There is a small federal agency that Sends more than $ 12 billion annually Community health centers, addiction treatment services, and the workforce of the US are fond of the staff administration to support the initiative of the workforce.
Cuts “is just a little surprising,” Carol Johnson said, who had previously led the health resources and service administration. It left the agency with a change in administration in January and described the cuts of comprehensive employees as “large threats”, for hospitals, clinics, non -profit organizations and other organizations to distribute billions of dollars in billions of dollars across the country.
Since February, HRSA has left about a quarter of laborers – analysts, auditors, scientists, grant managers and nursing advisors – according to KFF Health News Analysis.
The agency, a nondescript gray-end-glass office building collided on side roads at Rockville, Maryland at the headquarters, appointed about 2,700 employees in the beginning of 2025. Employees worked behind the curtains to manage and monitor thousands of projects, which fund primary health providers, HIV/AIDS treatment and preceding, maternal and child care programs, rural hospitals, and workers.
Sarah Jane Tribel/KFF Health News 
On the ground, HRSA grant has helped to create telehealth initiative Rural mother in New MexicoFunded workforce Training for indigenous nurses in South DakotaAnd supported healthy start programs for expected mothers and infants Rural in places like Georgia,
Ryan Alacorn, a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grantex, who helps organizations to help and apply for funding, said that every US profit supports from HRSA’s funding programs: “When the security net fails, the hospitals are overwhelmed, the hospital is overwhelmed, the unpaid costs increase, and the premium is increased for all.”
Several former HRSA leaders, who have been in touch with employees, confirmed the magnitude of the estimated deduction by KFF Health News. Johnson said that he believes that the actual number of lost workers is large.
By the end of June, more than 700 workers were fired or selected to leave from February. The analysis is based on the data of the HHS Employees Directory, which cannot include workers who have opted to listed, and the worker may not be an accurate count of the roster, which is in the flux.
Johnson, who is now a senior partner in the Century Foundation, and several other former employees interviewed by KFF Health News said they were concerned that specific programs would be abolished, but also that the reduced employees can affect the ongoing program inspection. The agency’s workforce ethos, Johnson said, there is one in which “if there were two people left in HRSA, they will work around the clock to try to withdraw money.”
For at least one program, Find out during a stressful moment On Capital Hill in July, money has already stopped flowing to help low income and minority students colleges and universitiesScholarship for disadvantaged student program, Congress established through lawSchools were helped to train students for dentist, physician assistants, midwives and nurses – all of which are in low supply in rural and some urban areas. Candice Chen, the acting associate administrator of HRSA’s Health Workforce Bureau, confirmed that the agency had “canceled the competitions”.
When US rape. Diana Degate (D-Kolo.) Asked if she was canceled by the Trump administration, Chen stopped before speaking: “Okay, the decisions of funding were made in the administration.”
When asked about the canceled funds, officials from several schools refused to comment. Patrick Gonzalase, a spokesman at the University of Texas-Rai Grande Valley, said in an email that the school is helping students navigate the infection with clarity and care. “
US Sen Angela Alsobrox (D-MD), Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior is called for resignation or firing, “whatever comes earlier,” saying that there was no “no defensive answer” to eliminate thousands of workers in federal agencies “.
In April, almost A A dozen democratic senators Sending a letter to Kennedy to respond to large -scale firing, see that HRSA is “primary agency that works with improvement in access to health care for a weaker population.”
HHS did not respond to the letter of senators. “Kennedy and Health and Human Services Department” refused to answer basic questions about conducting large-scale firing in this office, “said Sen Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DAL).
President Trump Proposed fiscal 2026 budget eliminates HRSA Also, some of its programs, including grants to rural hospitals, workforce training, Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs and emergency medical services for children. HRSA spokesperson Andrea Takash said in an email response that HHS is “starting organizational changes that support several goals, ensuring the continuity of essential services.”
Takash said HRSA continues to process new funding announcements and awards for health centers, workforce programs, children and maternal health initiatives, and “many more of our many important programs and services”, Takash said.
HRSA’s largest bureau supports thousands of community health centers Serve over 31 million people Nationwide. Before the end of September, the agency’s grants are still scheduled to pay billions of more to health clinics and other organizations across the country.
Cuts in health centers may be under more scrutiny because their funding has “too much bipartisan” support, a health research non -profit company, a senior research colleague of the Commonwealth Fund, Celi Horstman said. HRSA funding, including Section 330 grant, goes to “keep the doors open” at the Federal Qualified Health Center across the country, Horstman said.
He said that an additional 42% health center comes from Funding Medicade, which is a federal and state insurance program, which incorporates low -income people and people with disabilities. The Congress recently voted to reduce the Medicade Funding.
Spokesperson of Virginia Community Healthcare Association Joe Stevens said that the health centers are reconsideration of “how they trade” are rethinking the medicade cuts and increased administrative challenges while processing their HRSA grants, which is more challenging to get from February. Stevens said that Virginia’s health clinics treat around 400,000 people.
He said, “This is a system that has been for 50-plus years, and this is the first time they are issues of getting their funds,” he said, given that the clinic should now also provide a list of an item as to how to use the money after the grant.
Stevens said, “Our health centers are understood, so someone has to enter that information every two weeks.”
For months, HRSA employees in all departments have worked through changes in their technology systems and have worked to others as employees have quit their jobs. Workers have continued to process the grant despite the working order of February Federal funding And one March announcement HHS will shut down 10,000 workers and close the entire agencies including HRSA.
A former employee said that, at this point, “whatever we are doing now is keeping the light.”
Michael Warren, who left the agency in June, ran the maternal and child health bureau of HRSA. Warren described the bureau’s staffing cuts as “enough”. The bureau organized more than $ 628 million in the grant between October 1, 2024 and July 22, 2025, including programs that provide block grants to states and funding home coming programs, through which trained employees work with families with young children.
Warren, who is now the Chief Medical and Health Officer for the March of Dims, said that the United States faces a crisis as one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth among other high -income countries, and it should not happen. “
With tears, Warren said his former employees “get up every morning, they work all day, and they sleep every night what they can do for mothers, children and families.”
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For this article, KFF Health News calculated the lack of workforce in health resources and service administration using public information. Department of Health and Human Services Posted online. We compared the number and type of employees listed with HRSA in February in early July. Our employees exclude people listing yogas as intern, fellow, student trainees or volunteers. The directory is not an official count of HRSA employees, but it provides a detailed snapshot of trends so far this year. The reporters also examined the estimates with the former employees.
We want to talk with the current and former personnel of the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies, who believe that the public should understand what is happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please give a message to KFF Health News at the signal (415) (415) 519-8778 or Contact here,
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