The state’s budget impasse has made walking the tightrope for funding services increasingly difficult for agencies like Aging Care Connections, based in La Grange.
The agency has been short at least $50,000 a month, about a third of its revenue, since state reimbursement payments stopped July 1, said executive director Debra Verschelde.
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Aging Care serves older adults and their families with assessments, referrals and programs in more than 40 western Cook County suburbs in Lyons, Proviso, Leyden, Norwood Park and Riverside townships.
“It puts a terrible strain on us as an organization,” Verschelde said. “We’re very conservative in our spending and trying very hard not to have the impact of the budget impasse affect our clients.”
To avoid shutting down programs, the agency has curbed spending for certain services, such as respite care, which is 40 percent state-funded, said Jennifer Nagy, program manager.
“We do it on a case-by-case basis,” Nagy said. “We give priority to people who need it more.”
The free service provides a qualified caregiver to stay with an elderly loved one so a family member can be out for an evening or weekend, she said.
But other programs fully funded by state money will become increasingly difficult to sustain, Verschelde said.
“For adult protective services, if we get a report someone is being abused, we do the investigating and follow-up, and we’re not being paid. We’re now in our sixth month without a budget,” she said.
The agency’s most essential program is the in-home visit to assess what services are needed, determine what programs are available and develop a plan to coordinate services, the director said. Only visits to Medicaid clients are funded, she said.
“This is the foundation of what we do,” she said. “The demand and number of calls does not decrease.”
In January, Verschelde said she expects the agency to begin dipping into savings and relying on lines of credit to continue providing state-funded services.
“Where are these people going to go? Who’s going to help them,” she asked. “In the end it’s going to cost the state more money if people’s only alternative is a nursing home.”
The director said the agency is striving to strike a balance between not alarming families about the funding situation and yet laying out the financial facts and urging families to contact lawmakers.
“Sometimes if legislators only are hearing it from us, it’s a different impact than if they hear from those who are truly affected by this,” she said.
Aging Care also is partnering with other human services agencies to lobby lawmakers for continued funding, Verschelde said.
The agency has been able to cope with funding shortfalls and many months of late payments from the state previously, due to political uncertainty, she said.
“But this is very different. It’s going on much longer, and there really is no end in sight,” the director said. “Now it’s questionable how much talking is going on to try to help reach a resolution.”
Verschelde said no decision has been made to eliminate programs, despite the economic uncertainty.
“We want people to know we’re still there for them and we will respond to their calls. The need certainly is still there,” she said. “We just have to be a little more mindful and creative as to how to go about doing that.”
In response to an Illinois Senate bill approved Monday to restore some state funding, Verschelde said the agency will not directly benefit from the release of $3.1 billion in state funds.
There may be some help for clients through funds for home heating bill assistance, which could mean $165 for some households, but the funds won’t directly help support the agency, she said.
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