In response to a 40 percent reduction in state funding for AIDS services, the Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition held a press conference last week in an attempt to restore the $2.7 million lost in the state’s 2009–2011 budget proposal, The New Haven Register reports.

“We all said we’re all willing to suffer a 10 percent cut,” said Leif Mitchell, co-chairman of the AIDS Legislative Initiative and Funding Effort. “This 40 percent cut to the Department of Public Health AIDS services is absolutely unacceptable.”

According to the article, the state Office of Policy and Management contends that Governor M. Jodi Rell’s budget proposal brings funding back to where it originally was before Connecticut allocated extra state resources in 2007 due to HIV/AIDS funding cuts under the federal Ryan White CARE Act.  

With 10,960 people living with the virus in Connecticut, the northeastern state has the 14th highest HIV/AIDS rate in the country.