June Policy Education Meeting Recap
As of June 22, 2025
There is a lot happening both at the state and federal level that will have a substantial impact on North Carolina, including the intellectual and developmental disability community. I wanted to take a few minutes to update you.
This email is much more complicated than I would like, but there is just too much going on. For that reason, I have provided a lot of links with additional information. Please let me know if you see anything that needs to be corrected or updated.
- North Carolina DHHS had an update on June 20th at 10 am on the impact to North Carolina based on the proposed cuts to SNAP (food stamps) and Medicaid. It was not recorded but you can find the NC DHHS Impact to SNAP and Medicaid 6/20/25 Power Point presentation through this link. The topline messages are:
- SNAP proposals will shift up to $700 million costs to the state, potentially forcing the state to end its SNAP program.
- Medicaid proposals will remove hundreds of thousands of hard-working North Carolinians, harm rural communities, and put further strain on our counties and health care system.
- Last week, at the NCCDD Policy Education Meeting, NC DHHS provided updates on federal proposals impacting Medicaid and SNAP. While some of the impact has changed (and become more concerning) due to a U.S. Senate proposal released on Monday, June 16th, it is still worth reviewing. The Power Point presentation from Heather Strickland, Senior Director of Communications, can be found here. You can find additional information from NC DHHS as follows:
- President Trump and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have released their detailed budget. It proposes eliminating our sister organization, the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities and all University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, which is deeply concerning. It proposes continuing level funding for Councils on Developmental Disabilities and Protection and Advocacy Organizations (P&As), although P&As face other potential cuts. It also has potential cuts to programs important to people with developmental disabilities including LIHEAP (which is heating assistance during the winter), Community Block Grants, and other programs. There are also significant cuts to public housing in the proposed HUD Budget. You can find all of the President’s proposed budgets here. [Since this document is more than 1,200 pages, I recommend going first to the Department of Health and Human Services budget on page 325 and the Department of Housing and Urban Development Budget on page 461. Also, you can hold down CONTROL and F on your keyboard to find key words in the document such as “developmental” to find where developmental disabilities is mentioned. You can use other key words to find other information you want to learn about in the document]. It is important to understand that the President’s budget is a starting point for negotiations with the U.S. House and Senate and ultimately the appropriations for Departments will need to be passed by both the House and Senate. The negotiations over the budgets for HUD and US DHHS will likely happen later in the year after attempts to pass the Medicaid and SNAP proposals in the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
- In North Carolina, the NC House and NC Senate have both released their budgets. Neither have any additional Innovations Waivers or any increase for Direct Support Professional rates. There is also a cut of ten million dollars to NC DHHS in the House Budget to eliminate vacancies at NC DHHS. That budget cut explicitly exempts from being cut: the Division of Public Health, DSOFT, and the Division of Aging. This will likely mean significantly higher cuts to vocational rehabilitation at the Division of Employment and Independence for People with Disabilities and the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Use Services, in my opinion. It will likely be much later in the summer when the NC House and Senate and the Governor reach a compromise budget. They might wait to find out what happens to the One Big Beautiful Bill. Also, the Healthy Opportunities Pilot program was not funded by either the House or the Senate. The Healthy Opportunities Pilot had created innovations and savings for the disability community, Medicaid recipients in western North Carolina and coastal North Carolina, and for the state. The hope had been to expand it to the whole state. You can learn more about the Healthy Opportunities Pilot program here and here.
And, finally, we are deeply saddened and wishing the best recovery possible to the former Chair of the Minnesota Council on Developmental Disabilities Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman after the terrible shooting in Minnesota this past weekend. We wish the very best for their daughter, disability rights advocate Hope Hoffman, who has been a very important champion for the ADA and Section 504. We extend our deepest sympathies to the families of Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, who were killed in the shootings.
There is so much going on. I know it is very challenging to keep up with it all. And it is all concerning. That said, I am so grateful to have this community of advocates. This is our moment to advocate. Therefore, the most important thing to do is to continue to voice your opinions about what matters most to you with your U.S. Senators, your U.S. House Member, and your NC Representative and Senator. You can find all of their contacts here.
Wishing you the best as the summer gets hotter!
Talley Wells
Executive Director, NCCDD
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The North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities' public policy efforts are to promote public policy information that educates and informs the people we serve and key decision-makers. We support policies that encourage the integration between people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD), those who support them, and the community.
The North Carolina Council on Developmental Disabilities provides public policy education. It does not lobby on specific legislation.
Join our Public Policy Education Meetings on the second Thursday of every month. They are free and open to the public.
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