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Friday, June 10, 2005
Gay D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) said he hopes to line up new sources
of funding for the Whitman-Walker Clinic to prevent the clinic from having to
close its food bank and discontinue operating its satellite facilities in the
Virginia and Maryland suburbs.
Graham, who served as executive director of Whitman-Walker for 15 years before
winning election to the Council, said CareFirst Blue Cross-Blue Shield of the
national capital area is expected to approve a $500,000 donation to the clinic
next week.
He said the donation would be earmarked for the food bank, the suburban operations,
and for laboratory testing facilities.
“This is what we hope will be the first of a series of infusions of money
from local business and government,” Graham said.
“They don’t need to close the food bank,” he said. “We
would like to keep the suburban operations for a while longer while we try to
work something out.”
Graham’s comments came less than a week after Roberta Geidner-Antoniotti,
the clinic’s interim executive director, announced the clinic planned
to close or give away its Virginia and Maryland facilities, eliminate 62 staff
positions, and drop or drastically curtail nearly two dozen programs.
Antoniotti said the cutbacks were part of a proposal approved by the clinic’s
board to reduce Whitman-Walker’s budget by $2.5 million in response to
a funding shortfall that could force the clinic to close its doors.
The effort by Graham to avert the closing of the food bank and suburban operations
also came less than a week after news surfaced that the clinic may have over
billed the city for AIDS-related services at a significantly higher amount than
the $2 million it disclosed last month.
Clinic officials said they informed the city earlier this year that an internal
clinic audit revealed the clinic may have over charged the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration
as much as $2 million for HIV-related laboratory services.
“Although the precise level of over billing has not been firmly established
by audits, it appears that Whitman-Walker Clinic over billed HAA for well beyond
an admitted amount of more than $2 million for just laboratory services,”
said Dr. Gregg Pane, director of the D.C. Department of Health, in a May 10
letter to one of the clinic’s attorneys.
The Washington Times disclosed the existence of the Pane letter last week.
The Blade obtained a copy of the letter from the DOH.
In his letter, Pane called on the clinic to submit a repayment plan for the
over billed funds and said his office would direct city auditors to “review
all relevant grants between HAA and Whitman-Walker Clinic in the very near future.”
Pane added, “I expect Whitman-Walker to fully cooperate in these audits.”
Antoniotti said the clinic is cooperating with HAA and DOH officials to determine
how much the clinic owes the city for the over billing. Clinic officials said
the potential debt from the over billing would add to the clinic’s money
problems at a time when fund-raising returns have declined significantly from
past years.
Sources familiar with the clinic — including rank and file members of
its staff — expressed concern this week that the clinic’s board
failed to take action to prevent the clinic’s finances from reaching the
stage where layoffs and drastic programs cuts became necessary.
Staff concerns surfaced in a sometimes emotional and acrimonious way on June
2 at a clinic staff meeting held at the Jewish Community Center on 16th Street,
NW, according to sources familiar with the clinic.
“It got very confrontational,” said one staff member who spoke
on condition of anonymity.
“The employees said to the board and management, ‘You weren’t
doing your job,’” said the employee.
Billy Cox, chair of the clinic’s board, did not return a call to the
Blade by press time.
Cox told the Washington Post he did not dispute claims by critics that signs
of the clinic’s impending financial problems surfaced at least six years
ago and that the board — reluctant to reduce services to clients —
deferred taking action.
“The board is a very compassionate board, and people feel like the programs
we offered are sacred,” the Post quoted him as saying.
In 2003, former clinic executive director Cornelius Baker announced what he
called a “major restructuring” program for the clinic that was to
include budget cuts and curtailing some programs. Among other things, the clinic
would charge a sliding scale fee to clients for services, ending its longstanding
policy of providing all services free of charge. Baker said the cutbacks were
needed to offset a significant drop in fund-raising returns.
This week, Antoniotti acknowledged that the clinic did not follow through on
all of the budget cuts that Baker proposed at that time. When asked why, she
said only that Baker was in charge at that time.
Baker resigned from his executive director’s post abruptly in December
2004, citing health reasons for his decision. Baker did not return calls by
press time this week.
Graham’s efforts to seek outside funds to help the clinic retain its
suburban offices appeared to catch clinic officials by surprise. Antoniotti
said she was not aware that the CareFirst donation, which she knew was in the
works, would include possible strings linked to the suburban offices and the
food bank.
Antoniotti said she, too, would like to preserve the clinic’s operation
of the suburban facilities, but she did not believe the long-term funding projections
would support retaining those operations.
“Our main concern is for major donors to help us remain financially viable,”
she said.
She said each of the two suburban facilities requires at least $500,000 a year
to operate. The CareFirst donation by itself would only keep the two facilities
open for another six months, she said.
“For any of the services that we decided to reduce or discontinue, I
have said if we can find a ‘miracle option’ we would take it,”
Antoniotti said. “But I don’t think the board would support a short-term
fix that will put us on another roller coaster ride again. We’re not about
to do that.”
Jeff Valentine, director of corporate communications for CareFirst, said the
company board was expected to approve a “significant grant” for
the clinic at its meeting next week. He declined to disclose the amount of the
grant but said CareFirst officials were cooperating with Graham to assist the
clinic.
“We are aware of their problems and we want to do all we can to help,”
he said.
Gay public relations executive Jeff Trammell, who provides services for CareFirst,
said company officials are familiar with Graham’s work on the Council
and past clinic involvement.
“They will follow Councilmember Graham’s recommendations,”
Trammell said.
Both supporters and critics of the clinic agree that some of the clinic’s
problems stem from developments outside of its control. The Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks distracted the public from many fund-raising activities, such as the
clinic’s AIDS Walk. The demise of other large fund-raising events, such
as the AIDS bicycle rides, resulted in the loss of more than a $1 million or
more.
Gay activist Phil Pannell said the “changing face of AIDS” from
mostly middle class white gay men during the early years of the epidemic to
mostly African-American, lower-income D.C. residents in more recent years has
changed the constituency from which the clinic once tapped for donations.
Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.
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