Berkshire Senior Online

by Catherine R. May, Executive Director

The Commonwealth and Its Needy

Twenty two years ago, when I began working at Berkshire Home Care (now Elder Services), fresh from four years in Aging Services in New York, I was pleased and delighted to learn of the breadth and depth of programs available to Massachusetts elders to assist them to remain at home. In New York at that time, little state funding went to programs for elders; the largest elder program, other than Social Security and Medicare, was Meals on Wheels, under the federal Older Americans Act.

Massachusetts had long been acknowledged as a state that assisted its most vulnerable citizens; it was a leader in aging services. In the early 1970s, Massachusetts established the first state cabinet level department devoted to the concerns of the aging. Shortly thereafter, this department sought interested citizens to develop new non-profit corporations in all areas of the state, to be called Home Care Corporations, the first state funded meaningful alternative to institutional care.

The range of services provided through these Home Care Corporations expanded through the 1980s from case management, homemaker, transportation, chore and Meals on Wheels to include personal care, respite, protective services, and nursing home screening for need and income eligible older residents.

As the eighties ended, cuts in services were required, the Massachusetts Miracle had burst, revenues were down, and 88 Berkshire elders lost their home care service. During the 1990s, numbers of elders served in Home Care increased slightly, and Home Care Corporations became Aging Services Access Points, single entry points where elders could access both Medicaid and Home Care services. As state tax receipts increased, small increases in monies for purchased services and numbers served by the ASAPs grew slowly and steadily until the year 2001 - when the economies of the nation, the state, and the region began a downward spiral.

In January 2002, Elder Services was serving 1072 frail and income eligible Berkshire elders in the core home care program, when state directives reducing the numbers to be served began. As of June 2003, without any new cost cutting, Elder Services can serve only 1003 clients, per our state contract. State services to elders and other needy populations are in retreat, since balancing the state budget and avoiding any increase in state taxes are the greatest priority of the new Romney administration.

The chart that follows this column (from the Massachusetts Center for Budget Priorities and At Home With Mass Home Care) draws a clear picture of why there are not adequate revenues to care for the needy of the commonwealth. Over the last 20 years, Massachusetts state and local revenue fell by -10.3% while the average state and local revenue across the country grew by +13.1%. Massachusetts has cut revenue more than any state in the nation during this time period.

Taxachusetts - hardly ! Massachusetts through the 1990's and up to the present