Monthly Archives: November 2009

Seniors, Social and Community Services

Program Changes Become Roadblocks to Meals and Other Senior Services

Posted by Nashla Salas, November 19, 2009

When the Bloomberg Administration started reorganizing services for older adults about a year and half ago, it began with two fundamental programs funded by the Department for the Aging: case management and home-delivered meals. The agency realigned its case management system for evaluating and coordinating services for seniors, which resulted in a new route for how the city’s seniors apply for home-delivered meals and other services.

But seniors soon encountered speed bumps along the new route as they sought to receive meals. Rather than having more choices as designers of the new system promised in terms of meals, including frozen meals and frequency of delivery, seniors faced delays.

Under the new plan, seniors could no longer just contact a local senior services agency that provides home-delivered meals and apply for their assistance. The coordination of all in-home senior services is now centralized under a new case management system. While there were case managers before, neighborhood senior centers also often provided service coordination.

The old case management system served approximately 14,000 clients. The new system, which carved the city into 23 service areas with organizations contracted to evaluate needs and coordinate services for seniors, was expected to add about 4,000 new clients during a transition period from April 2008 to June 2008.

But seniors taking the new case management route to home-delivered meals and other services soon encountered roadblocks: many of the new case managers had more cases then they could handle, especially in some service areas. Depending upon the area, case managers were handling caseloads ranging anywhere from 47 clients to 106 clients.

The unexpectedly high caseloads meant that efforts to complete client needs evaluations fell behind schedule. Since seniors needed to complete a caseworker evaluation before they could get home delivered meals, the backlog among some casework providers prevented some clients from receiving meals and other services.

Recognizing the problem, Department for the Aging Commissioner Lilliam Barrios-Paoli told the City Council in late September that in an effort to reduce backlogs and caseload ratios by enabling providers to hire additional staff, start-up funding was extended past the original transition period and the provider contracts for the service areas were modified based on community need. As a result of the contract changes, five providers had their funding increase, two had a decrease, and the maximum number of clients served by any case manager fell to 88.

So seniors would not be forced to wait for long periods before receiving their meals, the Department for the Aging also temporarily waived requirements that caseworkers complete their evaluations before services could begin. Providers of home-delivered meals could start bringing meals to seniors based on the presumption that they qualify. Seniors are then referred to a case management program within 120 days so eligibility can be confirmed and the need for any other services assessed.

The initiative to overhaul the case management and home-delivered meals programs arose from projections of an increasing senior population. Demographers project that New Yorkers 60 and over will make up one fifth of the city’s population by 2030, outnumbering school-aged children. To ensure the city has the capacity to meet the needs of this increasing population, the Mayor began an overhaul of the Department for the Aging’s case management, home-delivered meal, and senior center programs.

The plan to turn senior centers into “Healthy Aging Centers” and address Bloomberg Administration concerns that roughly 40 percent of the city’s more than 320 centers are underused provoked the most controversy and was put on hold. Given the difficult introduction of the changes to case management and home-delivered meals, the plan for senior centers may remain on hold a while longer.

Capital Budget, Education, Environment, Federal and State Aid, Parks

City’s Capital Plan Grows: More Projects, Some More Spending

Posted by Ana M. Ventura, November 9, 2009

A number of fiscal mavens have voiced concerns in recent months that the city’s capital budget is too big and unaffordable. These concerns have not escaped the notice of Mayor Bloomberg, who has sought to reduce the amount the city spends on debt service—the interest and principal the city pays to borrow money for capital projects such as building schools, fixing roads, and buying fire trucks—by scaling back the city’s 10-year capital plan.

So it may come as a surprise to many observers that the city’s latest Adopted Capital Commitment Plan, which covers four years, has grown by hundreds of projects and millions of dollars. The Adopted Capital Commitment Plan, released in September, presents information on how much the city has appropriated in the current fiscal year and next three years for capital projects and a timeline for committing those project funds. This latest plan adds $708 million (adjusted for capital funds made available in 2009 but now pushed into the new plan) and nearly 700 capital projects, compared to the prior plan released in conjunction with the Mayor’s Executive Budget last spring. As in past years, the largest shares of capital funding go to school and environmental projects.

The city’s four-year capital plan allocates $38.4 billion for projects. Included in the plan total is $1.5 billion allocated at the request of the City Council and $680 million by the Borough Presidents. Roughly 80 percent of the funding comes from the city, with the remaining $7.8 billion coming from federal, state, and private grants.

These funds support nearly 7,400 projects (including school projects that are itemized separately in the city’s financial management system). The Adopted Capital Commitment Plan includes 941 new capital projects and drops 244 projects that were part of the prior plan. The new projects include 390 sponsored by the City Council and 108 sponsored by the Borough Presidents. Out of all the new projects certain types were among those most commonly added: there are 123 new citywide equipment purchases and 101 new parks and recreational facilities projects.

Nearly half of the plan’s total budget—$19.0 billion—is scheduled to be committed in fiscal year 2010. The rest of the funds are expected to be committed over the next three years: $6.9 billion in fiscal year 2011, $5.6 billion in fiscal year 2012, and $6.8 billion in fiscal year 2013. While the total for 2010 appears comparatively large, it is actually bulked up by previously authorized funds. Because some types of capital projects frequently fall behind schedule, the level of funds authorized by the Mayor’s budget office typically exceeds the expected commitments by about 35 percent.

Roughly $7.1 billion in capital funds were transferred, or rolled, from fiscal year 2009 into the new plan. Most capital funds rolled from a prior fiscal year tend to be allocated to the next year, as is the case under the new plan. But some of the funds rolled forward are also allocated to later years of the Capital Commitment Plan. Largely because of the funds rolled forward from 2009, the new plan is roughly 25 percent bigger than the prior $30.6 billion four-year plan.

But if you subtract the rollover funds, the latest plan still provides $708 million more (2.3 percent) than the prior plan. Almost all of this increase comes from additional city funding; about 1 percent of the $708 million comes from other sources.

Despite challenging economic times and recent actions by the Bloomberg Administration to curtail long-term city-funded capital spending, the city’s capital program continues to expand moderately.