TARRANT COUNTY, Texas — Changes to the council dedicated to allocating federal money earmarked for HIV/AIDS treatment have raised concerns among Tarrant County's largest AIDS service provider and at least one county commissioner.
Since taking office last year, County Judge Tim O'Hare dissolved the North Central Texas HIV Planning Council and appointed all new members. The council then changed its bylaws to remove a focus on "disproportionately affected groups," a county commissioner said.
"We do not want to find ourselves going back to the 80s and 90s when entire populations of people who were living with the virus perished," said AIDS Outreach Center Executive Director Kelly Allen Gray. "I am absolutely worried that could happen."
The North Central Texas HIV Planning Council is responsible for setting priorities and allocating millions of dollars in federal funding for treatment sent to Tarrant County each year.
A companion organization called the HIV Administrative Agency then distributes the funding through grants to agencies like the Salvation Army, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, JPS and others.
O'Hare recently asked the Commissioners Court to consolidate both the planning council and administrative agency under his supervision. He said he dissolved the existing council after a federal site visit last year found its process "dysfunctional" and "toxic." O'Hare then re-constituted the group with all new members.
Three of the newly-appointed members attend the same conservative mega-church whose pastor endorsed O'Hare from the pulpit, their social media pages showed. Another pushed for abstinence-based sex education within Fort Worth ISD and a fifth, who said she was the executive director of Tarrant County Citizens Defending Freedom, asked the district to ban books with sexually explicit content.
Allen Gray worries they don't have the best interest of her patients at heart.
"It's definitely not a good thing," she said. "I don’t think you should play politics with people’s lives."
O'Hare said the three members who attend the same church are racially diverse. One has experience in HIV/AIDS care, one serves in the church food pantry and another oversees an organization that works with victims of sex trafficking, he said in a statement.
O'Hare's office said he's worked to clean up the issues of the previous iteration of the planning council.
"The current 2024 council is efficient, productive, approve reallocation requests in a timely manner, and while they may not always agree on every agenda item, the dialogue and debates remain civil," his office said in a statement to WFAA.
"We’ve found each member to be caring, compassionate and dedicated to achieving a great program. We are grateful to those serving," the statement said.
County Commissioner Alisa Simmons raised concerns about representation on the planning council, which is federally required to have a third of its members diagnosed with HIV/AIDS.
O'Hare said his office has worked "tirelessly" to recruit volunteers with HIV to serve on the planning council.
"We have sent text messages to every single recipient in Tarrant County that has a cell phone number, didn’t get a lot of response," he said to Simmons in Commissioners Court.
Allen Gray said her organization depends on funds the planning council oversees for about 80% of its annual budget. She worries the new members could change the funding allocation in a way that invalidated the federal grant or refuse the money altogether.
"Either way it goes, we all lose," she said. "Politics should never affect a person’s livelihood and it is."
O'Hare said his office has not heard a single complaint from Allen Gray's group or others like it.
"As we continue to do a deep dive into the agency and the employees, we will be able to inject sound fiscal plans, business principles, and foster improvements within the program," his office said in a statement.