Since TAG began representing PASC barely a year ago, we have branded your organization into the halls of the Capitol and you have risen to an influential level in the Senior Support Coalition (SSC). Through the direction provided by TAG, your organization is now recognized as a leader in the fight to secure and maintain funding for senior home and community based services (HCBS). Within the world of senior politics in the Capitol, PASC has moved from being a struggling bystander to become a vital player at the leadership table, not just in advocating for support but also in presenting innovative ways to achieve it.
On Wednesday, February 04, 2009, Governor Ed Rendell presented a proposed budget for our Commonwealth for fiscal year 2009-2010. To no one’s surprise, he reiterated the facts of the national economic recession that has caused significant budget revenue shortfalls in every state. Pennsylvania continues to anticipate a short fall of $2.3 billion by June 30th.
For the past eighty years, since the Great Depression of 1929, government has attempted to be the safety net for those most needy and vulnerable individuals among us who simply cannot provide for themselves. As the Rendell Administration warned of drastic reductions in spending, TAG, in conjunction with the Senior Support Coalition, continued to impress upon the Rendell Administration the need to protect the counter-cyclical programs that serve as the safety net for our elderly and infirm.
As you may recall, in November TAG arranged, on your behalf, for Coalition members to meet personally with Budget Secretary Mary Soderberg. (Prior to our involvement, the Coalition had been unable to obtain an appointment with the Budget Secretary for two years.) We received a commitment that the Budget Office would do everything possible to protect HCBS from severe budget reductions that would be necessitated by the plummeting economy and were advised to focus our efforts to "hold on to what we have."
The content of the budget presented by the Governor on Wednesday indicates that our meeting was important and successful. PENNCARE and other programs for the elderly have essentially been held harmless while literally hundreds of other programs have been eliminated or substantially reduced in order to balance this year’s budget deficit and the roll-over effect of it in the next two fiscal years.
At the meeting Secretary Soderberg, TAG proposed transferring additional monies from the Gaming Fund to relieve the Lottery of funding the basic Property Tax and Rent Rebate Program, thereby freeing those lottery monies for HCBS use. We have carried this proposal to legislative staff, Appropriations Committee leaders, and individual senators. Although we have received a continuing interest in this concept, unfortunately, the delay in building and opening slot casinos has delayed generating the amount of revenue necessary to meet the fund’s other mandated priority of universal property tax relief. We will continue to keep this option before legislators as the gaming fund grows.
The Senior Support Coalition, accompanied by PASC President Lynn Fields Harris and TAG, welcomed the Legislature to its new session in January by delivering "welcome" mats to all 253 legislative offices, the Governor’s office and other key Administration offices. The mats carried the phrase "There’s No Place Like Home" to daily remind the legislator of the need for adequate HCBS. SSC representatives spoke with legislative staff and left summary sheets emphasizing the message that: Pennsylvania’s Long Term Care System is out of Balance; HCBS are stretched to the breaking point; and, Lottery Revenues Are Available if they are not diverted to long term care facilities! Some legislators have taken the mats to their district offices while others have left them in their Harrisburg offices, where they can be seen by all visitors and other officials.
In order to bring newly elected legislators and senators up to speed with PASC and HCBS needs, SSC has prepared an informational leaflet and power-point presentation. (See Handout "There’s No Place Like Home") TAG assisted in making appointments with the new legislators and has created a schedule matrix that includes photos of the new members to facilitate immediate recognition. All initial visits will be made within the next four weeks, with most of them being completed next week. (See Handout of Appointment Matrix) Although the visits are presenting the entire SSC viewpoint, each of the new members will receive a follow-up PASC specific email, which will later be followed by a PASC specific visit from TAG and / or a PASC member, director, or client. TAG is working with Amy Cummings-Leight and your Legislative Committee to prepare an advocacy packet and instructions for constituent visits.
On behalf of PASC and as an added value to the SSC, The Afflerbach Group has decided to underwrite the costs of designing, hosting, launching, and updating a website. It can be viewed by either of two internet addresses: www.seniorsupportcoalition.net or www.seniorservicescoalition.net. At TAG we understand the financial difficulty you are facing at this time and, frankly, we want you to know that we are willing to share in facing that difficulty by providing added value for the confidence you have placed in us to represent you in the Capitol. Please let us know if there is specific information you would like to have placed on the site. Since we own it, we control the content – and since TAG is not charging PASC for the website, we are not bound by non-profit rules. In short, we may advocate as strongly as we wish.
