Blagojevich slashes funding for AIDS, meth treatment and more

Blagojevich slashes funding for AIDS, meth treatment and more
By Gary Barlow
Copyright by Chicago Free Press
August 28, 2007

AIDS prevention programs, mental health agencies and other healthcare services were among the victims last week as Gov. Rod Blagojevich moved with a vengeance against Democrats in the Illinois House of Representatives.

The governor cut more than a million dollars of HIV/AIDS prevention funding in the state’s $59-billion budget, apparently targeting the HIV/AIDS prevention grants only because they were sponsored by House Democrats.

“It’s all a matter of politics,” said Eric Nelson, of Better Existence with HIV. “If you’re a House Republican, all your funding requests are worthwhile. If you’re a House Democrat, all your requests are pork.”

Nelson’s agency, which provides HIV prevention and other AIDS-related services, lost $70,000 in prevention funds.

Altogether, Blagojevich vetoed some $143 million in legislative initiatives and $463 million overall from the budget overwhelmingly passed by both the House and the Senate. The governor, as has been his practice, refused to answer questions from the press when he announced the cuts, but his spokespersons characterized the items vetoed as “wasteful” or costing more than the state could afford.

But House Democrats saw virtually all of their initiatives vetoed, while House Republicans, a group of legislators the governor is trying to woo, saw almost all their initiatives spared. For example, the governor approved $500,000 for a bike trail in Romeoville, but vetoed a $500,000 grant for HIV prevention backed by Democratic Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, who represents the heavily gay Lakeview neighborhood in Chicago.

“We’ve got a lot of issues to start dealing with,” Feigenholtz said. “I wish that everybody instead of considering retaliation would consider working together.”

Other cuts by Blagojevich included $154,500 for Bonaventure House, two $50,000 grants for Vital Bridges, $70,000 for Chicago House, $50,000 for the HIV/AIDS ministry at Englewood United Methodist Church, $25,000 for the House of James and $100,000 for Howard Brown Health Center. All those items were sponsored by House Democrats.

“I’m disappointed because the people who are going to be hurt by these cuts are people in non-traditional communities that this would have allowed us to reach,” said Howard Brown President Michael Cook. “I’m very sad about it and I don’t understand it.”

Chicago House CEO Stan Sloan said the grant his agency lost would have allowed for expansion of a highly praised program that helps people living with AIDS return to the workplace.

“Ultimately it would be getting people off disability and it would be a win for the state,” Sloan said. “He’s being pennywise and pound-foolish.”

Other cuts were equally surprising. Blagojevich, for example, slashed $7.5 million in funds for the developmentally disabled, but left intact a 3.5-percent raise for himself and other state officeholders. The governor vetoed a $200,000 grant to keep a methamphetamine treatment program running in Vermilion County, which by some measures has the state’s worst meth problem.

“It’s a shame to me that the politics of all this has to be played out on the backs of the least vulnerable people in Illinois,” said Rep. Greg Harris (D-Chicago), who saw every initiative he sponsored in his district to fight AIDS, assist public schools and aid seniors wiped out by the governor’s pen.

“Right now there are no programs in place that are reaching out to some of these hard-to-reach populations,” Harris said.

Blagojevich has criticized Democrats, particularly in the House, ever since he proposed a new $7.6-billion tax earlier this year to fund a healthcare plan he said would bring coverage to most uninsured Illinoisans. But the governor’s tax plan was roundly rejected by legislators and business leaders. The Senate never brought it to a vote and the House rejected it unanimously. Since that House vote, Blagojevich has repeatedly expressed contempt for House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago) and other House Democrats.

After weeks of trying and failing to negotiate a state budget with Blagojevich, legislative leaders passed one on their own by veto-proof margins in both houses. A few days later, however, Sen. President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) broke his promise to other legislative leaders and said he would block the Senate from voting to override Blagojevich’s vetoes.

The governor said his $463 million in line-item vetoes frees up enough funds to put his healthcare plans in place. But while Blagojevich can veto items in the budget, he cannot reallocate most of those funds without the OK of the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules. Blagojevich left intact most of the legislative initiatives of that committee’s members, a move that even its members condemned as “blatantly political.”

“It’s so transparent what the governor’s doing, what his motives are. I don’t think I've ever seen anything quite so political,” Sen. Bradley Burzynski (R-Clare), a member of the committee, told the Associated Press.

The irony, Feigenholtz said, is that legislators, including herself, were getting set to pass the governor’s scaled-down healthcare plan after dealing with the budget.

“We were ready,” she said.

But following Blagojevich’s actions last week, despite the support for healthcare expansion on the part of Feigenholtz, Harris and other Democrats in the Legislature, the level of cooperation needed to accomplish it seems farther away than ever.

“I don’t think anyone will respond to these kinds of threats,” Harris said.

He and Feigenholtz expect the House to go ahead with a vote to override the governor’s cuts, and healthcare providers are urging people to press their state senators to convince Jones to allow them to vote on an override.

“Oh, yes—I think we’ll reach out to senators,” Nelson said. “We’re all just amazed at what the rationale is for this.”

Officials at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, which has been a stalwart Blagojevich supporter, said they would also pressure the Senate to act.

“It’s frustrating,” said AFC’s John Peller. “What’s unfortunate about this situation is that the state’s budget has been framed as a Catch 22 between expanding healthcare and funding HIV/AIDS programs. We need both.”