On July 31, the Senate Appropriations committee voted 26-3 to advance their spending bill for the Department of Health & Human Services. In doing so, they ignored the White House budget request, which called for a massive re-organization of HHS, which include not only a dismantling of SAMHSA, but also drastic cuts to their grant programs. When all was said and done, SAMHSA may have made out better than most HHS agencies, receiving level funding for FY 2026 and all its grant programs intact.
The Senate legislation in its current form recommends the following:
• Keeps SAMHSA independent and does not create or authorize the Administration for a Healthy America.
• Keeps the three major SAMHSA grants (SUPTR, MHBG, SOR) as separate entities. SUPTR and SOR even received slight increases in a very challenging fiscal environment.
• Rejects the White House proposal to eliminate over $800 million in discretionary grants housed at CSAT, including.
Our advocacy was effective, as several grants that emphasize recovery were funded at current levels. These include the Building Communities of Recovery (BCOR) grant ($17 million), the first responder program to include overdose reversal training ($59 million), Medication Assisted Treatment grants ($111 million), and Treatment, Recovery & Workforce support grants ($12 million).
Of course, the process is far from over. First the full Senate must pass the legislation. The House must also produce and pass its own bill, which could potentially look very different from the Senate bill. Congress must then work out its differences and pass a bill that the president is willing to sign. If this does not happen, we are faced with another Continuing Resolution. A CR would achieve the goal of maintaining the status quo but could also give the White House expanded authority to shift or withhold funds for specific programs.
The House is scheduled to release its appropriations bill for HHS in early September. While we are not aware of their intentions regarding HHS organization, we can say with confidence that the funding amounts in their bill will almost certainly be lower than the Senate’s. Finally, this does not put to bed the issue of potential reorganization at HHS. It can still be attempted at a future date through a different process. For now, having at least one appropriations bill on the record as refuting it is good for advocacy efforts that want to see SAMHSA remain as is.