Nevada budget doesn't include ADAP increase

Nevada governor Kenny Guinn's proposed budget does not recommend increasing AIDS Drug Assistance Program funding to $4.5 million over the next two fiscal years, as the state health division had requested. Instead, Guinn recommends no funding increase from ADAP's previously budgeted $2.7 million; the state funds supplement about $6 million in federal funds. Last year, Nevada ADAP would have run out of money without emergency funds from a Clark County program that kept it solvent, according to health division officials. If ADAP funding is important enough, the legislature will include it, said Greg Bortolin, the governor's spokesman. "That's what the whole legislative process is about," he says. "That funding item will hopefully get its day in the legislature for people to express their concerns." Nevada's ADAP provides about 870 low-income HIV/AIDS patients with the medications they cannot afford. Some 220 more patients are expected to enroll over the next two years. (AP)