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Council recommends changes for SCOPE funding, centers
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Seniors Advisory Council has recommended to Trumbull County commissioners that all levy funding SCOPE Inc. received last year for in-home services — about $290,000 — be eliminated for the next funding cycle.
The council recommended only small changes to the funding for SCOPE’s six senior-citizen centers, however.
Ralph H. Smith, SCOPE’s interim project manager, says the funding being recommended for the senior centers should be sufficient to keep the centers operating with very little change from how they operate now.
The loss of in-home care already has resulted in layoffs of 16 SCOPE employees, some part time, some full time, over the past 10 days, though SCOPE has helped eight of those find new employment, Smith said.
SCOPE was awarded up to $288,575 for the new year starting July 1 to fund the three large senior centers — in Warren, Howland and Niles. SCOPE’s award the previous year was $314,525.
SCOPE likely will be awarded up to $143,000 to operate three small centers — in Cortland, Champion and Lordstown — the same as in the previous year, said Diane Drawl, an accountant hired by county commissioners to oversee the levy funding approved by county voters for senior-citizen services.
The award could be higher if SCOPE continues with its attempts to open an additional senior center in McDonald this year, Drawl said.
The commissioners have final say on whether to approve the funding from the senior levy, but they traditionally have followed the recommendations of the advisory council, Drawl said. The commissioners are likely to act on the recommendations within the next couple of weeks.
About 100 senior citizens packed the commissioners meeting room April 25, asking the commissioners to keep the senior centers open.
On April 13, the Area Agency on Aging 11 of Niles, which oversees SCOPE’s funding from a variety of state and federal sources, revealed that the Ohio Department of Aging had placed sanctions on SCOPE for failing to follow several Ohio laws and rules.
The department of aging yanked SCOPE’s funding for an in-home program called PASSPORT. Area Agency on Aging 11 also removed SCOPE funding for an in-home program called Title III. Those programs paid SCOPE $468,985 in 2011.
Meanwhile, Trumbull officials announced last month that SCOPE would have its levy funding for in-home services cut off as a result of having failed to notify the county in April, when SCOPE bid on the next round of funding, that the department of aging had sanctioned SCOPE in November 2011.
Drawl said because of that omission, SCOPE wasn’t eligible to receive in-home services in the new funding cycle. SCOPE received about $290,000 per year in home-care funding from the senior levy in recent years.
Smith said SCOPE had an appeal hearing Monday regarding Area Agency on Aging 11’s funding cut and will have a similar hearing June 26 in Columbus regarding the department of aging.
The outcome of those hearings could restore SCOPE’s funding during the next funding cycle. The agency now believes it is in compliance with all laws and rules and believes that will make the agency eligible to receive all forms of funding again, Smith said.