Layoffs of state public health workers have been rescinded by the Minnesota Department of Health two months after it issued them in response to federal grant cuts by the Trump administration.

Ongoing legal challenges to the grant cuts allowed the state to preserve its workforce, according to a statement issued Friday by the Minnesota Department of Health. The state budget is being finalized, with Gov. Tim Walz calling a special legislative session on Monday, and a draft proposal preserves funding for the Health Department as well.

"We celebrate this positive step while also recognizing the disruption and chaos that our staff and partners have had to endure," the department said in its statement.

The department initially announced layoffs in late March for about 170 workers and contractors, after learning that the Trump administration was cutting more than $230 million in public health grants.

The state rescinded most of those layoffs in April, after discovering some of the workers' pay was funded by other sources than the federal grants and the layoffs wouldn't necessarily close the state's budget hole.

The amended plan at the time was to issue new layoff notices to about 100 workers, which would have taken effect in May. But that didn't happen either.

The Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE) union representing the state health workers had criticized the department's handling of the grant cuts and the layoffs that caused so much stress. Other states hadn't been as swift in pursuing layoffs in response to the federal cuts, union leaders argued.

"This whole process has been filled with heartbreak and confusion," said Lydia Fess, a MAPE union representative, in a statement in mid-April. She initially lost her epidemiology job in the first round of cuts before getting it back two weeks later. Fess wasn't immediately available on Friday to comment about the layoffs being rescinded.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison had joined with Democrat colleagues from 15 other states to file a lawsuit that temporarily blocked the grant cuts. The Health Department credited "the ongoing success of the federal court case" for preserving funds so it could maintain its workforce.

Only current staff workers retained their jobs. Temporary and contract positions were not restored.

Walz's administration created a dashboard to highlight the impact of Trump administration cuts on Minnesota. The four Health Department grants at issue all were related to COVID-19 and the public health response to the pandemic, according to the dashboard.

The Trump administration at the time of the cuts argued that the pandemic was over and the funding could be put to more important national priorities.

State leaders argued the grants were COVID in name, but flexible in nature and were helping to immunize more Minnesotans and better prepare the state for other infectious diseases and the next pandemic-level threats.