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The New York City Council passed a resolution on Thursday urging the New York State Legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul to reverse a 2019 cut to the city’s reimbursement rate for essential public health services.
Across New York, local health departments provide core public health services like communicable disease control and family health programs, which are eligible for state reimbursement through a statutory mechanism called Article 6.
In 2019, Gov. Andrew Cuomo cut New York City’s reimbursement rate from 36% to 20%. For the city, that reduction has translated to an annual loss of up to $90 million for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for essential services, including tuberculosis control, according to city health leaders.
“There’s monies that are reimbursed back to every county in the state of New York for community health services, and New York state decided, in 2019, to take some of that money away from New York City,” Council Member Lynn Schulman, chair of the Health Committee and sponsor of the resolution, said in remarks before the vote.
The result is a significant funding reduction “for community health services that affect every district,” said Schulman, a Queens Democrat.
The resolution passed by the City Council is a show of support for an effort in Albany to reverse Cuomo’s move. The measure calls for the legislature to pass, and Hochul to sign, a bill sponsored by Assembly Member Jessica González-Rojas, a Queens Democrat, that would restore an equal reimbursement rate for municipalities across the state. Sen. Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat and chair of the Senate Health Committee, sponsors his chamber’s version of the bill.
During the City Council meeting, Speaker Adrienne Adams, a Queens Democrat, warned of the local impact of efforts in Congress and by the administration of President Donald Trump to cut Medicaid and downsize the nation’s public health infrastructure.
“They have cut the public health workforce at a time when we are grappling with spikes in the flu, norovirus, a bird flu outbreak, and the spread of other diseases,” she said.
During a rally at City Hall Park before the meeting, community health advocates echoed Adams' concerns about cuts to federal health dollars. Those looming reductions, they said, lend urgency to their efforts to increase the city’s Article 6 funding.
“It’s fair to say that we are under federal threat,” González-Rojas said.
The city Health Department receives about $600 million per year from the federal government, and Dr. Michelle Morse, the acting health commissioner, told Healthbeat that restored Article 6 funds could prove protective if federal cuts occur.
Locally, the loss of state aid has curtailed city health services, advocates said.
“The slashing of Article 6 funding impacts the ability of these communities to have equitable access to public health services,” said Felicia Singh, the director of policy and government relations at the Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, an advocacy organization.
David Alexis, coordinator for the Commission on the Public’s Health System, a community-based advocacy organization, said that family members with conditions like asthma and sickle cell disease rely on the Health Department’s community-based initiatives.
“If we are going to make sure we can take care of one another at a time when we have a federal administration that is looking to divest in what we as New Yorkers need, we absolutely need to do every single thing that we can to invest in our critical health systems,” he said.
Eliza Fawcett is a reporter covering public health in New York City for Healthbeat. Contact Eliza at efawcett@healthbeat.org .
