November 5, 1998 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Tucked into the $500-billion federal spending law enacted late last month were numerous dollops of cash to individual charities, colleges, local governments, and other organizations.
ALSO SEE:
Charities That Received Special Federal Appropriations
Charities that benefited from that largesse managed to escape the traditional process of going after federal grants. Instead of applying through a competitive- review procedure, they were able to persuade members of Congress to earmark money explicitly for them.
Boys & Girls Clubs of America, for example, will receive $40-million for its crime-prevention programs. Not all the grants were that large: The Louisville Central Community Center, in Kentucky, will get $25,000 for its after-school programs.
Some groups were named for special consideration but were not awarded specific dollar amounts. The Skating Association for the Blind and Handicapped, in Buffalo, N.Y., was listed with a note that said that the Department of Education was “strongly encouraged” to consider the group’s application for money. Silos and Smokestacks, a charity in Waterloo, Iowa, was listed for special consideration for Rural Cooperative Development grants.
Other non-profit organizations were named as a group alongside a lump sum that will have to be divided up between them.
Those that benefited from landing in the massive law were thankful for the newfound additions to their bottom lines.
But Sen. John McCain, Republican of Arizona, criticized the earmarked grants as “pork-barrel spending projects” and prepared a report that highlighted hundreds of examples of federal dollars heading to specific non-profit groups and others.
“Some of these earmarked projects may well prove meritorious and deserving of the priority given them in this bill,” said Senator McCain. “The problem is that none of these provisions went through the appropriate merit-based selection process, which is necessary to determine whether they are more or less a priority than thousands of other projects that are not funded in this bill.”
Some non-profit organizations, however, argue that direct appropriations to individual charities are sometimes necessary to meet rapidly changing needs.
Cesar Portillo, director of governmental affairs at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, in Los Angeles, said his organization had no other choice but to seek the $2-million it received as a direct appropriation because the federal Medicaid program does not yet cover what his organization believes is an urgent need: short-term, in-patient centers to help people who have trouble keeping up with newly available drug regimens that are very complex to follow.
Mr. Portillo said Medicaid is still geared toward paying for hospice centers for dying patients. “It will be years before we can get Medicaid to change its rules so that we can get coverage for this kind care,” says Mr. Portillo. “In the meantime, we’re keeping people alive through the funding that we’ve received through this process.”
