HAMILTON — The Ohio biennial budget is still in the works and “anything can happen during these final days of discussion,” said Jane Taylor, state director of AARP Ohio, one of a number of statewide associations that make up the Ohio Aging Network Coalition.
With that in mind, members of the coalition — which includes the Ohio Association of Senior Centers, the Ohio Council for Home Care and the Ohio Association of Area Agencies on Aging — is asking Ohio residents to voice their opinions regarding cuts in programs that serve older adults by making calls to key state elected officials.
“We want to educate people that they could still make a positive impact on behalf of their grandparents and older neighbors,” said coalition member Steve Schnabl, who is chief executive officer of Partners in Prime that serves seniors in southern Butler County.
Gov. Ted Strickland is mulling $2 billion in cuts that would slash in-home care, health care and other safety net programs for low-income and disabled Ohioans.
Officials say cuts likely include state programs and the Medicaid PASSPORT program that allows low-income adults 60 and older to receive care in their homes instead of in a nursing home.
The suggested cuts are meant to help close a more than $3 billion shortfall in the two-year state budget.
“We know that there are hundreds of thousands who rely on home services, like Meals on Wheels, homemaker care and transportation supports to their physician and other medical appointments,” Schnabl said. “And these are at a disproportionately high risk. Elected officials need to understand how many voters and their families are enraged by the current proposal to cap PASSPORT and reduce the state’s Senior Community Services Block Grant by 30 percent.”
The latter, Schnabl said, also automatically makes Ohio lose millions more in federal dollars.
“We feel like our common mission is to be sure that families and consumers have the choice to live in the community as independently for as long as possible,” Taylor said. “We never want to feel we didn’t do every thing possible to make our case up to the very last minute of the negotiations.”
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iter Tiffany Latta contributed to this story.
