Local seniors will no longer be served congregate meals at the Community Center as it joins many other sites across the state in succumbing to budget cuts by Oklahoma’s Dept. of Human Resources. The state agency cut $7.4 million from its senior nutrition program as part of a recent 5% agency-wide budget cut. It is reported this was after top OKDHS administrators received almost $200,000 in pay raises.

Records show 29 of the top 36 administrators at the agency received raises in the past year.

Kathleen Wilson, Director of Aging Services Inc. who oversees the local program, says they had to cut the Little Axe site due to a 25% loss of state funding or $65,274 for the current grant year. Aging Services Inc. is one of 11 area agencies statewide providing services for OKDHS under the Older Americans Act (OAA).

Congregate and home-delivered meals are the largest service provided under OAA. Supportive services are offered statewide in the form of in-home assistance, such as homemaking and chore work, caregiver assistance, grandparents raising grandchildren, legal services and health promotion. Skilled outreach personnel are available in each county to provide one-on-one assistance to help older individuals make informed choices. Transportation services are also provided to nutrition sites, banks, doctor’s offices or grocery stores.

OKDHS reports spending $123,830,830 on Aging Services, or 7% of their 2009 total budget of $1,894,157,815. Expenditures on meals to seniors were down from the previous year.

Elderly Support Services, Congregate Meals
2008- $2,151,752
2009- $2,083,247

Elderly Support Services, Home Delivered Meals
2008- $1,853,495
2009- $1,819,750

Better News
The congregate meal program at Little Axe was one of the lowest attended sites in the state. Records show an average of 2.6 meals served per day to a pool of 7 eligible senior adults. Wilson reports that cutting this service helped allow continuation of home delivered meals on a regular basis to a pool of 41 individuals who reside in the Little Axe area. Furthermore:

We will also continue to provide outreach services and housekeeping services in the Little Axe area. The only thing that is changing is that we will no longer operate the meal site at the community center.

The main thinking in making the budget cuts that we made was to preserve as many home delivered meals as possible and cut the fewest possible congregate meals. In the end, we cut an average of 55 congregate meals per week in the county and ZERO home delivered meals in the county.

Little Axe residents needing nutritional help can call the Community Center at 292-9770 for assistance.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Feature, LAxeNews, Local, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. - Little Axe Ledger -