No increases for LGBT programs in budget

The House Ways and Means Committee's Fiscal Year 2009 (FY09) budget proposal contained dreary news for LGBT advocates. The proposal, released April 16, provided level funding for LGBT youth, elder and domestic violence programs and added a modest increase to the state's HIV/AIDS budget.

All of the allocations fell far below the requests made by MassEquality and the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. Budget advocates anticipated a difficult climate for seeking new funds; Ways and Means Committee cut more than $100 million from the budget to offset decreased state revenues. MassEquality Political Director Matt McTighe said advocates would be working to win increases in funding during House debate on the budget the week of April 28.

"We understand there are difficult economic times. ... We just don't want the state to balance the budget on the backs of the LGBT community. These are real programs that serve a real need. They're very valuable programs that serve some of the most needy people in the LGBT community," said McTighe.

Bill Conley, lobbyist for the Caucus, said that with all the competing priorities that will be going before the House when debate on the budget begins, it is unclear whether advocates will be able to win any funding increases.

"It's an extremely challenging climate, and Ways and Means is going to have to balance hundreds of conflicting requests. It's too early to tell how that's going to play out," said Conley.

MassEquality and the Caucus will work with allies in the House to file amendments to the House budget by the deadline at 5 p.m. on April 18. In most cases the amendments will push for the same funding increases that advocates sought at the beginning of Ways and Means' budget deliberations, but McTighe said they would be lowering the bar in their request for LGBT youth funding. Currently LGBT youth programs receive $600,000, far below the high watermark of $1.6 million in funding the programs received in FY02. In subsequent years former Governors Jane Swift and Mitt Romney drastically cut the budget, and it has yet to recover. Earlier this year MassEquality, the Caucus and the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth began lobbying for a dramatic increase in youth funding, pushing for $2.9 million. They will still be pushing for a major increase, but McTighe said it will probably be closer to $1.6 million.

"They have been operating on such a shoestring budget for so long now. ... We want to certainly get them closer to what they used to get," said McTighe.

When the budget was first released advocates feared that Ways and Means had eliminated the entire $60,000 in funding for the LGBT Aging Project because the earmark language setting aside the money was no longer included. But Conley said after consulting with sources in Ways and Means, advocates are confident that while the earmark language is not in the budget, the $60,000 in funding is still there. Conley said advocates would push hard for an increase in the Aging Project's funding. Rep. Liz Malia (D-Boston) will be filing an amendment, Conley said, to provide the Aging Project with the $125,000 that they had originally sought at the beginning of the budget process. Malia will also file an amendment to increase LGBT domestic violence funding from $250,000 to $658,000.

The Ways and Means budget included a modest $224,000 increase to the state's HIV/AIDS budget line item, bringing it up to about $37.2 million. The increase was similar in size to the one proposed by Gov. Deval Patrick in his budget earlier this year, but both allocations were far below the $6 million increase sought by advocates. McTighe said one of MassEquality's allies will file an amendment pushing for the full $6 million increase, although they have not yet determined who will file it.

Over the next week McTighe said MassEquality will be mobilizing its grassroots supporters to call their legislators and urge them to co-sponsor the amendments on LGBT and HIV/AIDS-related funding. He said already in the budget process hundreds of MassEquality supporters have contacted their legislators through the organization's website, and others have signed postcards or set up meetings. He acknowledged that it has been more challenging to get people to take action on budget issues than it was on the marriage issue.

"Obviously, unlike the marriage issue, these issues aren't as high profile, so we don't have the benefit of the press coverage or the attention we got in the marriage issue," said McTighe.