Massachusetts: Senate Passes Amendment to Restore AIDS Funding

On May 19, the state Senate passed a budget amendment that would restore funding for HIV/AIDS that had been cut in the Senate Ways and Means Committee's original 2010 budget. The amendment, filed by Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz (D-Boston), brings the Department of Public Health's AIDS budget to $35.3 million, up from the $34.4 million proposed by the committee.

Mary Ann Hart of the Project AIDS Budget Legislative Effort, the state's leading HIV/AIDS lobbying coalition, said the restored funding is likely to go through. "I think that we would consider it a done deal," she said. "The budget isn't passed until it's passed, but it would be very unusual to go back and change what they did."

The House passed a budget that funded the department's AIDS budget at nearly the same level as the Senate. It is likely that a conference committee will agree to a compromise of $35.3 million for the disease, following the passing of the Senate budget bill, Hart said.

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