NORWICH – A look back over the past two years or so shows staff reductions in Chenango County’s programs and services for the mentally ill and senior citizens.
The Community Mental Hygiene Services department has been reduced by 22 percent, or 16 positions, since 2010. Most are due to vacancies left unfilled and state regulatory changes and reimbursement reductions, despite a demand for services. The drafted 2013 budget would cut a position from the alcohol and drug services unit.
Director Ruth Roberts said while a leaner staff is working smarter and more efficiently, the department is at the point where it cannot sustain any additional cuts without jeopardizing the quality and quantity of services.
“We’ve had to answer to the county’s request to have zero local share,” she said. “To meet salary increases and cover the cost of fringe benefits that are at about 50 percent now, the only way to do that is to cut expenses and increase revenues. Very challenging times, indeed.”
At the end of 2012, budgeters plan to eliminate two part-time positions in Chenango County’s Area Agency on Aging: one account clerk position and one part-time senior center site manager position. The account clerk post was cut from full to part-time at the beginning of this year.
Agency Director Debra Sanderson said state and federal cuts are pushing the staff cutbacks, not just local funding decisions. The eight senior centers located throughout the county have closed down from offering activities five days a week to three. South Otselic’s Plum Valley Forever Young Center is open only one evening a month now.
AAA has experienced a significant loss in the number of in-home care providers that it traditionally employed, from about eight in 2008 (who were compensated part-time on an hourly basis) down to three in 2011. The program ended this year; the agency instead contracts with an independent family home care provider.
Unfortunately, these types of services are what seniors are looking for today as more decide to age in their own homes, according to Sanderson. People are more in need of not just social outlets or activities, but support services like personal care and home health care aides.
In 2011, the Agency also lost a part-time employee who administered the Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP), and in 2008, three part-time positions in the adult day care program were eliminated when the program ceased for lack of consumers.
Sanderson said the majority of AAA’s clientele today are looking for health insurance and Medicare benefit counseling. At this time of the year, many seniors rely on the agency to help them look at the coverage they currently have and also to help them apply for low income subsidy benefits to pay their Medicaid premiums and/or insurance costs.
“The issues that people are dealing with are becoming more and more complex, and more people are looking to us to help them with those issues. It’s becoming more complex for us,” Sanderson said.
Chenango County’s aged population grew from 10,035 in 2000 to 11,797 in 2010.