Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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Bay Windows - July 13, 2006
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com
State Sen. Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) said he is working to make sure that the commission, Safe Schools funding and GMDVP funding are priorities as the Senate and House begin taking up Romney's vetoes. The vote to override a veto must start in the House, and if it passes there it goes to a vote in the Senate. Barrios urged people to call both their state representative and state senator and ask them to put these veto overrides at the top of their list.
"Our chief enemy is the clock running out on the session at the end of July," said Barrios. "It's hard to believe the Legislature will have the time to override all vetoes, so this needs to make the shortlist of representatives and senators, which will only happen if people call their representatives and senators to support the override."
Romney's office did not return a call to comment for this story, but his veto of the proposed Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth continues a trend of hostility by Romney toward LGBT youth programs. In May, just one day before the annual Youth Pride march, Romney threatened to disband the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. He was upset that organizers of Youth Pride, who were selected by the commission, had weeks earlier sent out an unauthorized press release for the event featuring Romney's name and the state seal. When advocates and lawmakers pointed out that no public funds were spent on Youth Pride activities, Romney relented, but his momentary efforts to disband the governor's commission prompted lawmakers to try to create a new commission on gay and lesbian youth that did not fall under his purview. Barrios filed an amendment to the Senate budget creating the new commission that was ultimately adopted by the House and Senate conference committee and included in the budget sent to Romney's desk.
Kathleen Henry, chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, said Romney's veto of the Safe Schools funding would have a major impact on the program's work. The budget included funding for a salary for a DOE employee to provide oversight to gay/straight alliances across the state and to provide emergency support to schools and students dealing with LGBT-related violence or harassment issues. DOE is currently seeking someone to fill that position, but Henry said the $150,000 Safe Schools cut would mean that position would be eliminated. She also said that cut would eliminate the GSA mini-grants provided by DOE. Last year DOE gave out $42,000 in such grants that fund programming.
Curt Rogers, executive director of GMDVP, said the loss of $158,000 in DPH funding would be catastrophic. He urged supporters to contact House Speaker Sal DiMasi and ask him to bring the GMDVP veto up for an override vote.
"[The veto] would end up having a devastating impact right now à We would have to basically restructure everything to figure out what [services] we could keep and what we couldn't," said Rogers.
Larry Day, AIDS Action's manager of community relations, said he feels confident lawmakers will vote to restore Romney's $735,000 cut to the HIV/AIDS line item. Even with Romney's cut in place the line item has about $100,000 more than in FY06, but Day said over the past four fiscal years the HIV/AIDS budget lost nearly $20 million due to the state's budget crisis, and AIDS Action is hoping the state will work to bring funding for the HIV/AIDS line item back up to its earlier level. He said part of the money cut by Romney was earmarked to do prevention, counseling and testing in communities of color.
I think that the Legislature will do the right thing and restore those funds," said Day.
The budget conference committee had approved $50,000 in funding to the LGBT Aging Project, the first state funding that the project had received, but Romney vetoed the funding. LGBT Aging Project Director Lisa Krinsky said the new funding would have allowed the program to expand its LGBT-issues training to elder service providers across the state, and she hopes lawmakers will undo that veto.
"We are hoping [for the override] particularly because ultimately the beneficiaries of the training and education are going to be the folks providing services to the elderly," said Krinsky.
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