43
Trumbull officials give levy funds to SCOPE
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners have awarded SCOPE Inc. levy funds to keep open the six SCOPE senior centers for another year and will give the organization a second chance to bid on $57,925 worth of adult day-care funds.
As county officials indicated earlier, SCOPE will not receive any of the in-home funding from the countywide senior citizens levy.
SCOPE was allocated up to about $290,000 in funding for in-home services for the year ending June 30, 2012, but that source of funding has been cut off as a result of a finding by the Ohio Department of Aging that the nonprofit SCOPE failed to follow several Ohio laws and rules.
On Thursday, commissioners awarded SCOPE $431,575 to run its senior centers in Howland, Warren, Niles, Champion, Lordstown and Cortland.
Because only one other agency — Easter Seals — offered a bid on adult day care, there still is $57,925 available, said Diane Drawl, the accountant hired by the county commissioners to oversee the levy funding.
SCOPE offers senior- citizen day care at Christ Episcopal Church in Warren.
SCOPE can bid on those funds the next time, Drawl said. And assuming SCOPE meets the bid regulations the next time, SCOPE could be awarded the funds, she said.
A decision on the adult day-care funds most likely will be made in July, which is after SCOPE has an appeal hearing with the Ohio Department of Health in Columbus, Drawl noted. That means sanctions against SCOPE could be lifted by that time, she added.
The county most likely will extend its contract with SCOPE to continue to provide adult day care on a month-to-month basis into July so that services are not interrupted for a vulnerable population, Drawl said.
Meanwhile, commissioners also have approved $635,000 in levy funding for Trumbull Transit to continue to provide transportation services. The money will be enough to continue the operation into early 2013, Drawl said. The Trumbull Transit Board will need to come up with an additional funding source to continue the service beyond that time, she said.
Voters rejected a countywide levy last November that would have provided $1.6 million per year to operate the service.