The Trump administration has canceled nine public health grants for Coconino County, totaling $1.8 million.
It triggered five layoffs and has created ripple effects among rural communities and health care providers.
County officials have ended mobile vaccination efforts in rural communities because of the cuts, along with a program that provided free bus passes for residents to get to medical appointments.
Michele Axlund is the Coconino County Health Director.
“One of our largest hits came to our senior population and our veteran population, which was our vaccine equity program, so that was a real hard hit at the last second," Axlund says.
Axlund says the cuts have also reduced the county’s ability to monitor infectious diseases at a time when measles cases are on the uptick in the Southwest.
"Healthcare is about prevention. [...] So, are we as robust as we would love to be?" Axlund says. "We are not due to those cuts."
Forty additional federal grants, some of which provide rental assistance and serve women, infants and children in Coconino County, are also at risk.
County Supervisor Patrice Horstman says there aren’t enough local dollars to fill the gaps.
"Are we gonna have enough money to cover the federal programs? Absolutely not," Horstman says. "That would be an impossibility without cutting other major programs that are needed for our communities and our residents. We just don't have enough to cover. I mean, that's why you have partnerships with the states, why you have partnerships with the federal government."
Coconino County was not alone in feeling the impacts of cuts.
Six positions in Navajo County’s health department were eliminated, and three others were reduced from full-time to part-time.
Elsewhere, the Tuba City Regional Healthcare Corporation was forced to scale down its disease investigation team.
