ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 1996 TAG: 9604160074
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
THE GOVERNOR says politics played no part in his decision to veto state funding for the College of Health Sciences in Roanoke and for Virginia CARES, a statewide program to help released inmates readjust to society that is also based in Roanoke.
Maybe politics wasn't involved. You never know. But both funding items - two of the four Allen vetoed - just happen to have been sponsored by that thorn-in-the-side-of-the-governor House majority leader and Vinton Democrat, Dick Cranwell.
The governor can cite nonpolitical reasons why these two appropriations concerned him so greatly. Virginia CARES, slated to get $3.2 million to continue its work with released prisoners, did not compete for its grant against other organizations that might want to offer similar services. And the $950,000 for the College of Health Sciences was budgeted somewhat oddly as an economic-development, rather than an education, expense.
The governor says he feared that allowing a private school to apply for economic-development money would set a bad precedent, diverting these limited funds from more pressing needs - though this did not concern him enough to block an even odder appropriation of $500,000 in economic-development funds to help keep Southern Virginia College open in Buena Vista.
Whether or not the General Assembly overrides his vetoes this week, a question still will have to be answered in some way or another: How are we going to meet the needs that both these programs have been addressing?
Virginia CARES has been operating since 1978 as a private, nonprofit, community-based effort serving 37 communities and 31 prisons. It has developed a network of services that, over the years, has helped more than 30,000 inmates, parolees and their families. It also has helped countless Virginians who would have been crime victims had these ex-offenders resumed past behaviors.
For this program to have been targeted seems particularly wrong-headed. The state is now putting more of its people behind bars for longer sentences, but most people who have broken the law will get out of prison eventually. They will need help to successfully make the transition to civilian life and avoid a return to criminality. Their success is not only in their interest, but in the interest of the communities where they live. A cut-off in state funding, even if it proves temporary, could endanger the complex network of services in dozens of communities that Virginia CARES has taken years to build.
Likewise, the College of Health Sciences is filling a need that will only get greater. Its transition away from a Carilion-subsidized institution might have been handled better. And a relationship with the state could be complicated - raising questions about accountability and future funding, for example.
But as competition overtakes the health-care market, communities must figure out how to deal with demands that nonprofit and charitable hospitals used to address, such as training for medical professionals and health care for the poor and underserved.
The College of Health Sciences has been addressing both: Of the 21 counties from which it draws students, 19 are medically underserved areas as designated by the federal government. Eight-five percent of the graduates return home to work in these areas.
Whatever the General Assembly does, these problems won't disappear.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB