BOROUGH PRESIDENT HELEN MARSHALL
FY2005 BUDGET TESTIMONY
FEBRUARY 5, 2004

Council of Senior Centers and Services is the central organization in New York City representing 265 member agencies providing community-based services for 300,000 older New Yorkers. Services include: multi-service senior centers, meals-on-wheels, transportation, case management, home care, NORCs, adult day services, housing, legal services, assistance for immigrants, ESL, mental health counseling, computerized benefits program, entitlements and benefits counseling, intergenerational programs, caregiving services, and opportunities for volunteerism.

On behalf of CSCS, its Board of Directors, and the agencies we serve, we thank you for your continued support of our training and technical assistance work. In partnership with Borough President Helen Marshall, CSCS is able to strengthen the senior centers and agencies that work on the frontlines everyday with elderly residents of Queens.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify at today’s hearing.

We are grateful that Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his State of the City speech announced that no senior centers would close. His administration has further stated that the Department for the Aging will not be cut. This is good news.

Services for seniors have come through a difficult two years. Funding for senior centers, case management agencies, adult day care, NORCs, home care and other programs was already at a barebones level. These agencies did not come into the city’s fiscal crisis with strong financial standing. With the needs of seniors growing and city money decreasing, we hit the perfect storm – the age wave crashing with the budget storm. Elected officials, senior citizens, providers and advocates pulled together like never before to oppose cuts that would hurt vulnerable older New Yorkers. We met with much success, but also losses. Most of all we lost time. We’ve lost two years of fighting for basic services seniors receive and have proven track records of success. As the city’s economy turns around, it is time for us to regain financial losses and put forth a proactive agenda that enhances existing services, not just barely maintaining them. It is important to build momentum for funding services based on what seniors need to age in place in their homes and communities with dignity.

Seniors don’t ask for much when you consider what we’ve had to defend over the past two years. The city’s fiscal crisis threatened to close senior centers, eliminate the sixth weekend meal program, and eliminate borough president funds that are so essential to senior services. We lost funding for social workers in senior centers to provide mental health services and four new senior centers for underserved immigrant populations. One senior center would have been in Queens. Funding was lost for ESL classes and the Safe Streets/Elderly Crime Victims program. There were promises made by DFTA to replace these programs which, one year later, have not been kept. 

There are still outstanding funding issues. The restorations made for FY2004 were for only one year as they were not baselined. We all need to work to ensure these funds are restored and baselined. It does not service seniors well and the agencies that are on the frontlines everyday serving them to have to fight for the same money year after year. Historically, DFTA restorations have been baselined in the city budget. Based on Mayor Bloomberg’s FY2005 preliminary budget, our city budget agenda for FY2005 is the following: 

FY2005 CITY BUDGET AGENDA:

1. $9 million - Restorations to cuts effecting food and case management –

   1. $8 million food cut restoration – This year’s budget includes an $8 million cut to the food budget. The $8 million was part of an overall $75 million “streamlining” social services package which City Council agreed to as long as services weren’t diminished. This cut is the driving the meals-on-wheels RFP in the Bronx and will likely result in other proposals by DFTA to cut funding for meals. Restoration of these funds is critical.

   2. Withdrawal of the Bronx meals-on-wheels RFP – This is an untested plan which cuts funding; puts homebound seniors at risk of receiving less than five day a week delivery and other services; presents numerous logistical problems to implement; and results in the loss of 60 jobs including drivers and deliverers who are a lifeline to frail, homebound elderly. This plan shouldn’t happen in the Bronx or other boroughs.

   3. $1 million – Transfer EISEP assessment of homebound clients to HRA.

2. $11.6 million - Baselining (making permanent) this year’s restorations – We all worked hard to restore funding for this fiscal year. HOWEVER, this was only a one year restoration. If these funds aren’t restored, this money will be eliminated as of July 1, 2004. If it is not a permanent restoration, we will be forced to fight for the same funding year after year which will hurt the elderly and agencies that serve them. Since these items were restored last year, it makes sense that they be restored permanently. This includes:

   1. $7.5 million – Borough President funds

   2. $1.7 million – weekend sixth meal program

   3. $1.6 million – 9 information and referral contracts 

   4. $ 390,000 – two senior centers (Mayor Bloomberg has promised not to close any senior centers so hopefully this money will be baselined.)

3. $ 7.2 million - Restore what was lost over the past two years –

   1. eliminated - English as a Second Language (ESL) - $750,000

   2. eliminated - Safe Streets/ Elderly Crime Victims - $2.2 million

   3. eliminated - Social workers in senior centers for mental health services – $ 2.5 million

   4. eliminated - 4 seniors centers in underserved immigrant areas – 
      $1.4 million

   5. ut - Extended Services Programs (information & referral) - $360,000

$7.5 million - Borough President funds – 

CSCS wholeheartedly thanks Borough President Marshall and her staff for its pivotal assistance in winning restoration of Borough President funds. We believe that DFTA is shortsighted to propose eliminating these funds as they are the glue that holds many services together – meals, transportation, adult day services, NORCs – and other programs are supported by Borough President discretionary funds. As the restoration was for just one year, we all need to remain vigilant that these funds remain whole and in control of the Borough Presidents, not DFTA, as has been proposed. The Bloomberg administration restored the funds last year during the budget process. We need to begin working now with the Bloomberg administration to have the Borough President funds restored in the April proposed Executive Budget. This money needs to be baselined as seniors and agencies should not have to worry year after year if funds will be available for critical services.

