A health department spokesperson said interim HIV/AIDS Administration Director Ivan
Torres requested additional funds from the city to keep an HIV/AIDS surveillance
study going.
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LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, August 13, 2004
A federally funded study aimed at tracking the spread of AIDS among minority
populations in D.C., including African Americans and gays, came to an abrupt
halt last month after the city’s HIV/AIDS Administration fell months behind
in paying a private personnel firm retained by HAA to recruit researchers to
conduct the study.
Sources familiar with the study said the D.C. firm Midtown Personnel laid
off the study project’s entire staff of six on July 16, ending several
months of attempts by the firm to recoup from HAA its cost for paying the researchers’ salaries
and related expenses.
HAA’s inability to pay another personnel firm, which provided temporary
clerical and administrative employees throughout HAA, resulted in the July
29 layoffs of as many as a dozen additional employees, the sources said. Among
them was the secretary of HAA’s acting administrator, Ivan Torres, who
has been running HAA for the past year while D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams searched
for a permanent administrator.
Last week, Williams announced he had hired Chicago public health official
Lydia Watts as the new administrator. Watts is scheduled to start work at the
financially troubled HAA on Sept. 7.
HAA officials have said the AIDS study had been interrupted in June when its
director, HAA public health official Leonard Bates, died from a fall from an
apartment building window. (See related story, this page.) But two sources
familiar with HAA said the researchers and other staff members working under
Bates’ direction were highly trained and capable of continuing the study
while HAA sought to hire a new project director.
“It was HAA’s not paying the bills, not Leonard Bates’ death,
that caused this to happen,” said one of the sources, who spoke on condition
of anonymity.
Torres said city funds used to pay for the HAA contracts to retain both Midtown
and Preferred personnel firms became “depleted,” according to Vera
Jackson, a spokesperson for the D.C. Department of Health, which has jurisdiction
over HAA.
Jackson said Torres told her HAA has put in a request for additional funds
from the city’s procurement office and he expects HAA to issue new contracts
soon to enable HAA to restart the HIV surveillance research project. Jackson
said the new contracts would resume the services provided by the two personnel
firms.
“It could be one or both of the two or another vendor,” Jackson
said.
Jackson said the city’s overall HIV surveillance studies, which are
funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, continue uninterrupted.
She said the study headed by Bates was the only one to experience an interruption.
Jackson said that one would resume after Bates’ replacement is hired.
Ward Howick, director of temporary services for the Midtown personnel firm,
declined to comment on the reason the firm ended its work for HAA, saying only
that Midtown has a good working relationship with the city and looks forward
to providing continued personnel services for city agencies.
Barbara Posner, president of the Preferred firm, said HAA officials told her
the funds used to pay for her contract “ran out.” She said the
firm is waiting for a new contract.
“We have a great relationship with the city,” she said. “We
have no complaints.” However, she added, “There was a delay in
payment,” which the firm is looking forward to receiving soon.
The two sources familiar with HAA said Torres had not returned repeated calls
from the firms seeking an explanation of why HAA had fallen months behind in
paying them. Also not returning calls to the two firms was former HAA official
Jacquline Bachus, who was in charge of HAA’s finances, the sources said.
Herbert Tillery, acting director of DOH, transferred Bachus and at least two
other HAA managers to other city agencies as part of what Tillery called a
staff reorganization but which HAA staffers called a “shakeup.”
A DOH news release said the HIV tracking study that Bates headed, the Behavioral
Surveillance Initiative, was a new surveillance system funded by the CDC that
would “provide some of the most accurate and current HIV/AIDS related
data in the United States.”
Cornelius Baker, executive director of D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Clinic,
said HIV surveillance studies are crucial for tracking the AIDS epidemic in
cities and states. Baker said keeping track of which populations contract the
AIDS virus and how they contract it are needed for the development of prevention
programs. He said tracking programs are also required by the CDC for determining
the amount of federal funds are to be allocated to cities and states.
Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.
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