2013: Sequestration and the Baby Boomer Generation

ASCOG Area Agency on Aging is examining the challenges of addressing potential budget cuts in the wake of the seventh year where Baby Boomers are eligible for senior nutrition services.  The combination of need and funding losses could result in a dramatically changed nutrition program within just a few short years.  Here are some of the expected changes as a result of this combination of demand and loss:

• The senior nutrition program will renew its focus on directing resources to the most frail elderly; the most at risk of nursing home placement.
• Baby Boomers are more likely to be home bound and in need of home delivered meals.  They are less likely to regularly attend a senior center.
• We expect to lose about $120,000 from sequestration or other cuts that Congress would be required to make in order to avoid sequestration.
• Title III funding will no longer be available to pay for rent and utilities at satellite sites where food is delivered from a central kitchen or cooking site.
• The focus of the nutrition program will be on developing strong central kitchens and delivering home delivered meals to all persons who qualify; who are the most frail and likely to end up in a nursing home without our intervention.
• More nutrition sites will become independent senior centers or will close because they serve fewer than 25 meals per day.
• Approximately eleven cook aides or site managers will be laid off as a result of the cuts.
• More volunteers will be needed than ever before.

For more information or to schedule a public presentation on these issues, please contact Ken Jones at 1.800.658.1466.