Advocates for the aging fear waiting list for services is on the way

Advocates for the aging fear waiting list for services is on the way:
But administration officials say they are working on a plan to avert that
By Dave Ranney
Monday, March 14, 2011
TOPEKA — A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department on Aging said the agency is doing all it can to avoid putting frail seniors on a waiting list for in-home services.
“We know that in the past when people have gone on the waiting list, one-third of them end up in nursing homes, which increases the nursing-home portion of our budget," said Sara Arif of KDoA. "We're trying not to let that happen."
But advocates for the elderly said a waiting list is almost inevitable.
“Judging from the (legislative) committee discussions that have taken place so far, I’d have to say it’s almost guaranteed some time in fiscal 2012,” said Craig Kaberline, executive director at the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging.
The state’s next fiscal year begins July 1.The agency initially requested an operating budget of about $579 million. The governor instead proposed about $561 million. His plan was to avoiding a waiting list, in part, by cutting KDoA salaries and positions by $3 million from all funds; $1.2 million from the state general fund, and using that money to pay for senior services.
KDoA, Arif said, will formally announce its intent to lay off 20 full-time employees later this week. But agency officials have said that to avoid a waiting list, the department needs an additional $4.6 million for the services shifted from other agency spending.
An additional 787 frail seniors are expected to seek in-home services in the coming year.
KDoA Secretary Shawn Sullivan has said he thinks he can free up the needed extra money from elsewhere in the state-funded portion of the department’s budget but has not said how.
Last week, the House Appropriations Committee told Sullivan to cut the state-funded portion of his budget an additional $800,000.
“We don’t see how the secretary going to be able to do that,” Kaberline said.
Arif said she expects the department to outline its cost-cutting plan later this week.
“We’re within $1.3 million of where we need to be,” she said. “We’re at the point now where we’re trying to work with CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) on allowing us some flexibility in certain areas. It’s difficult to know at this point how that’s going to go.”
Rep. Jerry Henry, D-Cummings, said he’s was skeptical the agency would be able to avoid a waiting list.
“This whole thing doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. “We’ve got more and more people with more and more needs coming into a system that’s already stretched pretty thin and we’re being told we can do it with fewer staff and for less money. If you ask me, the Brownback administration is rolling the dice on this one."
Henry is the ranking minority on the House Social Services Budget Committee.
“I think we’re either going to have a waiting list or there’s going to be a lot of corner-cutting going on,” he said. “I don’t know that the secretary is going to propose. I suspect we may not like it.”
The committee’s chairman, Rep. David Crum, R-Augusta, defended Brownback’s proposal.
“I think people tend to overlook the fact that the governor funded Medicaid, he fully funded people who are on the frail elderly waiver now and he put an additional $1.2 million in the waiver,” Crum said. “That’s a substantial amount of money.”
Crum said he hoped the department would be able to avoid a waiting list.
“But, still, it’s a possibility that some seniors may have to wait for services,” he said. “Time will tell.”
Brownback also has proposed and budget committees in both the House and Sentate have upheld a 10 percent cut in the state-funded portion of the department’s home-delivered and congregate meals programs and a 20 percent cut in Senior Care Act-funded grants.
Across the state, area agencies on aging use Senior Care Act dollars Meeting the Needs of Older Kansans

(Article from the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging Association)