Shasta Public Health to “scale back” on services after $2 million in new budget cuts 

Amid ongoing budget shortfalls at Shasta County’s Health and Human Services Agency, the county confirmed this week that an additional $2 million is being cut from the Public Health budget. 

Public Health Deputy Director Shellisa Moore said that the department will be “scaling back on the level of services” as vacant positions are cut and some programs handed off to community partners.

HHSA is already facing an agency-wide financial crisis, visible largely as a severe shortage in the social services fund. Public Health is a branch within HHSA which works to protect community health by providing clinical services and addressing community-wide issues such as disease response and suicide prevention. 

The $2 million cut is being made partially in response to H.R.1, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which HHSA Director Christy Coleman noted during the agency’s budget hearing would likely affect HHSA’s budget, though the exact impacts were “unknown” at the time.

Now that the state’s budget has been set, it’s clear that one of H.R.1’s major impacts on California counties is its reduction of the number of individuals eligible for Medi-Cal, a program that provides health coverage for low-income California residents. The change will result in the county needing to pick up the tab for healthcare coverage for some newly uninsured individuals, something that will occur through the County Medical Services Program, which is funded through Public Health. 

“In part, this budget reduction intended to help prepare to cover some of these costs,” HHSA Public Health Branch Director Katie Cassidy wrote in an email to Shasta Scout this week. In response to follow up questions, Deputy Director Moore added that the budget reduction is also the result of losses in grant funding for programs, including those intended to prevent suicides and adverse child experiences. 

Last month, county supervisors approved a budget which set Public Health’s funds at $25 million, a $2 million reduction from last year. Together with the additional $2 million in cuts this month, Public’s Health’s current budget represents a 15% reduction from last year’s budget. 

The latest cuts will result in some projects previously managed by Public Health Staff being transitioned to “community partners,” Cassidy said, though the department did not provide specifics about which programs would be transitioned or to whom. 

“HHSA’s Public Health branch has started the process of gathering community partner interest for a potential program transition,” HHSA Public Health Branch Deputy Director Shellisa Moore wrote by email yesterday, “but it’s too early in the process to share details at this time.”

“Overall, she said, Public Health is scaling back on the level of services, while making sure services are still being provided to clients.”

While it’s unclear which Public Health programs would be impacted, the department delivers a variety of programs that support the health and well-being of residents. Beyond providing clinical services and responding to public health emergencies such as disease outbreaks, Public Health also provides maternal and child health programs and support for aging individuals through both Alzheimer’s and dementia prevention and care. 

These kinds of services are particularly critical in Shasta, where many public health statistics are significantly worse than the state average. The county faces the second highest mortality rate in California, as well as a suicide rate which is more than twice California’s overall rate. 

Public Health is also scaling back on staffing. Ten vacant positions will be deleted from Public Health as a result of the new budget cuts. Numbers shared by Cassidy indicate that the department has now lost a third of its ranks within the last three years, moving from 177 positions in July 2023 to 115 as of this month. 

Vacant positions deleted from Public Health to accommodate the recent $2 million cut include leadership roles such as the department’s public health program manager and two community development coordinators.

Cassidy said her department is also saving money by shifting staff from state-funded projects to grant-funded projects, moving vehicles from the Public Health fleet to other county departments, and not renewing memberships with the Health Association of California, American Public Health Association, and National Association of County and City Health Officials. 

Updates to the Public Health budget to reflect recent cuts will be formalized with the mid-year budget review, Cassidy said, which typically occurs around February. 

Moe Shimizu is a student at Yale University. She’s reporting for Shasta Scout as a 2026 summer intern, with support from the Nonprofit Newsroom Internship Program — created by The Scripps Howard Fund and the Institute for Nonprofit News.

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