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Officials seek funds for center
The board of health cannot continue to subsidize the program, a nursing director says.
YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County officials are scrambling to find temporary funding to keep the county health department’s adult day-care center from closing next Wednesday due to a $60,000 shortfall in operating money.
Diana M. Colaianni, director of nursing at the county health department, said county officials are hoping for “bridge funding,” perhaps from the county’s general fund, to keep the center at 2801 Market St. functioning through the summer until participants can apply and qualify for Medicaid to pay for their enrollment in the center. Private funding sources would also be sought, she said.
“We are still hopeful that we can either collaborate or the commissioners can help us just to get through even this summer, and hopefully then, our other funding would kick in,” she said. “We want [the program] to be self-sustaining. We know we need to be. The board of health cannot continue to subsidize the program.”
County Commissioner John McNally said he and Commissioner Anthony Traficanti have asked Administrator George Tablack to explore other funding sources, including the general fund, to try to bankroll the center through year’s end. The general fund is the county’s main operating fund.
“It’s the health department’s responsibility to keep it open. We’re going to try to make some decisions here in the next week. Hopefully, we’ll keep it open, but there’s nothing definite,” McNally said.
Tablack has met with Matthew Stefanak, county health commissioner, to discuss the program’s finances, Traficanti said. “We’re looking to see what happened to their funding. Why was there a shortfall?” he said. He also echoed Colaianni’s reference to Medicaid as a potential future program funding source.
About 60 low-income and frail seniors attend the 30-year-old center at the county’s South Side Annex, which is the only adult day services program in Ohio to be sponsored by a county health department. The program, which has a $162,000 annual operating budget, is funded by a combination of federal Title III grant money, the District XI Area Agency on Aging and the county health department.
In their meeting Thursday at the Mahoning County Senior Center, 1110 Fifth Ave., the county commissioners heard from several program participants, who said the program is vital to them and strongly urged that it be kept alive.
“It’s just been a godsend,” said Mona Judy of Austintown, a program participant for three years. Many center participants have few or no family members living locally, and many would sit idly at home if they didn’t have access to such a program, she said. “This keeps us going and keeps our hands and our minds occupied and just does a lot for us.”
Bessie Daniels, 76, of Campbell, a center participant for 14 years, attends the program with two other widows, one of whom she has known since their childhood.
“When I first started, I really thought I was going to die. I had cancer and I had heart trouble. I was scared to go out of the house,” she recalled. “It made me become alive again,” and introduced her to many new friends, she said of the center, which she called a “home away from home.”
Participants are bused from their homes to the five-hour-a-day program, where they play cards, make crafts, exercise and enjoy a meal — all for $5 a day.
The program is threatened with closing because the county health department can no longer afford to provide it with a $60,000 annual subsidy due to the downturn in the economy, which has curtailed the department’s licensing and permit fee income.