SCOPE can keep senior centers open
SCOPE can keep senior centers open
WARREN
The Trumbull County commissioners have awarded SCOPE Inc. levy funds to keep open the six SCOPE senior centers 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 non-profit 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 is still $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 will be able to 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 will most likely 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 will most likely 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.