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Rachael Wheeler got an email the evening of Wednesday, March 26 from the State of Wyoming that federal funding for five preventative health employees in her department was gone.
The message landed in her inbox just hours before employees had to be notified.
Wheeler, the county’s interim health director, said the move is one of many preventive health programs to have been axed by the Trump administration. A coalition of 23 states, not including Wyoming, is suing the Trump administration for rescinding $11 billion in federal funds that go toward COVID-19 initiatives and other public health projects. The Wyoming Department of Health lost about $40 million in federal grants, Wyoming Public Media reported March 27.
In Teton County, the health disparities grant funded three positions for a community health worker program starting in 2021 and slated to end in mid-2026. The financial loss of the premature cut amounts to $175,000 for programs alone, not including the five employees’ salaries, Wheeler said. Programs included the Latina Empowerment Circle and a program at the library helping the public with medicaid applications and understanding medical bills.
“The whole point of the grant,” Wheeler said, “was to help people who are disproportionately impacted through COVID.”
Also cut are two employees who worked on the county’s vaccine efforts. That program was slated to end sooner, in June 2025, but the abrupt announcement means workers are laid off three months ahead of schedule.
The county is looking to dip into a salary savings reserve to keep those employees on for at least the next 30 days, according to the Teton County Board of County Commissioners Administrator Jodie Pond.
That’s in case the funds are reinstated via a judge’s order or any other avenue. Pond said it’s the county’s attempt to give employees some sort of cushion.
Pond formerly held Wheeler’s position in Teton County and has worked in public health for 35 years. Though she’s seen economic downturns and layoffs before, this tourniquet of state funds has been the most abrupt.
She said it shows “prevention is not valued” by the Trump administration.
Broadly, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a time of expansion for public and preventative health, Wheeler said.
“There was wastewater surveillance and a variety of other things that states had never been able to pay for before,” she said, “and it was incredible.”
“We’re now in a time of contraction,” she said.
