The Trump administration and DOGE have cut off a $600,000 grant to the McHenry County Health Department being used toward respiratory surveillance and outbreak response.
McHenry County Department of Health Public Health Administrator Melissa Adamson told Lake and McHenry County Scanner on Tuesday that the health department recently had a Respiratory Surveillance and Outbreak Response grant terminated.
The $600,000 grant was primarily for disease surveillance, investigation, control and reporting of respiratory outbreaks.
The grant also included onsite infection prevention education in high-risk congregate settings, such as nursing homes and homeless shelters.
“This work is already required and will continue regardless of the grant,” Adamson said.
Adamson said the health department will continue to provide guidance and consultation to long-term care facilities for outbreak management.
Other budgeted costs included media campaigns, supplies, a portion of electronic medical record system costs and more.
The health department had received $150,000 of the grant upfront in accordance with the terms of the contract.
The Respiratory Surveillance and Outbreak Response grant application was overseen by the State of Illinois.
The grant began in July 2024 and was set to end in June 2026. 92 health departments throughout the state were grant recipients for a total funding of $24,317,304, state records show.
The grant funding cuts are just a small portion of cuts made by President Donald Trump’s administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, also referred to as “DOGE,” which is led by Elon Musk.
The agency says that they have saved $155 billion through a combination of “asset sales, contract/lease cancellations and renegotiations, fraud and improper payment deletion, grant cancellations, interest savings, programmatic changes, regulatory savings, and workforce reductions.”