Washington Blade - June 25, 2008
Lou Chibbaro Jr

Food & Friends, a non-profit group founded 20 years ago in a church basement, says the city's HIV/AIDS Administration reduced its funding allocation from the federal Ryan White AIDS program by $303,000 in March, just as the group faced rising gas and food prices and a decline in private donations due to a sluggish economy.

"We are in a solid and stable financial position," said Craig Shniderman, the group's executive director. "But we can't spend money we don't have. We have no choice but to reduce some of our services."

But Shniderman this week was criticized by prominent AIDS activist and blogger Michael Petrelis, who published information from the latest available IRS finance report for Food & Friends, which showed Shniderman received a combined salary and benefits package in 2006 of $334,551.

Petrelis noted that Shniderman's compensation package was far higher than that of the Whitman-Walker Clinic's executive director for that same year, Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti, who received a combined salary and benefits payment of $169,792. Whitman-Walker replaced Geidner-Antoniotti the following year with Don Blanchon, a private sector executive from the managed care and health maintenance organization field.

Geidner-Antoniotti's 2006 salary and benefits came at a time when Whitman-Walker's revenue for the year was $22.3 million. The IRS finance report for Food & Friends, known as the IRS 990 form, showed Shniderman's salary and benefits in 2006 came at a time when Food & Friends' annual revenue was just under $6.8 million.

"I hope as Shniderman contemplates everything possible he can do to better assist people with AIDS in these dire times meet their food and nutritional needs, that he considers reducing his quite excessive compensation package," Petrelis wrote.

Shniderman declined to comment on his salary, saying his organization's board is in charge of handling those matters.

Robert Hall III, president of the Food & Friends board of directors, said in a written statement that the board sets Shniderman's salary and benefits by retaining a "nationally recognized compensation and human resources consulting firm" and independent consults to study "national, regional and local data" pertaining to salaries for executives similar to Shniderman.

"We are fortunate that Craig Shniderman has served as our executive director for more than 13 years and we have benefited from his more than 30 years of experience in the nonprofit field," Hall said. "Food & Friends requires, and receives, from Craig exemplary leadership, planning, fundraising and management so as to meet client needs."

"Excellent leadership is critical to the success of any organization and we are gratified that Craig has provided, and will continue to provide in coming years, stable and dynamic leadership to Food & Friends," Hall said.

An announcement on the Food & Friends web site says the group has reduced its expenditures for client services by $223,000, with the hope that the reduction could be reversed if government funding cuts are restored next year.

The reduction in services will include reduced meal deliveries to family members of clients in D.C., reduced liquid nutritional supplements except for clients who are under weight or who have a crucial need for supplements, the elimination of juice from client meal bags and a reduction by 50 percent of the number of new clients the group will accept from D.C. and Virginia. "This will still permit modest growth in the number of clients served but will reduce the rate of growth from that intended in our 2008 budget," the announcement says.

"The net effect of this reduction will be to create a waiting list of 2-6 weeks (estimated) for admission to service," the announcement says. "It is this reduction that weighs most heavily upon us, but which creates the bulk of the savings needed."

Literature released by Food & Friends says the group uses its state-of-the-art kitchen and warehouse facility in Northeast D.C. to prepare, package and deliver meals and groceries to "more than 1,400 people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other life challenging illnesses throughout Washington, D.C., seven counties of Maryland and seven counties and six independent cities in Virginia."

To carry out its mission, Food & Friends employs a staff of 58, benefits from dozens of volunteers and maintains a fleet of 10 delivery vehicles and two client services vehicles to dispatch its meals and provide in-person nutritional counseling to its clients, according to Shniderman.

Wallace Corbett, chair of the D.C. area Ryan White Planning Council, a body created under the federal Ryan White AIDS CARE Act, said the funding reduction for Food & Friends resulted from a directive from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Corbett said HHS officials mandated that the Planning Council shift more Ryan White funds from support services programs - the category that applies to Food & Friends - to "core medical programs."

Under the Ryan White program, Planning Councils in metropolitan regions throughout the country are given some discretion to carry out mandates by federal officials on how to allocate Ryan White funds for various categories of services. In recent years, the Bush administration has pushed for shifting more funds for medical services and for the expansion of HIV testing programs. Although the D.C. area Planning Council's 47 members are appointed by the D.C. mayor, the city must comply with the Planning Council's decisions on funding allocations under provisions of the Ryan White Act.

For the D.C. region, the Planning Council changed its allocation from 75 percent of total funding for core medical services in 2007 to 81 percent for core medical services in 2008, leaving 19 percent of the total funding for the support services category. This meant that Food & Friends and other organizations providing AIDS-related support services unrelated to direct medical care faced significant cuts in their funding under the Ryan White Program.

When the 2008 funding allocations were announced in March, Food & Friends was slated to receive a cut of $484,000. However, in response to an appeal by Shinderman that such a large cut would seriously harm the group's operations, the Planning Council agreed to restore $181,000 in funding, bringing the net cut to $303,000.

At the request of D.C. City Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large), the Council arranged for Food & Friends to receive an additional $200,000 for food services programs beginning in October, at the start of fiscal year 2009. Corbett said that while the Planning Council sets overall funding allocations for HIV/AIDS services, the HIV/AIDS Administration has discretion to add or subtract funds for vendors and service providing groups like Food & Friends, in part, by shifting city appropriated funds.

"We do not directly fund specific groups," he said.

A spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Health, which oversees HAA, said DOH Director Dr. Pierre Vigilance would explain HAA's rationale for changes in the Ryan White funding allocations related to Food and Friends. But Vigilance did not respond by press time.

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