City taxpayers to fund needle exchange program

Sharon Coolidge | Cincinnati Enquirer

Show Caption Hide Caption Needle exchange stalls in Greater Cincinnati Hepatitis C rates soar when needle exchange sites stall in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.

Cincinnati City Council added a needle exchange program into the proposed 2018 budget, salvaging a program health officials say prevent the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV.

The University of Cincinnati-based program, which allows users to trade used needles for clean needles, had been privately funded by Interact for Health, a 20-county non-profit health agency. Grant money for the program dried up and Councilman Chris Seelbach took up the cause.

Council's unanimous vote Wednesday during Budget and Finance Committee marks the first time city taxpayers will help pay for the program.

"Dealing with our addiction and heroin crisis is a complicated issue with no silver bullet," Seelbach said. "But one piece of the puzzle we can solve for all intravenous drug users is to prevent the spread of Hep-C and HIV from dirty needles."

The money comes from shifting a transportation engineer's salary to another fund, freeing up the $150,000 the program needs.

The city money will pay for at least four mobile sites served by one van.

The grant money is expected to run out at some point this year. There has been discussion about the county's indigent care levy chipping in, but that decision is not expected until the end of the month.

A vote on the full budget is expected during Wednesday's Council meeting, but it's not quite done.

Council also axed a plan to boot cars with three or more parking tickets, in the process draining $600,000 from the budget.

Now City Manager Harry Black is working to find other cuts to cover the shortfall and he told one council member "You aren't going to like it." If there were easy cuts, he already would have made them.

The city is facing a $26 million budget deficit for 2018, the largest since the Great Recession. It's due in part to $8.7 million in raises for the members of five city unions and income tax projections falling short by $15.6 million.

Reporter Terry DeMio contributed to this report.