Update: On Thursday afternoon, the U.S. House passed the Senate’s version of the bill.

Cuyahoga County officials are breaking out early estimates of how local social services would suffer under the “Big Beautiful” federal bill.

The expected effects include $7 million in increased cost to the county to administer food assistance benefits, and 35,000 residents possibly losing Medicaid if they don’t begin working, officials told Cuyahoga County Council members in a committee meeting Wednesday.

The federal spending bill would make significant cuts to the nation’s social safety net programs for low-income people, including Medicaid and SNAP, or food assistance. The cuts are intended to offset the costs of President Trump’s priorities, including income tax cuts and immigration enforcement. 

“The potential impacts on Cuyahoga County are large,” Council President Dale Miller said, adding that the bill would significantly increase the workload for the county’s Jobs and Family Services office. “And it’s going to be a major impact and difficult to deal with.”

Kevin Gowan, the director of Cuyahoga Job and Family Services, said that the local impacts he’s predicting are similar in both the House and Senate versions of the bill. The U.S. House ultimately passed the Senate’s version of the bill, sending it to President Trump’s desk on Thursday afternoon.

$7 million loss to county budget

Administering federal benefits can be a hefty undertaking: county Job and Family Service offices must process significant amounts of paperwork from residents applying for programs like SNAP and Medicaid. On top of applications, residents often have to bring in things like pay stubs and IDs – and sometimes may need to complete an interview. 

Last year, the county received about $13 million from the federal government to provide SNAP benefits to county residents. 

But both the House and Senate versions of the bill cut in half the amount of money the federal government gives states to administer the benefits. Depending on which version of the bill goes into effect, the reduction could occur this October or next October. 

Because of this, Cuyahoga County is predicting it will lose about $7 million in federal help to give out SNAP benefits. That equates to about 90 case workers, Gowan said. 

“There will be longer waits for services as simply the administrative load increases,” he told County Council members. 

Many residents already complain that wait times when calling the JFS office are too long. Gowan said wait times have recently decreased by 75%.

David Merriman, the county’s director of the Department of Health and Human Services, said it’s unclear right now how the county could fill the funding gap. It’s already facing a $25 million deficit, according to cleveland.com. The newspaper also reported the budget is being strained by high delinquency rates from property taxes, as property values grow ever higher. 

“This is the problem,” Merriman said. “It’s going to cost more for us to operate the SNAP program while there is less money for us to do that.”

Gowan said it is possible that the state of Ohio could help pick up some of the cost. 

Council Member Yvonne Conwell, chair of the county’s Health and Human Services Committee, said she doesn’t think asking for higher local levies will be the solution to social service gaps the federal bill leaves. 

35,000 Cuyahoga County residents at risk of losing Medicaid

Both the House and Senate versions of the bill include a new, federal work requirement for certain people who rely on Medicaid. The work requirements would start no later than December 2026, Gowan said.

About 35,000 Cuyahoga County residents enrolled in Medicaid who will need to meet the new requirement may currently not, Gowan said. County records do not show those 35,000 as being employed or enrolled in school. 

Some of those residents may qualify for work-requirement exemptions. Those exemptions are not finalized, but could include having a dependent child, pregnancy, a substance use disorder or other disabling diagnoses.

The estimate does not include residents who may lose coverage because of increased re-certification requirements that both the House and Senate bills include. 

“Every time a client has to complete paperwork, there’s a chance to lose benefits,” Gowan said. “Because of missed deadlines, missed documents or other errors.”

Ohio state budget

The state budget, which Gov. Mike DeWine signed into law Monday, also includes language that could end Medicaid expansion in Ohio if the federal government provides fewer matching dollars for the program. 

But Gowan said neither the House nor Senate versions of the federal bills are likely to trigger Ohio’s cancellation of Medicaid expansion.

“That could change in the 11th hour, but they have not reduced the expansion funding yet at the federal level,” Gowan said.  

State legislators had also included a change in Ohio’s budget that could have kicked young children and babies off Medicaid. It would have required children under the age of 4 to re-enroll in the program continuously, like adults do, instead of presuming eligibility, to save money. 

The proposal frustrated and concerned children’s advocates and medical providers. Dàna Langford, the CEO and medical director of Village of Healing, said that children would lose insurance because of it. 

The supposed savings come from “hoping that a family forgets,” Langford said. “And in that process, the family forgets, the child is dropped from insurance, and now that child is only going to get medical care when they are absolutely sick and there’s no other choice but to get to the ER. And now there’s a bill on top of that.”

DeWine ultimately vetoed the measure, but lawmakers could override that veto with a three-fifths majority vote.