Sobering news for supervisors: Kern County could lose $529 million in federal funding
The Kern County government has dealt with budget deficits many times before. For county supervisors, prioritizing shortfall spending is literally part of the job description. The solutions are limited – cut programs and services, freeze hiring, seek alternate funding sources.
The crisis before the board now will require some of those same choices, but this time it's different. The task at hand is borderline apocalyptic – with federal support for a number of programs disappearing or in danger of disappearing in the wake of the Trump administration's cuts.
The county receives $529 million annually from federal sources, either directly or through state allocations, for things like social services, workforce training, and child support services. Now that's in question.
Also at risk is state funding for safety net programs like Medi-Cal, independent of what Washington does with Medicaid cuts.
All of that will weigh heavily on residents of Kern County, where 19% of the population lives in poverty – a figure 1.5 times higher than the statewide average of 12.3 percent. East Bakersfield has a poverty rate of 44.8 percent, more than twice as high as the state of Mississippi.
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Of particular concern on the home front: a shortfall that will hit the Department of Public Health right in the gut. The department is already facing state-mandated cost of living increases for health care workers. Then, seven weeks ago, without warning, the federal Centers for Disease Control rescinded $10.5 million in funding for the county department, for this fiscal year and next.
Public Health Director Brynn Carrigan laid out some of the painful details at Tuesday morning's Board of Supervisors meeting. She fears cuts to immunization programs, communicable disease remediation, mobile services, health education, lab equipment for testing and much more.
'We rescinded multiple job offers to prospective employees,' Carrigan said. 'We issued an immediate internal hiring freeze, an overtime freeze, as well as a spending and travel restriction within our department. However, given the compounding pressures of increased costs and shrinking resources, we are no longer able to sustain status quo operations in our existing workforce without additional support.'
Lito Morillo of the Department of Human Services said Cal Works, Cal Fresh and Medi-Cal are facing a new reality.
'They're looking at reducing Medicaid by $880 billion,' he said. 'That's about a 12% reduction. I've said that there were about 400,000 people or so receiving Medi-Cal in Kern County. That would be about 50,000 people eventually losing out.'
Michael Turnipseed of the Kern County Taxpayers Association said the federal government's withdrawal from the long-running practice of helping fund local services will require reorganization like nothing local governments have ever experienced.
'We've seen recessions, we've seen this, we've seen that,' he said, 'but I really think you're seeing fundamental change. The fork of the road is here.'
How will these changes affect the lives of ordinary residents? The full details are yet to come, but rest assured – it will be significant.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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