Dallas County has sued the Trump administration, seeking to restore millions of dollars in public health grants that were cut last year, funding that other states and counties have recovered in similar lawsuits.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 5 in federal court in Washington, challenges the Department of Health and Human Services’ decision in March to rescind more than $11 billion in COVID-era grants that Congress had allocated to states and local governments.
Dallas County says the cuts wiped out funding for programs that extended beyond the pandemic, including immunization clinics for a variety of illnesses, laboratory testing, disease surveillance and public health staffing.
The Dallas County Health and Human Services runs a pop-up monkeypox vaccination clinic at Station 4 in the Oak Lawn neighborhood in Dallas on Friday, September 9, 2022.
Lola Gomez / Staff Photographer
HHS declined to comment on the lawsuit, pointing instead to a previous statement saying the COVID-19 pandemic is over and that the department is redirecting resources toward chronic disease and broader health priorities.
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County officials argue the administration lacked the authority to claw back money appropriated by Congress, and that lawmakers intended the grants to strengthen long-term public health infrastructure and guard against future outbreaks, not expire when the COVID-19 emergency ended.
Federal judges have already accepted similar arguments in other suits. A coalition of 23 Democratic-led states won a court injunction in May that restored some funding while their cases continue. A separate lawsuit by Harris County and local governments in Ohio, Tennessee and Missouri also resulted in a June ruling ordering HHS to reinstate certain funding to those jurisdictions, including about $20 million for Harris County.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, who issued that ruling, also is presiding over Dallas County’s case, filed against the Department of Health and Human Services; HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and CDC acting Director Jim O’Neil.
Dallas County’s lawsuit does not specify an amount of money it is seeking to recover. County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins did not respond to a request for comment on the litigation.
In April, Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Philip Huang said the federal cuts affected about $70 million across three grants, prompting the end of pop-up immunization clinics and the lay off of 21 staff members.
“The abrupt, retroactive termination” of the grants, the lawsuit states, threatens to halt ongoing and lifesaving public health work the county has relied on for years.
The complaint focuses on the Infectious Disease Control Unit grant that helped Dallas County prevent the spread of communicable diseases “through epidemiology, disease surveillance, investigation, monitoring … and to enhance Dallas County’s laboratory testing, reporting, and response capacities.”
It alleges the administration illegally terminated grants nationwide “en masse” without making individual determinations about each jurisdiction’s use of the funds.