Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406030097
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It has increased its funding of the Child Health Investment Partnership by 27 percent.
Unfortunately, the dollars come to $6,600 for the coming year, up from $5,200 this year. That increase means city funding will fully support the critically important basic-health services that CHIP provides for nine - that's right: nine - of Roanoke's poorest children. Wow.
And what of the other 660 city children served by CHIP? Oh, eh, well ... maybe Blue Cross-Blue Shield or Carilion or another corporate contributor to CHIP will give a little extra for those kids.
And what of the 836 city children on waiting lists for CHIP services, and the additional 3,600 identified as in need of those services? Not to worry, those kids will soon grow older and fall off the waiting list anyway.
Salem, meantime, is paying 40 percent of the costs for Salem children in the program - and has recently reaffirmed its commitment by donating a building for CHIP's use.
If the city won't pay 40 percent, how about putting up 15 percent of CHIP's costs for city youngsters already enrolled? That's how much CHIP has requested from each local government in the Roanoke Valley. It's not too much for Roanoke County, which pays 21 percent of the costs for its kids. Botetourt County comes close to the request, contributing 13 percent of the costs for Botetourt kids.
Ten percent, 5 percent, 2 percent, for Roanoke city? No, no and no.
Roanoke, which accounts for 70 percent of the children in the CHIP program (and 75 percent of the valley's children in need) is putting up a munificent 1.4 percent of the costs of CHIP services for city children.
Such stinginess is not merely an embarrassment for the city. It threatens the long-term survival of an innovative, volunteer-heavy health-care program that has become a state and national model.
A creative partnership of private-sector health-care providers, public health departments, private businesses, and Total Action Against Poverty, CHIP has relied for the bulk of its funding on grants from outside Virginia. Since its inception in 1987, it has received nearly $9 million from such sources, including $4 million from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (most of which went to expanding the program elsewhere in Virginia) and $4.5 million from a federal grant program.
These grants, however, were one-time deals. The money from them has about run out. CHIP needs a reliable stream of funding.
To date, the state has contributed only $100,000 to CHIP - again, a one-time arrangement, during the Wilder administration. (The state passes through $200,000 a year in federal public-health funds that benefit some CHIP-served children but does not support the program directly.)
Gov. George Allen's administration, CHIP officials say, has signaled an interest in including CHIP as a line item in the state budget. But that could well hinge on the degree of support it sees from local valley governments. Similarly, chances of federal funding also could depend on local-government commitment.
Hence, the final indignity: Roanoke's parsimony could queer prospects for reliable state and federal support of a program that is doing great good for not enough of the city's children.
The city needs to chip in its share, and soon.
by CNB