AEGiS-BAR: AIDS allocations looking good in Sacto

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

AIDS allocations looking good in Sacto

The Bay Area Reporter - Thursday, May 20, 1999
M.R. Richards, B.A.R. capitol correspondent

AIDS agencies and supporters are elated that Governor Gray Davis's revised budget proposal of May 14 will allow significant implementation of services to HIV and AIDS patients. That elation is a far cry from the shock waves felt in January when the AIDS community got a look at the governor's first budget proposal: although it assured full funding for the California AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), which provides life-prolonging medical and drug treatments for those who cannot afford them, it also proposed that more than $9 million of state monies should go back into the state's general fund since ADAP funding is now primarily from federal sources.

Since January, AIDS advocates have been calling on Davis and the Legislature to restore those funds so that sorely underfunded care, prevention, and housing programs as well a outreach to communities of color and youth could be implemented.

Although it's expected that there will be some adjustment of the final amounts, the governor's budget allocates $9.2 million and the Assembly subcommittee raised that to $11.9 million this week. It remains to be seen what numbers the Senate subcommittee will come up with on Thursday, May 20, after which the entire budget will go to the Budget Conference Committee to work out final details.

Fred Dillon, state policy director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, has been in Sacramento fighting for restoration of that state funding. "Many items specifically earmarked in the governor's revised budget û such as early intervention programs, residential care facilities for the chronically ill, partner counseling and referral services, prevention evaluation and behavioral surveillance, restoring HIV testing at family planning clinics, communities of color, women, men who have sex with men, and youth û are all areas which for years have been either unfunded or underfunded," Dillon told the Bay Area Reporter.

"The governor responded to our requests that AIDS money stay in the AIDS budget. He has shown his continued commitment to fighting this epidemic. He has shown his leadership with this good first step," he added.

Dillon said the problems of dealing with AIDS have become more expensive and more complex with the new medications. Instead of dealing with a doomsday pandemic, at least some of the dynamic has changed. "Think about it," he said, "we now have a 200 percent increase in people living with AIDS. So their needs and treatment become more complex because there are more of them and they're living longerûthe needs are higher."

Although by law the budget is due by June 15, the Legislature hasn't met that deadline in recent memory. It's expected that it will probably be finalized and voted on sometime in late June or July.
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