This year has been marked by widespread uncertainty for grant recipients across Alaska. The federal government has rescinded billions of dollars in health grant funding, including millions in the state.
Many state grants use money from the federal government. So, direct cuts to federal funding on top of state budget concerns have also caused uncertainty around state grants.
“When the state doesn’t know whether they’re going to get the federal funding, then they can’t assure us that we’ll have it to spend,” said McKay Bryson, director of grants for the Petersburg Medical Center.
McKay Bryson said the hospital uses grants to fund various programs and projects — everything from youth programs to staff to constructing new medical buildings.
She said the Petersburg Medical Center lost part of a $100,000 state grant after federal funding was recalled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March.
The grant used pandemic funding to improve rural school districts’ access to healthcare. That money was funding a part-time school nurse and a behavioral health clinician at Petersburg’s schools.
“Those positions are critical. They’re vital,” said McKay Bryson. “But the school district has funding challenges, behavioral health has funding challenges.”
She said that this grant was a way to help fund those student services.
That grant was already paying for those positions last school year, but the funding disappeared two months before the school year ended due to the recall.
When the CDC recalled that funding, the state had to ask the hospital to return over $30,000. Due to the confusion around the recall, it took two more weeks for the hospital to learn that the grant was rescinded. They’d already spent over $8,000 between when the grant was stopped and when PMC was notified.
“Now, that’s no black eye on the state, because the state was also trying to figure out how to handle this fully unprecedented callback of funds,” said McKay Bryson. “Our state partners worked really hard to make sure that people got timely information and were supported in that process, even as many of them were losing their jobs.”
Petersburg’s hospital and school district worked together to keep the program going, and the district ended up using other grants and general fund money to help bridge the gap. The district and the hospital say they plan to keep the services going next year.
McKay Bryson said the hospital also recently learned it would no longer be receiving two sponsorships from the state health department — one was to support hypertension and diabetes prevention, and the other was focused on heart disease and stroke prevention.
Sponsorships are different from grants, but the hospital would have received a combined total of $20,000 between the two.
McKay Bryson said PMC tries to spread out how it uses its grants so that programs and positions don’t suddenly disappear if funding dries up.
Even with so much uncertainty, the hospital still has many grants to support its programming. This year, the hospital received multiple grants to help fund its youth programs. They also received a federal grant to help develop a rural health network with two other hospitals.
The hospital also has many multi-year grants that will continue to fund services for the next year, such as fall prevention, telepsychiatry, and adult day programs.
In an email, McKay Bryson wrote that even with this year’s uncertain grant landscape, “our grants forecast at PMC is actually looking pretty solid, so we’ve just been lucky compared to many of our partners across the state this year.”
She said the hospital is focusing on community partnerships. They already partner with many organizations in Petersburg, like the Petersburg Indian Association, the school district, and Petersburg Parks & Recreation.
McKay Bryson said the hospital isn’t the only community organization dealing with grant issues.
“I am aware that some of our partners are dealing with a lot of drain on their capacity to deal with these changes in grant funding,” she said. “What I would love for us to be able to do as much as possible is to carry on our tradition of partnering, and to show up for those community partners who are more affected by this grant uncertainty.”
McKay Bryson said the hospital is looking for opportunities to partner with the community and keep programs afloat.
Correction: this story has been updated to reflect the total funding lost in the rescinded state grant.
