Advocates scramble to restore state funding for LGBT programs

After suffering major funding cuts and the removal of earmark language for LGBT programs in the proposed House Ways and Means Fiscal Year 2010 budget last week, LGBT advocates and their allies in the State House are working to restore the cuts through the budget amendment process, which begins on April 27.

The House Ways and Means budget, released April 15, included major funding cuts and removal of earmarks in a variety of program areas, and LGBT programs took a major hit . All of the state's LGBT programs - for LGBT youth, elders, and victims of domestic violence - had their earmark language removed from the budget, and the youth and domestic violence programs saw substantial funding cuts to the broader budget line items under which they receive their funding. Reps. Liz Malia (D-Jamaica Plain), Alice Wolf (D-Cambridge) and Carl Sciortino (D-Medford) filed amendments to the budget to restore funding and language for all of the state's LGBT programs, and the House will consider those and about 1000 other amendments beginning Monday.

Matt O'Malley, political director for MassEquality, said the organization and its allies are working to recruit co-sponsors for each of the amendments through the end of the day April 24, the deadline for co-sponsorships. He said given the dire state of the economy it will be difficult to win restoration of funding.

"It is an extremely difficult fiscal climate, and we're working with our partners to try to secure level funding, not asking for increases, and we'll try to do the best we can in reaching that level funding goal or trying to do the best we can going forward. But it is a concern," said O'Malley.

He said advocates and allies in the legislature will try to make the case to their colleagues that even in the current fiscal crisis the state's LGBT programs are too vital to be cut.

"Times are tough, and it's our position that we should be fiscally responsible ... while protecting critical services and programming," said O'Malley. "[The present House budget] would be a very significant cut to some critical programming that protects among the most vulnerable."

Some of the organizations that stand to lose funding under the current House budget have been urging their supporters to lobby in favor of the amendments to restore the money and the earmark language. On April 22 the LGBT Aging Project, which last year received $80,000 from the state, sent an e-mail alert to its members asking them to call their representatives and ask them to support Malia's amendment to restore the Aging Project earmark to the state budget. Aging Project Director Lisa Krinsky told Bay Windows that without that earmark language the organization will be at a disadvantage in applying for the funds because its money is allocated under a line item for the state Councils on Aging. The Councils on Aging line item was level funded in the House budget.

"The dollars are there, so this is not a question of asking for an increased allocation. ... We'd have to be in the pool with the Councils on Aging, and we are not a Council on Aging and don't function that way, so it would be that much more difficult to access the dollars," said Krinsky.