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Craig Shniderman, executive director of Food & Friends, received a compensation package valued at more than $300,000 in 2006, prompting criticism from an AIDS activist.
(Blade photo by Henry Linser)
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HOME > NEWS > LOCAL
By: LOU CHIBBARO J COMMENTS
 
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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.
David Bowman, spokesperson for the Health Resources Services Administration, an arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the federal government mandates only that 75 percent of Ryan White funds shall go to core medical services. Bowman said that the decision to raise the core medical services allocation above 75 percent would have been made solely at the discretion of the D.C. area Ryan White Planning Council, not by the federal government.
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.
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