Published: August 24, 2008 10:41 pm      

Panel told senior centers need more money

CHARLESTON — Fewer Medicaid dollars, rising costs in fuel and the impending avalanche of baby boomers are creating financial headaches for providers of senior services in West Virginia, lawmakers learned Sunday.

Before a select legislative panel, two members of West Virginia Directors of Senior and Community Services asked for more money to keep retirees served in a state with a rapidly aging population.

Within the next two decades, one document cautioned, the state can expect “an unprecedented growth” in the 65-plus population.

“We don’t want to bail out,” intoned Chuck Hicks, executive director of the Roane County Committee on Aging. “We take care of the Greatest Generation. We are expected to do more and more care in the home, yet we have less and less money to do it with.”

Specifically, Hicks and Robert Roswell, director of the Cabell County Community Services Organization Inc., asked for a special $500,000 line item allotment in the budget to handle equipment and maintenance repairs on an immediate basis.

A second proposal is to raise the Medicaid reimbursement rate to $16 an hour, an increase of $2.50.

“You haven’t been successful with increasing it at the federal level,” noted Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, co-chair of the Select Committee on PEIA, Seniors and Long-Term Care. “The burden falls on us.”

The two providers also called for relief with gas budgets, pointing out the soaring cost of fuel has jacked up their operating budgets as much as 30 percent.

Exempting county aging programs from paying the state tax on fuel looms as “the very best solution,” Roswell told the committee.

Unger, however, told of seeing various organizations in his district that are operating independently and suggested a “collaboration” to pool resources and cut fuel costs.

“There’s a disconnect now,” he said.

Roswell and Ricks also asked the committee to consider a line item of $2 million for senior center operations, shaking out to some $36,000 for each senior program in the state.

An average client is 75 years old now, and with the baby boomers inching toward retirement, the two men suggested matters would only worsen.

Unger said the committee would contact the Department of Transportation on the fuel request, although it was implied there could be a constitutional issue with regard to money dedicated to the road fund.

Delegate Tom Campbell, D-Greenbrier, another co-chair, agreed that a problem exists with a requirement that all state monies allocated to senior centers must be exhausted by the end of a fiscal year.

For instance, he pointed out, a center might purchase a freezer on the assumption that the one in use is on its last legs.

“Maybe the freezer is OK, and then the fridge goes out,” he said.

Campbell was told that such programs are monitored extensively when he alluded to a dustup in one southern West Virginia operation.

Ricks said the county senior centers are the backbone of care for the aged, and their role will become increasingly important, as the graying of West Virginia becomes more apparent.

“We are the front line,” Ricks said, describing services that range from delivering meals to feeding the cat and taking in the mail. “We are the front door and we are the back door for our seniors.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com