John Green is anxiously awaiting word from the supercommittee in Washington, D.C. about how to trim the national budget. As director of the Southeast Kansas Agency on Aging, one-third of his budget relies on federal funds.
The agency provides and facilitates services for the elderly in nine counties, including Allen. Its budget this year of $3.1 million contains $1 million generated by the federal Older Americans Act.
“We got $902,000 in federal money,” Green said of this year’s budget, which was matched by $100,000 by the state’s counties.
“If we get cut, we’ll figure out how to provide the maximum we can with the money we get,” he said.
He and the other 34 employees of the agency have had practice getting by with less. State funding, totaling about $2 million through the state’s Senior Care Act, has been cut in recent years in response to the recession.
Allen County contributed $2,000 this year for a return of $248,000 in services for its elderly population. Eighteen percent of Allen Countians are 65 or older.
“So far, we’ve dealt with cuts through attrition,” Green said, “replacing two or three of six or seven who have retired.
“We’ve just spread the work out” over those remaining, “but there comes a time when there are diminishing returns, you can only ask so much of your people,” said Green, the agency’s director since 2005.
If a cut to Older Americans Act funding occurs, it is expected soon. The supercommittee’s task is to develop a plan by Thanksgiving to slice $1.5 trillion from the federal deficit, as well as $1 trillion in cuts Congress approved earlier this year in the debt-ceiling deal.
In addition to home-care and nutrition services, Older Americans Act funding supports adult day care, transportation and caregivers.
Green explained an advantage of home-care and nutrition services is that they keep elderly at home, and delay hospital and nursing home care. Older folks are healthier and happier when they are able to stay in their own homes, Green said. Home-based services also save the state money by avoiding extended care elsewhere. When a senior expends his or her financial resources in a hospital or care home, Medicaid picks up the tab.
The Southeast Kansas Area Agency on Aging, one of 11 such agencies in Kansas. It has some direct services, but mainly is a facilitator, “kind like a brokerage,” he said, that arranges programs with other agencies.
NUTRITION services is a very visible example, one that gives Iolan Irene Shipps a hot noon meal, freshly prepared at a Senior Services of Southeast Kansas kitchen in Chanute.
Shipps, 86, looks forward to a volunteer’s knock on her front door just before noon each weekday, hopefully with a few minutes to visit.
She doesn’t get out much, and a friendly face is as welcome as the meal.
“There’s a lot of variety, and the meals always are good,” said Shipps.
She depends mostly on frozen entrees for breakfast and dinner, as well as weekends. She occasionally keeps some of the noon fare to enhance her evening meal.
Shipps suffered a stroke in July 2002 and now uses a walker to get about. The volunteers bringing meals are a daily lifeline. Not only do they break the monotony of her living alone, they also give Shipps the comfort of knowing someone is checking in on her from time to time.
While ambulatory with the aid of a walker, Shipps accepts being homebound because her nearest relatives are cousins in Junction City.
“If I fell and broke something, you know where I’d end up,” she said with a knowing look — a nursing home.
A 1943 graduate of Le Roy High, she and Bob Botham, also of Le Roy, were married in 1944 when he was home on a 30-day leave from the Navy. The Bothams moved to Iola in 1949. She worked as a store clerk until they opened Botham Sewing Center, which they eventually moved next to their home at 301 N. Fourth St.
Her world came crashing down in 1976, when their only son, Jeff, died in a traffic accident and her husband died. Later she married John Shipps. They had a good life together until he died a little over two years ago.
“Everyone knew John,” she said, noting that he became widely recognized for driving his 1919 Moline tractor in Farm-City Days and other parades.
Now, the meals volunteers bring cheer into Shipps’ day.
One day last week it was Sandy Drake, Allen County appraiser, who bounced in after a single knock on the door.
“We’re old friends,” Drake said. “I’ve volunteered to deliver meals for nine years, just about since she (Shipps) started getting them.”
Shipps is one of about 30 Iolans who receive meals each day. Each pays $3, unless financial circumstances dictate otherwise. Another 20 or so eat in the congregate meals program, also $3, at the Iola Senior Center, 204 N. Jefferson Ave.
“The meals affect a lot of people,” Shipps said. “I hope they don’t go away.”
NOT ALL THAT the agency does is targeted to those 65 and older.
Green said a part of its mission is to help seniors 55 and older who find themselves out of a job, without the resources to retire and unsure of what to do next.
“We help with job search and assist in placement,” he said, as well as help them face up to the emotional challenge of being out of work.
“For some, they’ve always worked,” Green said, and make for reliable employment.
“A major challenge often is (coping with) technology.”
For those 65 and older, the agency has two case managers who work with clients in their homes to see they get the services they need to maintain their independence. That may be arranging for housekeeping or more personal services, such as help with bathing and attending to personal hygiene.
Medication management also is a feature of the agency, done by a registered nurse who in Allen County alone deals with 19 seniors.
“She goes over the meds with clients to make sure they’re not taking one that counteracts others they’re taking,” Green said. “We offer this program in four of our nine counties each year, because of budget restrictions. Allen County is one of the four this year.”
Agency personnel also help seniors with Part D medical card enrollment and re-enrollment, which is being done now.
Support of family caregivers is a big part of his agency’s role in helping the elderly, Green said.
Part of the federal money the agency receives is used for monthly get-togethers where caregivers talk about what they do, learn how to do it better and receive support from each other by sharing their experiences. The Area Agency on Aging also helps find relief so caregivers can take a few days off to refresh themselves.
GREEN IS PAYING particularly close attention to news coming out of Washington, D.C.
“If they cut enough, it would gut the program,” he said.
“I don’t anticipate that,” he added. “We’re looking at flat funding with no drastic cuts. We can live with that.”
