Washington Blade - March 28, 2008
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

At the same time, federal government agencies involved in AIDS programs have agreed to increase the federal allocation for HAA funding from $70.4 million in the current fiscal year to $78.8 million in FY 2009, a boost of $8.4 million.

The combined D.C. federal funding for HAA, which oversees nearly all of the city's AIDS treatment and prevention programs, would climb from $85 million in fiscal year 2008 to $95.2 million in fiscal 2009, a combined increase of $10.2 million.

Over the past decade, the federal government has funded about 80 percent of the District's AIDS budget.

"Overall, I can tell you for the HIV/AIDS Administration, we're in a good place," said Dr. Shannon Hader, HAA's director. "We're stable and we had a slight increase," Hader said in referring to city funding.

Hader noted that other city agencies and departments were hit by budget cuts or no funding increases at a time when Fenty and other city officials have said a sagging U.S. economy and a possible decline in city tax revenue required significant belt-tightening in the city's spending.

"We've gone line by line through every single agency to protect the investment our constituents make in their government," Fenty said in a statement last week. "We're cutting costs where we can, while improving services for all District residents, especially those in most need," he said.

The mayor's proposed AIDS budget comes less than five months after he and Hader released a long-awaited HIV surveillance report prepared by HAA showing that D.C. has the nation's highest HIV infection rate. The widely publicized report showed that more than 80 percent of the new HIV cases reported in the city between 2001 and 2006 were among blacks.

It also found that men accounted for more than twice the number of HIV infections than women during that same time period and that men who have sex with men - both white and black - had the highest HIV infection rate among the city's male population.

Cut in prevention funding?

A HAA budget document posted on the city's web site shows that although the overall federal-D.C. funding for HAA is slated to increase by $10.2 million, funding for "prevention and intervention services" is slated for a decrease of $273,000. The same document shows another line item described as "HIV/AIDS Data and Research" slated for a decrease of $1.3 million.

Hader and Will Singer, budget director in the Office of the City Administrator, said those cuts would be offset by shifts in programs and services between different bureaus within HAA and that no programs or services would be reduced. The two also said that an additional $800,000 in city funding would be allocated under the mayor's proposed budget for "target resources to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS."

Hader said some HIV prevention functions would also take place in a new "Communicable Disease" bureau created for HAA as a result of a decision by the city's Department of Health to transfer communicable disease prevention and treatment programs from other health department divisions to HAA. HAA is an arm of the health department.

Under the change, HAA will be responsible for overseeing programs related to all sexually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea and syphilis, as well as tuberculosis and hepatitis.

"Some of the categories have changed," Singer said. "It's not that we're cutting prevention and intervention or data and research. We're just kind of reflecting them maybe more discretely in the communicable disease line."

Officials with some of the city's non-profit AIDS advocacy groups said they were studying the mayor's proposed AIDS budget and could not immediately determine whether the budget document showing cuts in prevention and research and data programs were actual reductions or shifts in line item categories as stated by Hader and Singer.

"The problem with these budgets is they don't tell you very much," said Rebecca Bruno, an official with the D.C. Primary Care Association, which monitors the city's AIDS programs. "We can't tell if the prevention cut is just administrative rather than service or program related."

Ron Simmons, executive director of Us Helping Us, a local group that provides services to black gay men with HIV, said he had yet to see the budget but was puzzled over why the document would be drafted in a way that showed cuts in HIV prevention services.

"Given the serious state the city is in in terms of HIV, it does sound crazy if they are reducing it," he said in referring to prevention programs.

Patricia Hawkins, deputy director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic, the city's largest private medical facility providing AIDS-related services, said she, too, had yet to examine the details of the proposed AIDS budget. Hawkins said Whitman-Walker and other community-based AIDS groups usually defer to D.C. Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large), who chairs the Council's Committee on Health, on AIDS budget matters.

Catania, who is gay, has played a leading role in uncovering problems with HAA's management and ability to carry out its mission under the administration of former Mayor Anthony Williams. In committee hearings, Catania has sometimes raised eyebrows by his sharp and blunt questioning of HAA officials.

Ben Young, a Catania spokesperson, said Catania was studying the Fenty AIDS budget and would not comment on the document until he holds a public hearing on the budget in late April.

"He will go through the budget with a fine-tooth comb," Young said.

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