Checks are in the mail, with more to come later
New summer money for prisons, elimination
Instead of the lumps of coal and battered budgets they thought they were getting, TB controllers around the country have been opening some late Christmas presents.
At the start of this month, awards totaling about $5 million began going out in the mail to about 46 recipients. To some of the recipients, the extra funds are just that — something extra. To 26 others, the money represents badly needed pieces of their budgets that looked, for a brief but difficult span of time, as if they’d be even lower this year than last.
Among the 26 programs whose budgets took a beating when federal grants for this year were announced, virtually all should find themselves back in the saddle by now, says Paul Poppe, director of management and operations at the Division of TB Elimination at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. "Not necessarily every one of the 26 will get their money restored, but virtually all will. [Only] a couple of programs may still wind up with a decrease in budget over last year," he says.
Last-minute relief
The springtime budget relief comes from Congress, which handed CDC a last-minute gift of $8.6 million for TB control. Of that amount, about $7 million was left after administrative costs were siphoned.
This month’s $5 million payout includes $4 million for core activities, including $1 million for laboratory support, and another $1 million for targeted testing, says Poppe. Because the current round of awards was made on the basis of last fall’s applications, no new paperwork is required, he adds.
By June, another $2 million in extra funding for two new kinds of activities should be up for grabs, Poppe adds. Half will be awarded for TB control in correctional institutions, and an equal amount will go to activities in low-incidence states where TB controllers are moving toward elimination.
Descriptions of those two new kinds of activities, as well as application forms for the summer awards, are being drawn up, he says. Announce ments should be made in May or June; applications will be due in July, and money will be awarded by late fall.
Programs that aren’t getting any extra cash from the first go-round should receive calls once the grants procurement office has gotten the good news out, says Poppe.
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