Chicago health officials are revising how roughly $8 million in federal HIV funding will be allocated after the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) released grant applications before a required spending plan was finalized.
As a result, HIV service providers last year applied for grants without knowing how much funding would be available for different services, leaving some organizations requesting less money than was ultimately allocated for those programs—a mismatch that advocates warned could translate into smaller grants and cuts to certain services at some organizations.
“We were writing [requests for proposals] in the dark,” said John Peller, president and CEO of AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC). “We had no idea how much money to ask for.”
The Chicagoland HIV Integrated Planning and Action Council (CHIPAC), which decides what percentage of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part A funding goes to different HIV services in the Chicago region, held an emergency meeting March 13 to address the mismatch between its final funding allocations and the grant requests submitted to CDPH.
The health department is expected to receive about $17.5 million this year in Ryan White Part A funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees the program. So far, the city has received about $8 million of that total.
At the meeting, CHIPAC members voted on a plan for redistributing those funds to reconcile the council’s final allocations with providers’ grant requests as representatives from several HIV service organizations voiced frustration with how the process unfolded.
Peller said AFC requested $90,000 for emergency financial assistance, but officials later learned that up to $600,000 was available for that service category.
He added that the lack of clarity during the application process could mean AFC will have less money for the service, which helps people living with HIV avoid eviction, pay utility bills and buy food during financial hardship.
“This is a really good example of how backwards the process was,” Peller told Windy City Times after the meeting. “Now it sounds like there’s no mechanism other than a completely new request for proposals to get this funding out to the community—and it is desperately needed.”
How the funding mismatch unfolded
The mismatch traces back to October, when CDPH released its requests for proposals while CHIPAC was still determining what percentage of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funding would go to different HIV services.
A CDPH spokesperson said the department opened the requests for proposals before CHIPAC finished its review process to prevent delays in reimbursing HIV organizations for their services.
“Contract setup, proposal review, selection and contract execution can take significant time, so releasing the [requests for proposals] early helped ensure that new contracts would be in place in time for delegate agencies to begin submitting reimbursement vouchers as early as April 2026,” a statement from CDPH read.
At the time, CHIPAC was still in the middle of its Priority Setting and Resource Allocation process, a required annual review in which the council assigns percentages of total Ryan White funding to different service areas such as medical case management, housing support and outreach.
CDPH’s job is to apply those percentages to the region’s Ryan White funding and distribute the money to service providers through its grant process.
The health department provided applicants with general funding ranges based on previous years’ budgets and awards, but those estimates were not based on CHIPAC’s final recommendations, said Valerie Johansen, a CHIPAC member involved in the reallocation process.
“Folks that were submitting applications were going in blind, not knowing how much they could potentially ask for,” Johansen said.
CHIPAC’s review process concluded at its meeting in late November, when the council finalized the percentage of funding allocated to each service category.
City health officials then reviewed the 11 Ryan White Part A grant applications submitted through the request for proposals process. By Feb. 23, CDPH’s executive team had completed its review and identified the mismatch between the council’s funding allocations and the grant requests submitted by providers.
In some service categories, more funding had been requested than the council had planned for, while others received fewer requests, according to a statement from CDPH.
Two days later, CDPH presented its findings to CHIPAC during the council’s February meeting, alerting members to the issue.
At that point, CHIPAC members were tasked with determining how to reallocate the Ryan White funds before the new grant contracts take effect.
Weighing the options
The quickest way to resolve the mismatch was to reallocate funding to service categories where applications had already been submitted, CDPH Commissioner Dr. Olusimbo Ige told CHIPAC members during the emergency meeting.
Shifting funds to other categories would require issuing a new request for proposals—a process that can take months, she said.
“There’s also the reality that this grant is supposed to start in March, and we need to spend down the money pretty quickly,” Ige said.
Under federal rules, if more than 5% of a Ryan White Part A award goes unspent, that amount can be deducted from the following year’s funding, and the recipient may lose access to supplemental grants.
With pressure to avoid underspending this year’s Ryan White Part A award, CHIPAC members spent the March 13 meeting evaluating multiple approaches to reallocating funding across service categories for the upcoming cycle.
The proposals under consideration centered on two competing approaches: maintaining the council’s funding priorities finalized in November, or adopting CDPH’s recommended grant awards based on the applications it received.
Maintaining CHIPAC’s original allocation percentages would have best reflected the priorities identified through the council’s review process, but risked leaving some agencies’ grant requests unfulfilled, Johansen said.
Meanwhile, CDPH’s proposal was based directly on those agencies’ requests—but several members noted those applications might not accurately reflect demand because organizations applied without knowing the final funding amounts available for each service category.
Ultimately, the council voted to adopt a hybrid plan combining CHIPAC’s funding priorities with CDPH’s recommendations and applying it to the full $17.5 million expected for the year.
City health officials told Windy City Times they have begun adjusting grants from the $8 million already received to align with the reallocation plan. The remaining money will be distributed using the same percentages as more federal funding is received.
Erica Gafford, a CHIPAC member involved in the reallocation discussions, acknowledged during the meeting that the process was not ideal, but said the council was trying to correct the problem without delaying funding for service providers.
“What we want to do is take this not great situation and do the best that we can in the time that we’re given and be as productive as possible,” Gafford said.
Providers criticize grant process
Frustration over the funding process spilled outside the meeting as service providers from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and two of its Chicago-based affiliates gathered in front of CDPH headquarters to protest the city’s handling of HIV service grants, warning it could lead to cuts to some of their programs.
Vanessa Smith, executive director of South Side Help Center, said the confusion surrounding the grant process has left organizations like hers grappling with the consequences.
“I’m disappointed in the process, and the fact they didn’t do it correctly in the first place,” Smith said. “Now it’s our organizations and the communities we serve who are impacted by this lack of process.”
At AFC, the funding mismatch is already affecting how services are planned, Peller said. The organization cut 20 medical case managers due to lower expected funding and rising salary requirements—something Peller said AFC supports but needs additional funding to sustain.
Now, more funding appears to be available in that same service category, Peller said.
Peller said CHIPAC co-chairs Caprice Carthans and Gary Sellers, along with the rest of the volunteer-run council, have been “trying to make this process work.”
“But we’re at a time when CDPH has fallen short,” Peller said.
CDPH officials said they are now reviewing the timeline for future grant cycles to ensure accurate funding allocations are available before applications are released.