Elder Care: Budget Cuts Affecting APS (Ca. USA)

By Frank D. Russo

There is a stark disconnect between the promise that Arnold Schwarzenegger ran on and was elected and re-elected on as Governor—that California has a “spending problem” and all that rhetoric and the brutal reality of the final round of budget cutting that was completed yesterday by the Governor before he signed the state’s budget—the basic moral document for the fiscal year that shows where our values are.

Adult Protective Services (APS) is a state-mandated program to protect elder and dependent adults who have been physically or mentally abused, financially abused, or neglected. Counties operate this program on behalf of the state. Yesterday, an additional 10% was cut. Understand that this program was not fully funded when it was created in 1999, and funding has been frozen since 2002-03, seriously eroding the ability of the counties to respond to these emergency situations. The cut will leave counties unable to fully respond to 18,775 reports of abuse and neglect, putting the lives of elder and dependent adults at risk. This is the only program that responds 24 hours a day, seven days a week to reports of abuse and neglect against these vulnerable adults. You’ll be reading about some of those stories in your local papers in the next year.

Cathi Grams, Director of Employment and Social Services in Butte County had this to say about the APS cuts: “It’s another example of cuts in one area leading to costs in another. Law enforcement, hospitals, and nursing homes are going to see these same people when their conditions are worse and much more expensive. And they will be the lucky ones – studies show that elder abuse victims are three times more likely to die than the average senior. The human toll of these cuts cannot be overstated.”

Abridged
SOURCE: California Progress Report
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