A lack of funding, limited resources and staff
vacancies at Orange County’s senior service agency are overburdening key
programs, a problem that could worsen over the next five years when the senior
population is projected to grow by 100,000, according to a grand jury report
released Tuesday.
Among the services feeling the strain are
those providing transportation to medical appointments and meals to housebound
older residents, as well as investigations of care in nursing homes, the report
said.
“Services cannot be expanded to meet the need
as long as the county assigns seniors a low priority in the annual budget
process,” the report said.
The county can’t solve the problem through
federal funding because those allocations are based on U.S. Census results from
2010, and the next measurement won’t be taken until 2020.
By then, the county’s older population will
have grown by 38 percent from 2010, according to projections, increasing
pressure on local agencies to pick up the slack.
The grand jury recommended that the county
increase its annual funding to the Office on Aging to nearly $1.3 million from
$778,000, so that it could restore staffing, hire a grant writer and improve
volunteer recruitment, among other suggestions.
The Office on Aging’s annual budget is $17.3
million.
Representatives of that office did not return
calls for comment Tuesday.
While the report praised many of the services
and providers who aid the county’s seniors, it also highlighted that many
senior programs rely upon a fluctuating group of volunteers and stopgap private
donations to remain wholly functional.
For example, many of the ombudsmen who
investigate complaints and abuse allegations in the county’s 1,100 long-term
elder-care facilities are volunteers.
In 2013, funding shortages and other problems
caused the number of ombudsmen to drop.
The result: More than 150 facilities lacked an
assigned inspector, and fewer complaints from seniors were resolved.
UNANSWERED CALLS
In the office’s call center, where requests
for senior services are referred to service providers, the grand jury estimated
that 15 percent of calls go unanswered, partly because a paid position has gone
unfilled since 2012.
A program providing 2,000 county seniors with
transportation to medical appointments has leaned on nonprofits to bridge gaps
by seeking out donations after demand for the service multiplied more than
six-fold between 2012 and 2015.
County Supervisor Shawn Nelson agreed the
county faces challenges serving the growing senior population.
But he said the issue is one of many fighting
for county funding.
Orange County, he said, is shortchanged by the
amount it receives from the state for property taxes.
“Everything they’re saying is true, but what
you’re seeing is a microcosm of every program in Orange County,” Nelson said.
“We have to balance the specific needs that
this grand jury has made with other things they haven’t said but are equally
important – increased demand for animal control, homeless services, and the
list goes on and on,” the supervisor said.
Darla Olson, a vice president at Community
SeniorServ, which provides Meals on Wheels to central and north Orange County
seniors, said the growing senior population is having funding issues with the
federal government as well.
Recently, cuts in federal funding caused the program’s
waiting list to grow to 200 seniors, forcing the nonprofit to raise funds and
apply for more grants.
“I would say that there are more stresses
now,” Olson said. “There are many adults that live with the decision of whether
to pay for food or medication or the electric bill. We don’t want that.”
April
5, 2016
Orange
County Register
By Jordan Graham
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