DHH streamline plan angers area senior councils

A proposal under Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2013 budget plan has sparked angry opposition from leaders of local Council on Aging offices who claim they serve the public just fine without becoming part of a larger, centralized government office.

The Louisiana Governor’s Office on Elderly Affairs was established in 1965. By the 1970s it had been merged with the Department of Health and Hospitals to be regulated by that department.

Because of bureaucratic issues, and to be compliant with amendments in the Older American’s Act, the GOEA was separated from DHH in 1973 and returned to operating under the governor’s office. This included more localized independent Councils on Aging in all of the state’s 64 parishes.

More than 39 years after having ended its relationship with the DHH, Gov. Bobby Jindal has presented, as part of his proposed $25.5 billion operating budget, a recommendation that would merge the GOEA into the DHH – along with that agency’s Bureau of Elderly and Adult Services – which would in turn operate as an umbrella organization for the senior population as well as current hospitals, family on need and health-related programs.

“I think it is a terrible, terrible idea,” Terrebonne Council on Aging Executive Director Diana Edmonson said following a meeting with spokesmen from Jindal’s office and other COA members Thursday in Baton Rouge. “There is no reason for this. They are saying this is a lateral thing, but DHH is an agency that is inefficient, in their own words. Now they want to put us and the Office of Aging and Adult Services … under DHH?”

DHH Deputy Secretary Kathy Kliebert contends that the state’s COA members are over-reacting to a streamlining effort designed to save taxpayer money and enhance services.

“The main thing is that this transfer has one primary motivation,” Kliebert said. “We have a rapidly growing senior population over 60 [which is] currently at 18 percent and growing. It is going to soon blend into 25 percent of the state’s population.”

The DHH official said that with such a demographic shift a change is needed in the service infrastructure for the elderly to prevent a strain on future services and programs. She confirmed that misconceptions include rumors that councils will lose their money, jobs, services and control of local operations.

Kliebert said, as an example, that the St. Mary Parish Council on Aging is in line to receive an annual increase in state funds of approximately $7,700.

That announcement came on the heels of St. Mary COA Executive Director Beverly Domengeaux telling the St Mary Parish Council her organization stands to lose $225,000 with a DHH merger.

Domengeaux is not buying Kliebert’s claims. “Without any notice to any of us, we found the GOEA had no money and it had all been moved over to the DHH budget,” Domengeaux said. “So when we started asking questions we were told [the governor’s office] would be moving all GOEA activities to DHH [and] they couldn’t answer any of our questions.”

“We are not removing services at all,” Kliebert said. “In fact, the funding formula is changing based on census so nobody will be losing services. If anything, as the population ages they gain funding.”

The DHH official said the state level administrative change would be seen in cases where now a state case worker from GOEA might report to a household for an elder family member more than 60 years old being investigated in connection with abuse and neglect claims.

At the same time another member of that same family, who might be an 18-year-old in the same household, be investigated as a victim and claims of abuse, but would require a separate case worker based on age and department.

Rather than send two case workers to one address, the combined DHH and GOEA could send one person.

“This simply moves the Governor’s Office on Elderly Affairs over to DHH, who has a set office geared to focus on human services that was created in 2006,” Kliebert said. “This is an opportunity to bring offices together to avoid duplication.

“OEA will still operate their own program,” the DHH officials said. “We will now just be one of the people that funnel money to them. One of the advantages of it being us is that we have a more robust infrastructure especially in more rural areas. We can offer services that the OGEA does not have, and we have the ability to leverage some state dollars with federal funds if they want to do it. It is not just to save money. It is to offer different opportunities in the future where they can get more funding, serve people and get more services.”

Kilebert said the proposed merger does not eliminate jobs or funding in any offices or existence of COA agencies.

The St. Mary Parish elderly director said the timing of this matter is upsetting to her. “Right now, we’ve got four months left in our fiscal year,” she said. “This last three months we have to turn in our budget and figure out how many meals we can deliver for the money we are getting. GOEA said they can’t tell us numbers because they don’t have anything in their budget.”

Edmonson claimed that included in the governor’s budget plan is a provision in which DHH would take COA dollars, give them to nursing homes to use as a match for more Medicaid dollars, which COA’s would have to negotiate for if they want part of it for use. “I don’t think that is legal,” she said. “I’m working to find out what it is.”

“One of the things we hear is that the local Councils on Aging would have to contract either a local hospital or a nursing home to get payment for our services,” Domengeaux said. “Nobody knows how that will work. Nobody knows if it will work. We just know it leaves us in the air with the seniors we have.”

COA directors in St. Mary and Terrebonne parishes are among those wondering what might happen to the funding of their meals on wheels programs that feed elderly citizens still living in their own homes.

“Our service members … the things we do are so great,” Edmonson aid. “We touch 5,500 lives every year unduplicated. We are definitely against this [merger] or they will destroy something that has been successful.”

Domengeaux and Edmonson said a shroud of secrecy is involved with the proposed change. “Someone asked if this came straight from the governor and nobody would answer,” the St. Mary COA leader said.

Representatives from Gov. Jindal could not be reached over the weekend for comment.

Any merger decision regarding DHH and the GOEA would ultimately be decided by the Louisiana Legislature, which convenes on March 12.