Meals-on-wheels RFP in the Bronx – Attached, is a joint statement written by five advocacy organizations in opposition to the Department for the Aging’s RFP for meals-on-wheels in the Bronx. We remain firm in our position that the RFP be withdrawn and a more thoughtful planning process involving community based agencies be allowed to take place.

To be clear, the fact that DFTA raised the per meal cost to $5 per meal from $4 and the quota of hot meals/5 day a delivery from a 40% maximum to 70% is still unsatisfactory. The $5 a meal is still a cut from the current average of $6. The Bronx will receive $800,000 less in meals-on-wheels funding. If the city truly wants to enhance the meals-on-wheels system, it needs to invest additional dollars, not less. There has been no increase in meals-on-wheels funding, or any other DFTA funding, in five years. This has resulted in contracts being worth 10% less as agencies receive the same amount of funding. Obviously, inflation has eroded the purchasing power of these contracts. Rather than advocating for more support from the Bloomberg administration for meals-on-wheels, DFTA has taken an $8 million food cut and persisted in moving forward on a misguided plan. 

There has never been a quota system before on how many meals can be hot or frozen or how many days a week delivery. This will create logistical nightmares as multiple waiting lists will have to be developed based on the kind of meal and number of weekly deliveries a homebound senior receives. Transportation, always a complex issue, will become even more complicated as the Bronx is split into three large regions. This is the reason community-based agencies have provided meals-on-wheels for the past thirty years – to address the diverse populations and deal with logistical complexities. What looks good on paper, may not work in reality. Why is DFTA willing to take these risks that could be detrimental to frail, homebound elderly rather than sit down to a thoughtful planning process? Will DFTA guarantee that funding will be available if truly 70% or more of the seniors require a hot meal/five days a week? Stating that up to 70% of the seniors can receive a hot meal is one thing. Ensuring the funding to keep this commitment is there is another thing. DFTA hasn’t been good on keeping its commitments. 

DFTA repeatedly has stated that there will be a telephone reassurance program to keep in contact with seniors getting less thatn five days a week delivery. That system does not exist now. Where will the money come from? 

DFTA states that the case management agencies will magically do all the assessments for meals and be able to provide adequate support for all seniors in the meals-on-wheels program. The reality is that the case management agencies depend upon the meal deliverers to be the watchdogs as they see the seniors every day. DFTA says meal deliverers shouldn’t be looked at as social service workers. However, in a practical sense, they are there every day. 

In the RFP, DFTA stated it is considering trying to get “appropriate ovens” for seniors to heat meals. What does that mean and who will pay for the ovens? Where will the money come from to pay for, deliver and teach seniors how to use microwaves over the coming years? This is not just a one time expense. Who will ensure that the senior knows how to use a microwave? 

Just look at the ESL and Safe Streets programs where money was eliminated and no replacement was provided as promised. 

There have been no salary increases for the aging services workforce in five years – 

Workers in senior centers, NORCs, meals-on-wheels, adult day services, case management and other aging services programs have not received a salary increase since April, 1999. This is unconscionable. From 1979 to 1999, the city’s policy was to pass along the same percentage salary increase that DC-37 won to workers in contracted agencies. That policy ended five years ago and there has simply been no salary increase whatsoever since that time. There is also no city funded pension for this workforce. Ironically, those individuals on the frontlines everyday helping senior citizens have no pension upon retirement.

According to a salary survey done by the Human Services Council, the aging services network has the lowest average salary of any social service sector – about $22,000 a year. Low salaries and no pensions lead to a high turnover rate among many employees. There is a workforce crisis in this service network. We’re having a difficult time attracting young people into this field. They leave their jobs because they cannot afford to live on the salaries, not because of lack of job satisfaction. This impacts the elderly as they lose the benefits of qualified professional staff with whom they can build a long term relationship. 

The Department for the Aging is supporting the working poor. We call upon all elected officials – Borough Presidents, City Councilmembers, State Assemblymembers and Senators and the Bloomberg administration – to right this wrong. A salary increase is long overdue.

Saving lives - City Council grab bars legislation to address falls prevention–

In 2003, Councilmember Alan Gerson introduced legislation that would require landlords to install grab bars in bathrooms of elderly tenants, Intro 352 (it will be reintroduced under a new number soon). About twenty Councilmembers have signed on to date. The bill is fashioned after the window guards legislation designed to save the lives of children who could potentially fall out of windows. 

Falls prevention is a life and death issue for the elderly. One out of four elderly people, mostly women, who fracture their hip as a result of a fall are dead within a year. Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injury death of people over age 65. Obviously their quality of life is greatly diminished if they break a hip or sustain other injuries. The cost to the health care system nationally is billions of dollars. While it is evident that hospitalization, rehabilitation services and home care must be costing NYC millions of dollars, we have not been able to find any city agency that tracks this information.

We urge all elected officials – Borough Presidents, Councilmembers and the Bloomberg administration – to support this critical legislation. 



CSCS looks forward to working with the Borough President’s office to ensure that services are available for all seniors to age in place in their homes and communities with dignity.