Officials say levy's needed to aid seniors

County commissioners still have questions about the issue.
& lt;a href=mailto:bjackson@vindy.com & gt;By BOB JACKSON & lt;/a & gt;and STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS
YOUNGSTOWN -- On election day, voters in Trumbull and Mahoning counties will decide on a 1-mill levy that could raise more than $7 million to serve the elderly and triple the budget in each county of a four-county government agency.
Beyond that, details of the new senior services levy have yet to be determined. Officials say they hope to have more answers before election day.
Officials at the District XI Area Agency on Aging have not decided exactly how the money would be spent or finalized agreements on the process of spending it.
"We don't have answers to the big questions yet," said Deanna Clifford, the agency's director of community relations.
And though people in both counties who work with the elderly -- and whose agencies would likely benefit from the levy -- say they are convinced that there is a need for more services, no numbers appear to be available to show the scope of the problem.
Sees great need
"The need is phenomenal," said Janet Schweitzer, director of SCOPE Inc., a Trumbull County agency that operates four senior centers, as well as adult day care and in-home services.
Attendance at the SCOPE senior centers increased 16 percent in 2003 and will increase further, she said.
"We put millions of dollars into the community, and a good portion of the people say they don't have enough services available," Clifford said. "I have to think we have unmet need in the community."
The District XI Area Agency on Aging is one of 11 agencies the state set up to serve as a conduit for state and federal funds. Although the agency operates an advocacy and case-management program on its own, more often it hires other agencies to actually provide services.
The agency spends about $1 million to buy services in Trumbull County and $1.4 million in Mahoning.
The levy would raise an additional $3.4 million in Trumbull and $3.8 million in Mahoning.
Focus groups
Clifford said the Agency on Aging did not conduct a formal study to assess the needs of the senior community but did conduct a series of focus groups last year.
Those groups, combined with hearing firsthand concerns from seniors over the years, are what led senior services officials to determine that there is a huge need for increased services to senior citizens, she said.
"The need is massive," said Jennie Dennison-Budak, director of Interfaith Home Maintenance Service, in Youngstown. "There is no way to even begin describing it."
IHMS is one of several private entities the Agency on Agency contracts with to provide services for senior citizens. It provides funding to low-income families and seniors for home improvements. Budak said more than 40 percent of the agency's clients are 65 or older.
She said the agency served 564 households last year but has a waiting list of about 450 people. At its current funding level, it would take three to four years to eliminate the waiting list, she said.
If the levy passes and IHMS is given more funding from its revenue, it would allow the agency to significantly cut the waiting list, she said.
"When you need new windows because the wind is blowing in the house, for many of these people there is nowhere else to go but here," Budak said.
Turning people away
In Trumbull County, programs that provide meals to homebound elderly are forced to turn people away, because they don't have the means to deliver in some rural areas, Schweitzer said. More revenue for SCOPE would also allow more services to be offered to needy seniors whose incomes are just above the poverty line.
Clifford said if the levy passes, an advisory committee will be appointed to assess and prioritize funding needs. Commissioners in each county will have a say in how the money is spent.
"The county commissioners are the taxing authority, so they have the final say about what ultimately happens to the money," Clifford said.
She said that while about half the people who participated in the focus groups said they would support a levy for senior services and facilities, nearly half were not so sure. The agency is spending about $100,000 on an advertising campaign promoting the levy in both counties.
Most of those who are undecided said they are concerned about who will control the money and about how it will be spent, Clifford said.
The Agency on Aging has proposed an agreement with commissioners in each county, in which it would administer the funding with oversight from commissioners and the advisory panel.
"We think the process we have proposed builds in a lot of accountability for how tax dollars are spent," Clifford said.
Trumbull County Commissioner Joseph J. Angelo Jr. said he was satisfied with the plan but was waiting for more details about how much levy money would be spent by the agency on overhead and administration.
"I think the levy is sorely needed and long overdue," he said.
The Agency on Aging now spends 8 percent of its budget on administration, Clifford said. That is expected to go down if the levy passes, but she was not sure by how much.
But Commissioner Vicki Allen Sherlock of Mahoning County said she's not ready to sign off on the deal. The agreement, as it stands, is still too vague, Sherlock said.
"I think it's very, very important to be as detailed as possible," she said. "I think we learned a very hard lesson from the CVB."
Visitors bureau dispute
She was referring to the Youngstown/Mahoning County Convention and Visitors Bureau, with which commissioners are locked in a dispute over funding. The CVB was created by commissioners and was funded with lodging tax revenue, but it has become autonomous and commissioners have no say in how it spends its money.
Commissioners recently voted to stop giving the CVB bed tax money and are trying to recover money the group had accumulated in savings.
Sherlock said commissioners favor having the Agency on Aging administer the money if the senior services levy passes but want to ensure that the agreement includes enough safeguards to avoid problems like the ones with the CVB.
Sherlock and Clifford agreed, though, that it's important to get an agreement nailed down before the election so voters will know how the money will be spent.
"We will come up with whatever accountability they want," Clifford said. "It's not our intention to have this money disappear into this agency never to be seen again. We want to get it back into the community."