Cash-slammed Aging Agency Forced Into Job Cuts (IL. USA)

Cash-slammed aging agency forced into job cuts

November 15, 2009

By JAKE RUSSELL

For The Telegraph

More than 550 seniors will not get the same level of direct care after the Prairie Council on Aging was forced to lay off 50 percent of its service providers Thursday, organizers said.

Five employees were laid off, said Nancy Thorsen, executive director at the Prairie Council on Aging. Three were caseworkers who went out into the field, and two were administrative workers who handled applications to help seniors pay for medicine.

The Prairie Council on Aging helps senior citizens in Morgan, Cass, Scott, Greene and Jersey counties through three programs - community care (which keeps seniors at home as long as is safely possible), elder abuse investigations and the Bread of Love Nutrition Project (which provides hot nutritious meals to seniors), Thorsen said.

The community care and elder abuse programs are funded fully by the General Revenue Fund from the state, she said, as well as a third of the Bread of Love Nutrition Project.

The Prairie Council on Aging is supposed to receive $100,000 a month to fund these programs, but the general fund payments keep arriving late.

Legislators were responsive to Thorsen's pleas for expedited payments, she said.

"I think they all have their hearts in the right place," she said, "but it's about their ability to politically move as a body to fix it. I want them to do it now. We're doing our part, rallying as a staff and taking furlough days to continue to serve these seniors, and we want everyone else who cares about these seniors to step up, as well."

Abridged

SOURCE:    The Telegraph

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