TESTIMONY
Kevin J. Kiprovski, Director of Public Policy at Live On New York on the Needs of Older Adult Services and Council Funding
2:27:32
·
3 min
Kevin J. Kiprovski testimonies on the foundational importance of council discretionary funding and the critical capital and operational needs within older adult services in New York City.
- Represents over 110 community-based nonprofits providing essential services to NYC's aging population.
- Highlights severe capital needs due to deteriorating facilities and vehicles, and the proposed $18 million cuts to older adult centers.
- Discusses challenges faced by case management organizations, including underfunding and increased caseloads, particularly those with intensive mental health issues.
- Emphasizes obstructions in funding allocation between NYCHA and NYC aging, and the financial deficits faced by home-delivered meal providers.
- Recommends maintaining existing council discretionary funding, creating a baseline capital funding pot, and specific funding increases to support the aging network.
Kevin J. Kiprovski,
2:27:32
Good afternoon.
2:27:33
My name is Kevin Kuprowski, and I'm the director of public policy at Livon, New York.
2:27:37
We represent more than a 110 community based nonprofits that provide core services that essentially represent most of the New York City aging portfolio.
2:27:45
I wanna open by saying counsel discretionary funding is foundational to the work of the network, and we are incredibly grateful for the investments that the council has made over the years.
2:27:55
The first thing I wanna say without it, the work would not be possible.
2:27:59
And we really do hope that you can maintain the level of support that you've maintained over previous years.
2:28:06
Our members and us wanna extend a heartfelt thank you for that support.
2:28:11
We wanna talk about what's keeping people from utilizing the system most effectively.
2:28:15
And the number one thing I think we're seeing is that older adult services have huge capital needs based on seeing deter arranging spaces, appliance, and vehicles that have gone without necessary upgrades sometimes for a decade or longer.
2:28:28
2nd one is case management organizations are serving individuals with more intensive mental health issues and are seeing less funding from the city.
2:28:35
And at the same time, I know we've talked about before, but the city is proposing $18,000,000 cuts to older adult centers with planned cuts of over $50,000,000 in the next 5 fiscal years.
2:28:47
When it comes to what organization's capital needs are, we have seen broken refrigerators, floors, bathrooms, kitchens, vans, HVAC systems, roofs, elevators.
2:28:54
You name it, and we've seen it broken in an older Center.
2:28:57
The administration is also then penalizing centers for these issues, but then when requested capital funding to fix them is are being refused.
2:29:05
They're being told that they can use accruals.
2:29:07
Some organizations don't have accruals.
2:29:10
And if they do, usually the accruals are tied up in whatever they were.
2:29:14
Assigned for.
2:29:15
So for example, food accruals were not allowed to be used for anything except food.
2:29:19
So there was no ability to shift funding even if there was additional funding.
2:29:23
Secondarily, this is the worst in nitrous spaces or in rad converted spaces, where a confusion seems to exist who's responsible for which piece and especially when a rad conversion occurs, who's responsible there.
2:29:35
So there definitely needs to be a more functional partnership between NYCHA and NYC aging to get funding where it needs to go because some of those centers have actually physically collapsed and can no longer be used.
2:29:46
Next, case management agencies have seen a reduction of resources.
2:29:49
We've heard caseloads have gone up to 65.
2:29:51
We've actually heard that in some places they've reached 80 because of the lack of case managers per program.
2:29:56
And we've also seen that lots more clients are presenting with undiagnosed mental illness in dementia, which are causing case managers to have to expend more resource per case.
2:30:04
So not only is their case load higher, they're seeing more clients, and the contracts did not include funding for intake managers, so they also have a higher administrator of burden.
2:30:12
And this is causing an effect on how cases can be managed, and as we know there's also a wait list.
2:30:18
So the problems are compounding as we week.
2:30:20
And the last one is home delivered meals providers have been operating with a $2.53 average deficit per meal that will be continued in the new RFP.
2:30:28
Our recommendations are, 1st, maintain the existing counsel discretionary funding to keep our system whole.
2:30:33
It truly is foundational.
2:30:34
2nd, to create a baseline capital funding pot.
2:30:37
We're seeing 50,000,000 now because that's what we're seeing.
2:30:40
But to be able to keep centers in the state of good repair, If we're talking about getting more people in, one of our centers got a federal infusion of money that saw after they did a renovation and built a new center, influx of over 300 older adults from a community signing up in the 1st week.
2:30:54
So if we're talking about getting more people in, building places people wanna be is where that is.
2:30:58
Next, identify and reform obstructions for providing capital with NYCHA, 20,000,000 to expand social work to give 2 more case managers and 1 intake staff.
2:31:07
A $12,000,000 increase to make HDMI providers whole at 15.31 per meal.
2:31:12
And with all these needs, I think it goes about saying that reversing any planned cuts is necessary when the system has such incredible needs.
2:31:19
I wanna thank you for the opportunity to testify today and for all the work that you always do to help the aging network.
