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Agency on aging proposes 1-mill levy
TweetWednesday is deadline to put issue on fall ballot
YOUNGSTOWN
The District XI Area Agency on Aging is proposing that Mahoning County commissioners place on the Nov. 8 ballot a 1-mill, five-year, countywide senior services property-tax levy that would generate about $4 million in annual revenue.
Joseph Rossi, District XI’s chief executive officer, said the matter is urgent because Wednesday is the commissioners’ deadline to put the issue on the fall ballot.
To put the levy on the fall ballot, commissioners would need to schedule a special meeting on or before Wednesday. Their next regular meeting is set for 10 a.m. next Thursday.
Rossi said the new local money is needed to compensate for a 10 percent cut in state funding this year, after a 39 percent cut the previous year, and for an unknown forthcoming drop in federal funding because of the federal financial crisis. These cuts will “almost place the entire aging network at risk,” he said Thursday.
In Mahoning County last year, a total of $10,658,534 in combined federal and state funding provided services to 4,180 elderly county residents, Rossi said.
The proposed levy would fund home-delivered and congregate meals, senior-center activities, adult day care, home care and home-repair services.
The Niles-based District XI coordinates and funds services for senior citizens in Ashtabula, Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties. Ashtabula and Trumbull counties already have countywide senior-services levies, Rossi said.
“I really don’t know what the likelihood is” of getting a senior-services levy on the fall ballot, said John A. McNally IV, chairman of the county commissioners. McNally said he and his colleagues would have to discuss the matter further with District XI officials.
“Our congregate meal sites have been growing in Mahoning County, and I think that has a lot to do with the economy,” Rossi said.
“We have waiting lists continually growing on our nutrition programs in home-delivered meals. We have over 350 individuals awaiting home-repair services,” he said. There also are waiting lists for medical transportation and personal care, he added.
More than 200 Mahoning County residents are on the waiting list for District XI’s family caregiver support program, which helps caregivers care for their aging parents in their homes, Rossi told the commissioners.
“It’s the middle-class person that isn’t getting home-delivered meals, personal care, homemaker care” and transportation, said David Mirkin, president of Comfort Keepers of Youngstown, an agency funded by District XI to provide home care.
Those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid can be served through that program, and the wealthy can pay for services on their own, he added.
In other action, the commissioners bought a $528,086 upgrade of county jail security-system hardware and software from Black Creek Integrated Systems Corp. of Atlanta, Ga. The current system, installed when the jail opened in 1996, has exceeded its life expectancy, said Jake Williams, county information technology director.
The commissioners also passed a resolution authorizing implementation of jail inmate-management hardware and software under the management of the county’s IT department. The county received a $300,000 federal grant for that system.
Comments
How many levies are they going to try to shove down our throat!!! I can;t afford gas in my car anymore and they want more taxes out of me!!! What a shame.
I'm elderly where is my 2500? it must have been lost in the mail, I know that it must be there because I just sent in my taxes, if I could keep my tax money then I would not need $2500 because I would all ready have it
This is an agency that serves three counties besides Mahoning and had revenues in 2010 of $30.8 million. Does this agency intend to put a levy on the ballot in the other three counties it serves?
A $4 million levy would represent 13.3% increase in its 2010 revenues.
The tax returns for this nonprofit corporation, whose board president is the same individual who has been the board chair for MYCAP, another nonprofit coporation spending $15 million in tax dollars which the state found had misspent funds.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed where individuals who are not elected and the public hardly knows, spend more tax dollars than elected officials. The Area Agency on Aging spends almost 60% of the amount the Mahoning County General Fund spends.
The tax returns show that the agency has been receiving increasing larger revenues over the years [a 40.3% increase in five years] which are not consistent with this article:
2010 - $30,802,473
2009 - $28,525,498
2008 - $25,047,940
2007 - $22,754,516
2006 - $21,945,129
In 2010 the agency spent $4,462,852 on employee salaries and benefits, which was an increase of $855,768 [23.7% or almost 6% per year] over the 2006 costs of $3,607,084.
This agency moved from Youngstown in Mahoning County to the Eastwood Mall and now wants Mahoning to fund it.
Nonprofit corporations spending tax dollars are a big problem that should be addressed, and this is the time to start with an agency that spends more than any individual agency in Mahoning County, but about which the public and elected officials for that matter, know little about how it spends those funds.
This Department of Aging is a joke.
All they did was piss the whole neighborhood off in my area when we were trying to get our one neighbor some help and they said there hands are tied. 81 year old with Dementia. I wouldn't vote for a levy for this agency. In fact i would get rid of it.
thethinker is right on the money with this one. NO oversight of millions of taxpayer dollars except for board members who are cronies with top agency staff. The last Agency on Aging Director used to rent a house owned by the board president and had another board member as his personal attorney.
Sure ... the move to Cafaro's mall was all about lower rent. Almost spit my coffee out while reading that.
The real story here has been missed. They had months (years?) to get their proposal to the Mahoning County Commissioners yet are now begging for next week's meeting to be moved to a day earlier so they don't miss the filing deadline.
If they're that incompetent and can't get the paperwork to the Commissioners on time, why should we trust them to competently handle $4 million a year?