Health Care

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on four community health centers in New York that received grants from the Public Health Service (PHS), focusing on whether: (1) PHS consistently required centers to have community governing boards in order to receive funding under the Public Health Service Act; and (2) the share of funds that PHS awarded to grantees in New York was declining.

GAO found that: (1) PHS determined that none of the four community health centers had governing boards that complied with federal program regulations; (2) PHS gave the centers an opportunity to meet requirements, and three grantees subsequently complied with regulations, while the fourth was unwilling to make changes and did not apply for a grant continuation; (3) from 1980 through 1989, funds provided to community health centers in New York remained fairly stable, while national appropriations increased by about one-third; (4) awards to grantees in New York, which totalled $36.4 million in fiscal year (FY) 1980, were virtually unchanged in FY 1989, when they totalled $36.5 million; (5) nationally, funding increased from $321.2 million FY 1980 to $421.9 million in FY 1989; (6) as a result of increased funding, the share of national funds awarded to grantees in New York declined from 11.3 percent to 8.6 percent; (7) while funding to grantees in New York remained stable, the number of grantees declined, resulting in the average grant award increasing by 64 percent, from about $674,000 to $1.1 million; (8) PHS officials identified 16 grantees in New York that had grants terminated between 1980 and 1989; and (9) various factors affected the amount of funds awarded.