Editor’s note: This story is part one in a three-part series, looking at how $3.1 million in reductions to Jefferson County’s 2013 operating budget impacts the programs and people involved.
It’s Country Music Day at the Jefferson County Senior Resource Center, and folks attending Adult Day Care are nodding their heads and tapping their toes. Cowboy hats and bandanas are passed out.
A few sing along to the classics, and the more mobile are coaxed out of their seats by SRC staffers for some dancing. Showing up late to the party is Mira “Chicky” Nickerson, 87.
“It’s good to get out of the house, see people, socialize,” she says with a smile.
Nickerson, with her pink ribbon breast cancer walker, lives about 20 minutes from the SRC facility (3227 Chase St.). She used to get to the center on an SRC transport bus, paid for by Medicaid, five days a week.
That changed this year, after Jefferson County announced it was reducing its level of funding for SRV by 41 percent — equaling $400,000.
“The word of the cuts came as a huge surprise,” said SRC President John Zabawa.
SRC, along with two other nonprofits that contract with Jefferson County to provide human services — Family Tree and the Jefferson Center for Mental Health — all were told to expect flat funding from the county for 2013, only to be told in early December that they would be facing $688,000 in cuts.
A representative for Jefferson Center for Mental Health said they were able to dip into reserve funding to maintain services for at least one year before having to cut back on services. SRC is not so lucky.
“The cuts go beyond the sticker value,” Zabawa said. Even though SRC was expecting less than 12-percent of its annual revenue to come from the county, those unrestricted dollars from a local source have an exponentially greater value, when leveraged for state, federal and foundation grant funds. Zabawa said SRC specifically uses the county dollars to subsidize the cost of Medicaid patient services — a program the county asked SRC to take more than 20 years ago. He said the program incurs $727,000 in annually unfunded Medicaid costs. The cuts to services had to be done with little warning, Zabawa said, including the closing of the South Wadsworth adult day facility that served 30 seniors, and laying off four employees.
Across the rest of SRC, four others also lost their jobs, including a transportation manager who helped recruit and organize volunteers to help drive seniors, and a fundraising organizer who helped boost community support and donations.
SRC Activities Coordinator Kera Tafoya said the cuts have forced a scaling back of Medicaid transportation.
Seniors like Chicky Nickerson had their transportation availability drop from five days a week to three. Arts and crafts, exercise, education and even field trips at the center continue to be funded, but some seniors could miss out, due to a lack of transportation.
“Socialization is the huge piece of this,” Tafoya said. “Many of them say, ‘Oh I haven’t danced in years,’ but this gives them a chance to remember what it was like to be younger, and have those experiences.”
Seniors who regularly used the transportation service to make it to dialysis treatment have also been affected.
With Jefferson County boasting the largest 65-and-older population in the state, Zabawa said there was a strong economic reason to take care of seniors and help them remain healthy and active in their own homes — their quality of life is higher, medical costs are lower and they continue to pay taxes.
In contrast, a senior on Medicaid, placed into a skilled nursing facility costs taxpayers $72,000 a year.
“I think it puts a huge burden on society as a whole,” Zabawa said.