State Congressional Delegation Seeks More Federal AIDS Funding

HARTFORD — Connecticut’s congressional delegation is lobbying federal health officials for more AIDS funding to blunt reductions imposed as part of a new payment formula.

Earlier this month, Hartford and New Haven agencies that serve AIDS patients learned that this year’s grant would be about half of what was expected. Federal funding cuts threaten to end housing, transportation, drug treatment, and other services for hundreds of Connecticut AIDS patients, advocates say.

The money from Washington is part of the Ryan White CARE Act. Connecticut’s congressional delegation said the state’s grants were cut by about $725,000.

But administrators who run the programs in Hartford and New Haven say the cuts are deeper. Hartford was expecting about $4 million for the year, but received about half. New Haven expected more than $6.6 million, and got about $3.3 million.

Some of the money is expected to be restored in April, but $43 million is available and nearly 80 cities will compete for a share.

Grants for Hartford and New Haven were cut this year because Congress changed the formula for dividing about $600 million in federal money to help large cities care for AIDS and HIV patients.

Under the previous formula, money was allocated to cities with large numbers of people living with AIDS. The formula was changed this year to provide more money to cities with more AIDS cases, said Tina Cheatham, a spokeswoman for the US Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the Ryan White AIDS program.

Under the new formula, cities reporting at least 2,000 new cases of AIDS from 2001 through 2005 were eligible for the biggest grants.

Hartford reported 1,132 new AIDS cases and New Haven reported 1,749 new cases, bumping both cities into a lower funding tier.

About 5,000 people in New Haven and Fairfield Counties have HIV and AIDS, and about 3,000 in Hartford, Tolland, and Middlesex Counties.

In a letter to Michael Leavitt, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, US Senators Christopher Dodd and Joseph I. Lieberman and US Representatives. Christopher Shays, Rosa DeLauro, Joseph Courtney, John Larson, and Christopher Murphy asked that Connecticut cities get priority when the supplemental money is distributed.