Gov. Quinn to speak at university's endangered autism center------------------------
Center for Autistic Spectrum Disorders threatened by lack of income tax hike
Barton Lorimor
The Daily Egyptian
Published: Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Former students and coordinators of the university’s [Southern Illinois University] Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders plan to present their case for continued state funding to Gov. Patrick Quinn Thursday [June 18, 2009] during his campus visit.
Quinn will meet with the center’s staff and take a tour of the facility, which provides therapy to children with autism and trains students in effective ways to treat the disease, said Anthony Cuvo, the center’s director.
Cuvo said the center’s state funding, roughly $492,000 per fiscal year, would be cut off if Quinn approves a state budget without the proposed 50 percent income tax hike . Such a cut would mean the center, which has trained nearly 200 graduate students studying behavior analysis and therapy, would not have any money to operate on, he said
Legislators failed to pass Quinn’s income tax proposal, which would have increased the 3 percent tax on incomes of at least $60,000 a year to 4.5 percent, but did not replace it with another revenue source to pay for state programs and begin decreasing a roughly $12 billion deficit. Though legislative leaders say they expect to make revisions to the budget later, the plan on Quinn’s desk cuts the Department of Human Services by $2.2 billion.
The Autism Program, a branch of the Department of Human Services that funds the center along with 11 other autism treatment centers across the state, would no longer receive state dollars unless the tax hike were approved, Georgia Winson, chief of the program, said in a news release.
FULL ARTICLE
Past newsstories about the SIU Autism Center
- Teachers learn new techniques from autism center
Sep 22, 2006 ... The autism center's staff – professionals who focus on why behavior occurs in order to figure out how to change it –
- Autism center offers help, hope
Feb 23, 2005 ... The center offers diagnostic, intervention and consultation services for children with autism spectrum disorders and their families, ...
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