LAKE COUNTY— Despite California’s reopening last week, the senior centers throughout Lake County will remain closed for congregate in person meals and other services according to a report addressing barriers to reopening discussed at Thursday’s Area Agency on Aging’s Governing Board meeting. The board also discussed funding allocations for Fiscal Year 2021-22.
Under a Joint Powers Agreement the AAA Governing Board provides governance to the Area Agency on Aging of Lake and Mendocino Counties, the entity which oversees the senior centers. The bulk of the meeting consisted of a discussion of the funding allocations for the centers.
AAA Program Coordinator Dena Eddings-Green said that In the May 2018 meeting, the board determined that they would calculate the allocations based on a 36 month rolling year and that would be recalculated every year in April for the previous 36 months and that is how they would arrive at the percentages of what funding the senior centers received. Because last contract year was the beginning of COVID, staff decided they would keep the funding allocation percentages the same for contract year 2019-20 so that no upheaval was created when things were already uncertain, so they had not changed since last year.
Jill Rexrode, Redwood Coast Senior Center director had expressed concern because a funding option being considered for the board was a $50,000 reduction from the previous year. Other senior center directors said they were equally worried their facilities would take “a huge financial hit” with some of the budget amounts in the proposed contracts being considered for Fiscal Year 2021-22 due to calculating factors such as minimum wage, food and gas increases for Meals on Wheels employees.
Following a short break to consult with staff, Carol Huchingson, standing in for District 5 Supervisor Jessica Pyska, who is away on vacation, discussed an alternate proposal to the contracts being considered.
“Dena’s comment was so right, that all of us wish we had more funding for all the great work that goes on in these centers, but we don’t and the amount of funding is finite,” she said. Huchingson said in light of the vast differences in allocations and the impact Mendocino is going to feel with the end of the Great Plates state program, a compromise was needed.
Huchingson suggested the board consider an alternate option, a one time change which would alter the proposed allocations to the Highlands Senior Center in Clearlake and the Lakeport Senior Center, since the Highlands Senior Center stood to lose approximately $44,000 under one of the funding options being considered. The alternate proposal was to increase the allocation for the Clearlake center from $157,776 to $179,776 and the Lakeport Senior Center funding amount was reduced by $22,000 to $307,792.
This compromise was accepted by all the parties involved in order to have a more balanced funding allocation for all the centers involved.
“I appreciate the questions and the discussion and the work to adjust and ensure that we have some sort of mitigating factors to get some sort of funding that is more palatable for other groups and to ensure that seniors are served in the right way,” said board chairperson (E.J.) Eddie Crandell.
Resident Bart Levenson, asked about the inauguration system of the Zonehaven system and asked about the group’s ability to address the special needs of seniors who may not have internet access and how they would get the information about the new evacuation system.
Paul Branson, president of the agency’s advisory council said that at the last meeting earlier this month, staff was asked to invite the OES directors of both counties to speak with them about the issue of evacuating homebound seniors.
“We are hoping that we can get these folks to talk to us about this issues,” he said.
The board further discussed senior center reopening barriers and supports including the possibility of the centers being used as cooling centers during extreme heat waves.
Huchingson said the item was put on the agenda at the request of Pyska because she wanted to check in with the centers regarding their various statuses regarding reopening, what barriers they are encountering and what support they might need.
Rexrode said her facility in Fort Bragg has been serving meals and has opened for congregate dining several days a week. She added that as soon they get enough volunteers for the rest of the days they will have it open all week.
Lakeport Senior Center Executive Director Lisa Morrow said after meeting with Lake County Public Health and staff from AAA and the other centers as a group, they came to the consensus they would meet again in mid July to see how things stand in the county following the 4th of July holiday.
“It’s possible we could open sooner or later, we are kind of looking at possibly around September,” but she added it’s all very fluid and those were not definite dates. “The goal is to get reopened, nothing would make us happier than to reopen, frankly Meals on Wheels is very difficult when you are feeding as many people as we are.”
Joyce Overton, director at Highlands Senior Center said they have started doing activities like Zumba and fitness classes because the classes are not that big and they are able to be spread out in a bigger area. She said they only had two seniors who reported positive COVID tests, one of who had a prior condition. “We are a bigger center so I think we would be able to open up but we wanted to see what the count was after all the activities in the county after the 4th of July. We’re on kind of on a standstill.” Overton said Meals on Wheels deliveries are up and she does not anticipate them going down.