When budget hearings begin later this month, TAG will be there on your behalf and we will have questions planted with friendly committee members of the House and Senate. (See Handout of Committee Schedule) We will again pursue a capital grant appropriation. With $100 million remaining in the Lottery Fund as a reserve, with your permission we will ask for $10 million to be applied to senior center capital improvements as a part of the effort to stimulate local economies through employment of local contractors to make the necessary center repairs and renovations.
On Tuesday June 2nd, AARP will hold its annual Capitol rally and advocacy day. As a member of the SSC, AARP has invited the other Coalition members to make this a joint advocacy day at the Capitol in Harrisburg. On behalf of PASC, The Afflerbach Group has reserved and will underwrite the cost for use of the Capitol East Wing Rotunda for a 10am SSC press conference. Within a few days, we will provide you with details of a petition drive that hopefully will provide us with reams of petitions that we can present at the press conference urging legislative support for HCBS and senior centers.
At the present time, no member of the Senior Support Coalition has taken a position on the Governor’s proposal to reconstitute the Department of Aging into the Department of Aging and Long Term Living. You and the other members of the SSC will need to make a determination as quickly as possible. It will be difficult to advocate to any legislator throughout the budget process without stating a position on this proposal. It will also be difficult to oppose a Governor’s reorganization proposal unless irrefutable evidence is offered as to why it would be detrimental. Simply expressing a fear that the reorganization may lead to the diversion of lottery funds is not sufficient reason to oppose the proposal. The facts are that lottery funds may not be diverted from senior citizen programs without the passage of specific authorization language by the Legislature; and, the Legislature could pass such specific authorization at any time and, indeed has done so in the past, whether or not a departmental reorganization plan is in place. This may be a case where the better course of action is to take the position that we really are not concerned with how the Governor wants to organize departmental responsibility as long as our programs are not harmed in the process and continue to receive the attention they deserve.
In closing, permit me to add that during the past few months that TAG has had the privilege of representing PASC we have been welcomed as an important part of your organization. As we have travelled to various centers from Delaware, Bucks and Montgomery counties in the southeast to Erie county in the Northwest, to Beaver, Washington, Westmoreland, and Fayette counties in the West and Southwest, and throughout the Central and Northeastern parts of Pennsylvania speaking with individual directors, your staff and your constituents, you have given us the local insights necessary to more effectively advocate on your behalf.
We have carried your needs and your concerns to the Office of the Governor, through the halls of the Legislature and into the conference rooms of other senior service providers and advocates, as well as the private sector. We have become the constant and consistent voice for your concerns; the constant and consistent voice for every Director’s funding needs for capital improvements and senior center programming. In the Capitol the Pennsylvania Association of Senior Centers and The Afflerbach Group have become identifiable as one: One whose mission is to help seniors stay as healthy as possible, for as long as possible, so that they may live as much of their life as possible in their own homes and communities because "There Is No Place Like Home!" Thanks to your confidence and continued guidance, we have been able to lay a foundation that will permit PASC to move into a coordinated local advocacy program. TAG will train and coach you in the most effective methods for local advocacy. We are confident, despite the present calamitous economic situation, the combination vigorous TAG-Team advocacy at both the local level and in the Capitol will allow us to do more during the next year than to just "hold on to what we have."
Senator Roy C. Afflerbach, Ret.
The Afflerbach Group, LLC
1449-51 W. Chew Street
Allentown, PA 18102-3658
Go here to read this AARP Bulletin Today article by Cristina Rouvalis featured on October 1, which details the importance of Senior Centers today and the struggles we all face inproviding important services with dwindling support.
Accreditation from the National Institute of Senior Centers (NISC), a unit of the National Council on Aging (NCOA) is the official recognition that a senior center is meeting its mission in a nationally accepted professional fashion and in compliance with the nine standards of senior center operations. Accreditation is the official mark of excellence.
