HIV-positive mothers and their unborn babies are benefiting from an 11th-hour infusion of federal funding that saved an Illinois nonprofit from closing due to the state budget impasse.
Anne Statton, executive director of the Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative (PACPI), said approximately $500,000 in available federal funds was released to the organization by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH). The funds will cover outstanding invoices for contracted services PACPI performed between July 2015 and March 2016, Statton said.
PACPI, which works to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmissions, depends on IDPH for about 85 percent of its funding. Currently, the organization has state contracts that collectively total about $845,000.
Without the federal funding, PACPI would have been forced to shut down in October.
Progress Illinois breaks down the winners and losers in some key legislative races in which stakes were high for Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Emmet Elementary School’s utilization rate is 66 percent, higher than a handful of other Austin neighborhood schools.
Even still, the Chicago Public Schools wants to close it at the end of the
year, and that decision continues to puzzle some West Side community
members and parents who spoke out against the action before Emmet’s final community meeting last night.
“Unfortunately we
have an administration with this corporate ideology of privatizing
education that uses our data to punish schools rather than use them as
tools to go ahead and improve our children’s education,” said Dwayne
Truss with the Austin Community Action Council. “And that’s wrong.”
A Chicago federal appeals court denied a request from imprisoned former
Illinois Gov. George Ryan that the three-judge panel rehear his plea for
a early prison release.
State Rep. Derrick Smith (D-Chicago) went before an Illinois House special investigative committee today, pleading his innocence to federal bribery charges.