforce coaching.
On the bottom, HRSA’s grants have helped create telehealth initiatives for mothers in rural New Mexico, funded workforce training for Indigenous nurses in South Dakota, and supported Wholesome Begin applications for expectant moms and infants in places like rural Georgia.
Ryan Alcorn, a co-founder and the chief govt of GrantExec, an organization that helps organizations match and apply for funding, mentioned each American advantages from the applications HRSA’s funding helps: “When the protection internet fails, hospitals turn out to be overwhelmed, unpaid prices rise, and premiums go up for everybody.”
A number of former HRSA leaders, who’ve been in contact with workers, confirmed the magnitude of the cuts estimated by KFF Well being Information. Johnson mentioned she believes the precise variety of employees misplaced is bigger.
Greater than 700 employees had been fired or selected to depart from February by means of the top of June. The evaluation relies on information from the HHS worker listing, which can not embrace employees who opted out of being listed, and will not be an actual depend of the employee roster, which is in flux.
Johnson, who’s now a senior fellow on the Century Basis, and several other different former workers interviewed by KFF Well being Information mentioned they’re involved that particular applications can be eradicated, but in addition that diminished staffing may have an effect on ongoing program oversight. The company’s workforce ethos, Johnson mentioned, is one by which “if there have been two individuals left at HRSA, they’d work across the clock to attempt to get the cash out.”
For at the least one program, revealed during a tense moment on Capitol Hill in July, cash to assist low-income and minority college students has already stopped flowing to colleges and universities. The Scholarship for Deprived College students program, established through congressional legislation, helped colleges pay for college kids to coach to turn out to be dentists, doctor assistants, midwives, and nurses — all of whom are in brief provide in rural and a few city areas. Candice Chen, appearing affiliate administrator of HRSA’s well being workforce bureau, confirmed the company “did have competitions that had been canceled.”
When U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) requested whether or not they had been canceled by the Trump administration, Chen paused earlier than talking once more: “Effectively, the funding selections had been made throughout the administration.”
Requested in regards to the canceled funding, officers from a number of colleges declined to remark. Patrick Gonzales, a spokesperson for the College of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, mentioned in an emailed assertion that the varsity is “serving to college students navigate this transition with readability and care.”
U.S. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) has referred to as for Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s resignation or firing, “whichever one comes first,” saying there was “no defensible reply” to eliminating hundreds of employees throughout federal businesses.
In April, practically a dozen Democratic senators despatched a letter to Kennedy demanding solutions in regards to the mass firings, noting HRSA is the “main company tasked with bettering entry to well being look after weak populations.”
HHS didn’t reply to the senators’ letter. Kennedy and the Division of Well being and Human Providers “has refused to reply fundamental questions on why the administration performed mass firings on this workplace,” mentioned Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.).
President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2026 budget eliminates HRSA in addition to a few of its applications, together with grants to rural hospitals, workforce coaching, Ryan White HIV/AIDS applications, and emergency medical companies for kids. HRSA spokesperson Andrea Takash mentioned in an emailed response that HHS is “endeavor organizational adjustments that help a number of targets whereas making certain continuity of important companies.”
HRSA continues to course of new funding bulletins and awards for the well being facilities, workforce applications, youngster and maternal well being initiatives, and “many extra of our crucial applications and companies,” Takash mentioned.
HRSA’s largest bureau helps hundreds of group well being facilities that serve over 31 million people nationwide. Earlier than the top of September, the company’s grants are nonetheless scheduled to pay out billions extra to well being clinics and different organizations nationwide.
Cuts to well being facilities may come beneath extra scrutiny as a result of their funding has “loads of bipartisan” help, mentioned Celli Horstman, a senior analysis affiliate on the Commonwealth Fund, a well being analysis nonprofit. HRSA’s funding, which incorporates Part 330 grants, goes to “conserving the doorways open” at federally certified well being facilities nationwide, Horstman mentioned.
An extra 42% of well being middle funding comes from Medicaid, a federal and state insurance coverage program that covers individuals with low incomes and people with disabilities, she mentioned. Congress just lately voted to scale back Medicaid funding.
Joe Stevens, spokesperson for the Virginia Group Healthcare Affiliation, mentioned well being facilities are rethinking “how they do enterprise” due to the Medicaid cuts and the elevated administrative challenges confronted when processing their HRSA grants, which have been tougher to acquire since February. Virginia’s well being clinics deal with about 400,000 individuals yearly, Stevens mentioned.
“It’s a system that’s been in place for 50-plus years, and that is the primary time they’re having points receiving their funds,” he mentioned, noting that clinics now should additionally present an itemized listing of how the cash is for use after grants have been authorized.
“Our well being facilities are understaffed, so having anyone to need to enter that data each two weeks is simply extra time,” Stevens mentioned.
For months, HRSA employees throughout all departments have labored by means of adjustments to their know-how methods and transitioned work to others as workers left their jobs. Employees have continued to course of grants regardless of a February govt order that froze federal funding and a March announcement that HHS would lay off 10,000 employees and shut down total businesses — together with HRSA.
One former worker mentioned that, at this level, “all we’re doing now could be conserving the lights on.”
Michael Warren, who left the company in June, ran HRSA’s Maternal and Little one Well being Bureau. Warren described the bureau’s staffing cuts as “substantial.” The bureau awarded greater than $628 million in grants between Oct. 1, 2024, and July 22, 2025, to applications that included offering block grants to states and funding house visiting applications, by means of which educated staffers work with households with younger youngsters.
Warren, who’s now the chief medical and well being officer for the March of Dimes, mentioned America faces a disaster as one of many “most harmful locations on the earth to present start amongst different high-income nations, and that shouldn’t be the case.”
With tears brimming, Warren mentioned his former workers “get up each morning, they work all day, they usually fall asleep each evening fascinated about what they will do for moms, youngsters, and households.”
Methodology
For this text, KFF Well being Information calculated workforce reductions on the Well being Sources and Providers Administration utilizing public data from the Department of Health and Human Services directory posted on-line. We in contrast the quantity and kind of workers listed with HRSA in February to these in early July. Our worker totals exclude individuals listed as interns, fellows, scholar trainees, or volunteers. The listing just isn’t an official depend of HRSA workers, however it affords detailed snapshots of traits to date this 12 months. Reporters additionally cross-checked the estimates with former workers.
We’d like to talk with present and former personnel from the Division of Well being and Human Providers or its part businesses who imagine the general public ought to perceive what’s occurring inside the federal well being forms. Please message KFF Well being Information on Sign at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here.