Advocacy
By Maddy Bynes, Special to Never Too Late Advocates Go To Capitol Hill
This past March, PCOA’s President & CEO, W. Mark Clark, joined advocates from across the nation in Washington D.C. to talk about this year’s federal policy priorities set forth by our partners at USAging. Meeting with much of the Arizona Congressional delegation and their staff, Mark joined other Arizona Area Agency on Aging directors to discuss the 2025 Older Americans Act Reauthorization and FY 2024 and FY 2025 appropriations. We are at a critical juncture in the history of the Older Americans Act. Earlier this year, the federal Administration for Community Living (ACL) issued new regulations for State Units on Aging and Area Agencies on Aging for the first time in 30 years. Since the last regulatory update in the 1980s, so much has changed, from the world we live in to the services that Area Agencies on Aging provide. Back in the 1980s, there were no closed loop referral systems and electronic health records, and we couldn’t contact clients via text message or search an online resource directory like we do today. With all these changes in the way we interact with one another, it is no secret that the old regulations were largely out of date. We appreciate ACL’s work in updating guidance to make our work clearer. That said, through this process, we’ve discovered areas of the Older Americans Act that need to be updated to represent where we are at today. First and foremost, the Older Americans Act requires that Area Agencies on Aging obtain state approval when we contract
Pictured left to right: Samantha Orth, Director of AzAging, Brandon Baxter, Director of NACOGAging, Rep. Juan Ciscomani, W. Mark Clark, President & CEO at PCOA, and Rep.Ciscomani’s son Juan David
with other community entities. Though we agree this is reasonable oversight for contracts paid for by Older Americans Act funds, we believe it is an overreach to approve other contracts and areas of business that are funded from other sources. We are also interested in changing Title IIIC of the Older Americans Act. This portion of the Older Americans Act governs the two nutrition primary programs, the home-delivered meals program (Meals on Wheels) and the congregate community lunch program. During the Pandemic, we were able to freely move money between these two programs to better meet the needs of the community. We found that this flexibility gave us the ability to serve more people more efficiently and nimbly. We would
like to combine the two separate funding streams for these into one funding stream so that we can decide how to best serve all of Pima County.. Finally, we want Congress to increase the funding authorization ceilings for the Older Americans Act. Though funding is appropriated annually, Congress can only fund up to the authorization ceilings in the Act. With higher ceilings, we have more room to negotiate with lawmakers on an annual basis. We will continue to work with our Congressional Delegation over the next several months to help them understand the impact that these changes will have on our ability to best serve Pima County’s older adults. We need your help too! Visit advocate.pcoa.org today to write to your Member of Congress.
May/June 2024, Never Too Late | Page 31
Pima Council on Aging
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