As city funds have supplanted budget cuts to HIV services in the past few years due to federal shortfalls, Supervisor Scott Wiener Tuesday plans to call for a hearing to again backfill the need from city coffers.Federal budget cuts for HIV care and prevention series are estimated at $2.7 million in the upcoming fiscal year. In 2011, The City was hit with a midyear $1.5 million cut in federal funds, and cuts in the past several years have amounted to $20 million.
The $2.7 million deficit is a “lower amount than we’ve had in the last few years but it’s still a sizable cut, so it’s still important for us to make up for that in our local budget,” Wiener said.
Fewer federal funds for HIV services reached San Francisco after Congress changed the formula for distributing money for HIV care to emphasize new infections over existing infections.
“That favored other parts of the country where the epidemic is new,” Wiener explained. “As opposed to San Francisco, where we have a 30-year-long epidemic and we’ve managed to stabilize infection rates.”