Editorial: State should maintain spending on local public health programs

As Indiana lawmakers enter their final weeks of work in their 2025 session, they’ll face tough questions about what receives funding and what doesn’t in a year in which there’s little extra money to pass around. One category we urge lawmakers to spare from cuts is public health.

In 2023, the General Assembly approved an unprecedented 1,500% increase in public health funding, allocating $75 million in fiscal year 2024 and $150 million in 2025 to fund county health departments.

All 92 counties have opted into the funding, which requires a local match, and have implemented a variety of programs—including tobacco cessation, lead abatement, immunizations and maternal health—that are meant to address the specific needs of their communities.

The goal is to help local health officials—working with partners, including hospitals and nonprofits—determine their biggest needs and create programs (with state assistance) to address those concerns.

“They live in their community. They go to the church. Their kids are in the school. They know about the young person who committed suicide. They know about substance use problems. They can see the obesity issues in their community,” Dr. Lindsay Weaver, the state’s health commissioner, said last month during IBJ’s Excellence in Health Care event. “And so they were immediately able to get moving on making a difference. … Just in year one, we’re seeing big differences happen in little communities.”

But the biggest changes won’t happen overnight. That’s why we’re concerned that the Legislature won’t maintain adequate funding for the programs.

Already, the House has passed a budget that cuts local public health spending by about one-third—from $150 million in 2025 to a proposed $100 million in 2026 and in 2027. Weaver points out that’s still an enormous increase over the $7 million per year the Legislature allocated for local public health departments in 2023.

We can’t disagree with that, but we encourage lawmakers not to dip below that $100 million in annual funding.

More concerning is that some lawmakers have suggested changes that could take away some of the local decision-making that we believe is key to progress. In a recent public hearing, some Republicans criticized spending on translation services by some counties and $600 spent on condoms to try to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

And Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, complained that the state is “not seeing significant results yet and yet we’re doubling down” on the spending.

We couldn’t disagree more with those sentiments. Public health is key to Indiana’s future—and yet it’s an area where the state has repeatedly failed to make progress. We believe that’s changing, and we urge lawmakers to give the programs time to take root and produce results.•

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