Hispanic Affairs Chief Wants Grant Extended

Fri., Feb. 7, 1997

From Staff And Wire Reports

The new director of the Hispanic Affairs Commission urged legislative budget writers on Thursday to renew last year’s controversial $100,000 grant for community-based substance abuse education.

Dan Ramirez told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee that the one-time diversion from the special 10-cent cigarette tax for education programs on substance abuse had provided help for 3,800 students and more than 500 adults so far.

And two committee members backed him up.

“The loss of that $100,000 could be a real tragedy,” Republican Sen. Jerry Thorne of Nampa said.

Thorne, who has always had a special interest in the Hispanic Commission, won last winter’s fight over the grant after he compromised by agreeing to subject it to another review this winter.

But Gov. Phil Batt, who has launched a major initiative to boost the economic and social status of Idaho’s 60,000 Hispanics, deleted the grant in his 1998 budget blueprint.

The committee wraps up its month of budget hearings today and begins fashioning the 1998 state budget next week.

, DataTimes

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Hispanic Affairs Chief Wants Grant Extended

Jesse Tinsley

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