Nebraska Department Of Health & Human Services

The Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services, doing business as the Nebraska Food Distribution Program, is a U.S. state government entity operating as a recipient of federal grants—not a federal contractor. The entity administers federal entitlements, block grants, formula grants, and cooperative agreements across health, human services, nutrition assistance, child welfare, Medicaid, and aging programs statewide, serving as the pass-through mechanism that distributes federal dollars to local service providers, county governments, community action agencies, and nonprofit organizations across Nebraska. Nebraska DHHS holds no federal contract prime awards and competes in no set-asides; its federal footprint comprises 1,899 prime grant awards across 82 federal agencies, with 99 percent prime grant work and 1 percent sub-recipient activity.

The entity's award portfolio anchors in social services and public health administration. The top five funding agencies by award count—Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families (203 awards), Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service (187 awards), HHS Administration for Children and Families again (183 awards, a likely data artifact), HHS Administration for Community Living (115 awards), and HHS Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (96 awards)—account for 41 percent of recent awards. When ranked by potential value, the CDC Pittsburgh office leads with 35 awards carrying $10.3 million in combined potential value, reflecting vital statistics and National Death Index data collection work under a $3.1 million Indefinite Delivery Contract through April 2027. Recent named grant work includes a $655.587 million Rural Health Transformation Program cooperative agreement from CMS awarded December 2025 to build a prevention-first, technology-enabled rural health care system across Nebraska with sub-recipients spanning district health departments, hospitals, and health centers; a $160.984 million Foster Care Title IV-E block grant from the Administration for Children and Families (October 2025, through September 2026) distributing funds to counties and providers delivering out-of-home care and kinship navigator programs; a $153.591 million Child Care and Development Block Grant (October 2025, through September 2028) for subsidized child care assistance; a $141.568 million Temporary Assistance for Needy Families block grant (October 2025, through September 2026) funding child advocacy and abuse investigation services; and a $7.893 billion Medicaid entitlement block grant (October 2025, through September 2026) distributing medical assistance funding to counties and health departments.

Activity has remained flat across the past five years—108 awards in 2022, declining to 88 in both 2024 and 2025, with only ten awards recorded in 2026 year-to-date by the source date. Eighty-eight awards are approaching ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months, carrying combined potential value of $246 thousand and presenting recompete windows primarily for renewal of recurring formula grants and block grants across child welfare, nutrition assistance, aging services, and Medicaid administration. Nebraska DHHS sub-awards minimally (1 percent of portfolio); named sub-recipients appear as local recipients of pass-through funding rather than prime contractors serving DHHS—examples include sub-awards to the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska for suicide prevention work, the Nebraska Department of Transportation for injury surveillance coordination, and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists for influenza education programming.

The entity's role is fundamentally administrative and distributive. As the state designating agency for federal entitlements, Nebraska DHHS receives block grants, formula grants, and cooperative agreements and immediately sub-awards the funds to qualified local service providers—county governments, local health departments, community action agencies, Area Agencies on Aging, nonprofit service organizations, and tribal entities—to deliver direct services. Examples from the source include passing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program administrative funding to Foodbank For The Heartland for outreach and enrollment support; distributing Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant funding ($10.329 million, October 2025) to over a dozen sub-recipients including the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, Lincoln City Health Department, and community health centers for STI education, well-child visit expansion, and youth mental health initiatives; and channeling Community Services Block Grant funding ($13.022 million, October 2025) through nine community action partnerships across the state for poverty reduction and family self-sufficiency services. The entity's sub-award volume is not driven by prime contractor roles but by its statutory obligation to administer and distribute federal dollars to local service delivery networks.

No federal contract vehicles or parent contract IDVs support this entity's work, though the source names a $3.1 million single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract with CDC Pittsburgh for vital statistics data collection supporting the National Death Index program through April 2027, from which delivery orders for purchases of vital statistics services and food distribution support have been issued. The entity operates under no SBA set-aside certifications and does not compete for federal contracts; federal awards flow exclusively through grant programs under the Medicaid, SNAP, WIC, child welfare, aging services, behavioral health, and child nutrition statutes.