CORTLAND — If proposed budget cuts at the state and federal levels are approved, a federal CDC grant for emergency preparedness received by the Trumbull County Combined Health District will be reduced by 28%, which will force the county to reduce the hours of its emergency preparedness coordinator.

That was the bad news that Health Commissioner Frank Migliozzi delivered to the county’s health board Wednesday. However, he said every county health department in Ohio will experience the same reduction.

Trumbull County is expected to lose between $38,000 and $40,000 because of the proposed federal and state cuts.

“There will be some lesser amounts of deliverables we will have to do because of this reduction,” Migliozzi said. “Yes, the funding will be reduced, but the workload also will be reduced. This grant is currently being used for emergency preparedness, such as disasters, outbreaks and weather events.”

Because of the reduction, the person working full-time as an emergency preparedness coordinator would have their hours reduced to 24 hours.

In addition to the reduction of the CDC funds, Migliozzi expressed concern about how Ohio’s budget negotiations may affect various grants the department has applied for and received.

Grants that could be affected are the Help Me Grow expansion, youth tobacco prevention, get vaccinated, Cribs for Kids and overdose harm reduction.

“For the most part, they all come due after July 1,” Migliozzi said. “Some of these grants are competitive, so we don’t know if we’ll receive them.”

“It is very hard to plan until we know what we will receive or will not receive,” he said.

Migliozzi said one of the department’s nurses and a home visitor are expected to leave before the end of the year.

“We are going to wait and see what we will do, depending on whether we get funding,” he said.

Migliozzi also noted they are watching to see if the bills that are proposed to either reduce or eliminate the inside millage from property taxes are enacted.

“Although we do not have a property levy, we do get income from inside millage from the townships,” he said. “Inside millage helps us do a lot of the mandated programs that we are required to do, but we don’t receive funding.”

Examples of mandated, but unfunded requirements, include rabies and vector control; raccoon exposure that must be sent to the state to be tested costs the county $260 per specimen; disease outbreak and communicable disease investigations, nuisance investigations, unfit housing investigations, inspection of schools, sewer tie-ins and more.

“That’s the inside millage money we are using to do these functions,” Migliozzi said.