Officials discuss SCOPE’s use of levy

By Ed Runyan

Commissioner Dan Polivka said he hoped levy issues can be resolved in two weeks.

WARREN — Partway through a meeting involving Trumbull County commissioners, officials for the SCOPE senior services agency and the District 11 Area Agency on Aging, Commissioner Paul Heltzel asked fellow attorney Peter Grinstein to clarify a legal issue.

Regarding accusations that SCOPE failed to get the proper signatures on paperwork from senior citizens who received services from the agency with money from the county senior citizens levy, Heltzel asked Grinstein whether the accusations suggested illegal activity.

Grinstein, of Youngstown, who represents District 11, said it did.

“It is not illegal, and for you to say it is is out of order,” Heltzel said.

Heltzel then asked Grinstein who sets the policies that govern the use of the levy money approved by voters in 2005.

Grinstein agreed that the commissioners do.

“Do the commissioners establish law?” Heltzel asked.

Heltzel answered for him: “No.”

And he added, “You owe an apology to this group. Do not accuse these people of doing something illegal,” he said, pointing to the SCOPE representatives in the room.

Moments later, Don Medd, District 11 director, clarified the issue.

In talking about the seniors levy money and its use, he said: “It’s improper. It’s not illegal.”

The meeting was in the commissioners’ meeting room Tuesday at the request of SCOPE to discuss the rocky relationship between the agency and District 11 over the past year.

Commissioners hired District 11 to serve as administrator over the agencies receiving levy money, including SCOPE, which was awarded $644,000 in 2007 and a similar amount this year.

The levy will raise about $2.6 million annually for five years.

Commissioners and District 11 authorized an audit that showed that SCOPE had not followed guidelines established by District 11 for how it could spend levy money.

For instance, SCOPE billed the levy $101,000 over a 10-month period for line dancing, Grinstein said, adding, “That’s preposterous.”

Line dancing should have been billed at a rate of $9 per hour instead of $33, Grinstein said, which is part of the reason District 11 asked the commissioners to seek a reimbursement from SCOPE of about $120,000.

But while asking the commissioners to seek reimbursement for levy money, Medd also mentioned that District 11 also had concerns about SCOPE’s handling of a state program called PASSPORT, which provides long-term care at home and in nursing homes.

Lisa Solley, District 11 community relations director, confirmed that concerns about PASSPORT led to a referral to the Ohio Department of Aging and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, which had begun a criminal investigation into SCOPE over the PASSPORT program.

Throughout the meeting, all sides agreed that the only issues commissioners should address are the ones involving levy money, not PASSPORT.

And by the end of the meeting it was clear that a resolution to those issues is likely to be worked out within a matter of weeks. “I think we have a proposed solution,” Medd said.

In fact, Grinstein said he thought the issue had already been “put to bed” earlier, until SCOPE officials went to last week’s county commissioners meeting to revisit the matter.

Commissioner Dan Polivka said he would like to meet in two more weeks in an effort to reach an agreement for how much SCOPE can bill for 50 to 60 different types of service it provides with levy money.

“I’d like to get this in place,” agreed Lawrence Weeks, president of SCOPE’s board of trustees.

runyan@vindy.com