As the Long Beach City Council continued its budget hearings for the 2026 fiscal year, it became apparent Tuesday evening that one of the most important departments was also one of the most in trouble.
Long Beach is one of four California cities with its own health department, along with Pasadena, Berkley and Vernon. While this has its advantages, like being able to implement specific responses to local health issues, Long Beach’s Health Department is still mostly at the mercy of state and federal grants.
These grants have begun shrinking or disappearing altogether under President Donald Trump’s second term, which has seen an unprecedented attack on health and science across the country.
“It’s difficult to see the position that you’re in financially … We didn’t anticipate that you would be under an all-out attack from the federal government and I will say we’re doing our best to prepare financially,” said Mayor Rex Richardson, after what he called a “painful presentation” from the Health Department.
“Long term, if we value public health, we have to have a bigger conversation as a city about what it takes to make our public Health Department less dependent on the federal government,” he continued.
It seems those conversations will have to wait though, since the Health Department’s budget is operating at a 25.8% decrease compared to last year. Federal funding cuts are the “principal driver” of this financial pressure, Health Department Director Alison King said.
The Long Beach Health Department’s budget can be broken down as follows:
- $38,663,102 for employee salaries and wages
- $28,526,180 for employee benefits
- $395,085 for overtime
- $124,494,254 for materials, supplies and services
- $9,299620 in interfund transfers
- $150,150 for insurance premium and losses
- $441,464 for operating transfers
It’s the department with the sixth highest budget at $201 million, and most of its revenue coming from federal grants. In the face of a shrinking budget, King requested one-time funds to continue violence prevention and youth-focused programs.
Budget requests from the Health Department:
- $374,772 for the Community Crisis Response team, which responds to mental health crises
- $324,441 for the Youth Participatory Budget
- $272,234 for the Complaint Response Team, which addresses street vendor compliance
- $175,000 for a Youth Development Coordinator position
- $134,224 for a worker in the Violence Healing Response team, which helps survivors of gun violence
- $128,286 for three vehicles to conduct field inspections
- $30,000 for the Annual Youth Summit
- $26,000 for indirect costs of Housing Authority programs
- $14,760 for a new maintenance vehicle
- $1,893 to upgrade a medical assistant position to a vocational nurse position
Main Takeaway: Federal funding cuts hurt an already underfunded department
The Health Department is operating with a 28% vacancy rate, and expecting to lose more workers. Since the beginning of the year, the department has had to cut 10 positions, and King said another five will be lost in September.
King said in order to prepare employees for “potential displacement,” they’re providing focused transition assistance like resume and interview coaching, internal redeployment searches and access to benefits such as retirement and counseling.
“For years we’ve known that this moment would come. The Department of Health has long been underfunded, receiving only 6-7% of the general fund allocations,” said Karla Jordan, who identified herself as a city employee. “This level of investment does not reflect the essential role public health plays in the wellbeing of our community.”
The Health Department was forced to turn a full-time position in the Healthy Aging Center/Older Adult Services into a part-time position due to the city’s decreasing oil revenue.
In July, Long Beach announced that $1.3 million in federal funding for its STI (Sexually Transmitted Infections) and HIV prevention and education programs was cut. As a result, the department had to cut several programs including its mobile testing unit for HIV/STI, testing and treatment at the Ron Arias Health Equity Center and PrEP navigation services. Richardson said that these cuts will be a priority.
The department was in danger of losing the Community Crisis Response (CCR) team, which responds to non-emergency mental health and resource-based calls of crisis instead of police officers, due to nearly $1 million in expected funding being cut.
By using Measure A and one-time funds, the City was able to keep the CCR team going, and City Manager Tom Modica said they’re working on getting funding for the future. Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie emphasized the importance of this program in light of the City’s Racial Reconciliation goals, since it largely benefits Black residents according to the City’s online dashboard.
The City has also lost $900,000 in funding for SNAP education, which will begin to affect residents starting in late September. Changes to public benefits will most heavily impact low-income immigrants, King said, since federal guidelines on who can receive these benefits are now “unclear.” She said case managers and health educators now need new training on Medi-Cal and SNAP benefits due to these uncertainties, but they will likely see a decrease in program usage.
They’ve also seen a $137,725 reduction in federal funding for childhood vaccine programs.
Councilmember Suely Saro asked how helpful the State has been in light of federal cuts, but Community Development Director Christopher Koontz pointed out that the State is also in a “fiscal crisis.” King said the State does help fund certain programs, but they haven’t updated their funding to align with rising costs.
“I think it’s kind of like there’s nobody here to save us, but we gotta save ourselves, is kind of the point of my questions,” Saro said. “I think we are going to keep looking for partnerships, but it’s really going to come back right down to the departments not only figuring out areas where we’re going to have to decrease programs, but also thinking of other ways that we could find alternatives.”
Additional Notes
To address the tuberculosis (TB) outbreak in 2024, the Health Department is adding four part-time administrative positions to add two health educators and a community program specialist.
Last month, the City announced the five-person Community Crisis Response team, which handles mental health and resource-focused situations in the place of police officers, would begin taking calls citywide. Since then, King said their calls have tripled, for an average of 5-10 calls a day.
The Complaint Response Team handles situations dealing with street vendors suspected of operating without a permit. The team responded to 170 calls last year and confiscated equipment from 26 vendors, according to a report from the department.
