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Senior centers get creative about cost-saving measures

The Murstein Line Dancers rehearse at Partners in Prime Hamilton. Federal funding to senior centers remains relatively flat year-to-year, local agencies report. Staff photo by Greg Lynch

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7:12 PM Sunday, February 12, 2012

By Hannah Poturalski

Staff Writer

Despite major growth in both the elderly population and annual expenses, federal funding to senior centers remains relatively flat year-to-year, local agencies report.

“We aren’t keeping pace with population growth and inflation rate,” said Ken Wilson, director of program operations at the Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio.

The local council on aging distributes funds from federal programs, such as Older Americans Act: Title III and Medicaid-supported Passport Program, to senior centers providing services such as transportation, congregate meals, caregiver support, legal services and wellness education.

In Butler County, both the Middletown Area Senior Center and Hamilton-based Partners in Prime are contracted providers with the Ohio Council on Aging to provide home-delivered meals, meals served on-site and transportation.

The agencies, like most senior centers, also offer wellness activities such as billiard tables, card games, exercise equipment, computers and crafts.

“For someone who comes (here) and participates, it helps them maintain a higher degree of health and that helps all of us taxpayers because they aren’t using Medicare benefits as regularly,” said Steve Schnabl, CEO of Partners in Prime. “I think of senior centers as a fountain of youth.”

In fact, $2,000 is saved per month, per person who stays in their home instead of moving to a nursing facility, according to Suzanne Burke, CEO of Council on Aging of Southwestern Ohio.

Federal funding through the Council on Aging has seen small flucuations over recent years. A less than 1 percent drop has been felt at MASC since 2009; and a decrease of about 9 percent for Partners in Prime according to figures from the Council on Aging.

“There hasn’t been any significant reduction in Title III and when there has been we’ve absorbed it; other areas we fund in-house we will cut from,” Burke said.

But Schnabl said the organization remains “thrifty” in identifying ways to save money, such as having 200 to 300 volunteers, cutting back on full-time staff, increasing the percentage employees contribute to health insurance, and zero percent raises for four years.

Membership remains a positive growth trend for the agencies. Since moving to its new location on Central Avenue in 2007, MASC saw its annual membership, costing $40, double to 1,230 members, said Ann Munafo, executive director.

All senior centers share a similar challenge in coming years: attracting the “new seniors,” or baby boomers, the local directors said.

In October 2011, the Scripps Gerontology Center at Miami University published a projection of population growth for those older 60 in Ohio’s counties through 2020.

Within those 20 years, Butler County’s rate is projected to increase 43 percent to more than 20 percent of residents being over age 60, according to Scripps. In Warren County, the rate is forecasted to reach 18.2 percent.

“We have so many baby boomers turning 60 that don’t see themselves as seniors,” Munafo said. “(We need to find out) what to do to attract the new seniors; do we have to have personal trainers and massage therapists?”

Prior to the Passport Program, which provides in-home care to seniors qualifying for Medicaid, 90 percent of seniors were in nursing homes in 1990, according to Laurie Petrie, spokeswoman for the Council on Aging. That rate is now 58 percent due to programs allowing people to stay in their homes longer.

At the Middletown center, expenses have grown between $500,000 and $1 million since its new $4 million building was built in 2007, Munafo said, with a monthly mortgage of $25,000.

“Our biggest problem is our huge mortgage,” Munafo said, adding utilities cost $8,000 monthly.

“We aren’t supported by the townships and the only support from the city of Middletown is use of their buying power to purchase gasoline and storage of buses for security,” Munafo said.

To reduce expenses, Munafo said four full-time positions were eliminated in September; a two-year payroll processing grant was received recently; vendor contracts were re-negotiated to find savings; and price shopping is a priority, such as savings four cents per milk carton.

“There’s no winner in state budget cuts,” Burke said. “Communities themselves are responsible for getting realistic on what they’re facing and what their community will look like in 10 years.”

Down the road in Franklin, the Deardoff Senior Center is able to operate by way of a 0.25-mill, five-year renewal levy, said Mildred Brown, director.

“We live on a very tight budget,” Brown said. “We have never been dependent on federal funds.”

Brown said the senior center operates solely from levy funds and membership fees — an annual revenue of about $77,300.

Brown said in past years the center was funded through the Walter and Audrey Deardoff Trust, with assistance reaching $22,000 combined for Franklin Twp. and city of Franklin.

“We wouldn’t be able to operate as we do without our volunteer base which is our members,” said Brown, the only paid worker at the center.

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2179 or Hannah.Poturalski@coxinc.com.

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