CCom’s Rebuttal to Rationale for Closing Senior Center
Millcreek’s JOY senior-citizen center closed on August 27, 2014 in spite of repeated pleas and protests by the users of the center and their supporters, Meca, Inc., a local non-profit that had been running the center, and CCom (Concerned Citizens of Millcreek). Efforts are currently underway to reorganize the center, independent from government control, and the supervisors have indicated a desire to work with the seniors “after the dust settles.”
Tom Osiecki, president of CCom, says, “Despite repeated invitations to respond to CCom’s rebuttal by attending any one of three CCom sponsored Public Forums, the supervisors refused to attend or to sit down and discuss the rebuttal. Until they are accountable for the statements and actions, their credibility is in serious question.”
Prior to the JOY Center closing, one of the supervisors, John Groh, penned a guest-opinion piece for the Erie Times-News (July 14, 2014) entitled, “Why Millcreek is closing costly J.O.Y. Center.” CCom took exception to about a dozen statements made by Groh and presented its rebuttal at one of the rallies held the JOY Center. Although submitted to the Times, the rebuttal has not appeared there, possibly because of the length of the document. It has been condensed below.
Following are excerpts from Mr. Groh’s piece, in bold italics, and highlights from CCom’s rebuttal to each. This approach should provide the citizens with a balanced picture of the issues surrounding the JOY Center.
The recent board decision was based upon the fact that the center is not serving enough of the 16,846 Millcreek residents 55 and older who are potentially eligible for membership. According to a recent membership list, the center serves only 218 Millcreek residents or about 1.3 percent of the age group.
The 55-to-65 age group rarely visits senior centers, so the number of residents in that age group should not be included as potentially eligible for membership. Mr. Groh concludes that 218 members (actually more than 300) are not enough to justify keeping the JOY center open.
According to the National Council on Aging (NCOA), senior centers have become one of the most widely used services among America’s older adults. In this country, 11,400 senior centers serve more the 1,000,000 older adults every day. Divided by 11,400 senior centers, that equals 88 seniors per center. The JOY Center’s 300+ members in eight months is impressive.
Let’s start with the fact that many of the programs and services at the JOY center are duplications of existing programs. For the past 30 years, thousands of Millcreek seniors have taken advantage of the Gold Card offered through the township’s Parks Department and the Millcreek Township School District.
The Gold Card Program is definitely a good program. But is it designed for the seniors over 70-years-old? The NCOA reports that members of senior centers are typically (at least) in their seventies. Of these, 75% visit centers three times per week and spend approximately 3.3 hours there per day. It’s a community-type experience as opposed to attending a class. When seniors participate in classes, they’re with people near their own ages and capabilities. The NCOA reports that of seniors who frequent dedicated centers, 46% feel less lonely, 49% laugh more, 43% feel more satisfied with life, 40% have started or increased exercising, 22% have more energy, 23% worry less about the future, and 28% feel more independent.
There is the added fact that today’s older demographic is different from prior generations. Not all seniors have the time to utilize such programs. . . Some cannot afford to retire and have found they are still working or caring for grandchildren. Then there is the growing group of those who are not interested in the senior programs.
Why did a group of Millcreek residents have fundraisers for years to raise funds for a senior center? Why did so many people donate for a center and have their names painted on the wall at the JOY Center? With the baby-boomer generation entering the senior-citizen age brackets, the need for senior centers will only increase.
In essence, retirees and seniors are living differently than past generations. Those facts may explain the lack of interest and thus, the lack of need. High interest equals higher demand or need. In this case, it was built and sadly, only a few came.
By all professional measurements and standards, 300 memberships in eight months at the JOY Center indicates great interest and huge need. The common theme in Groh’s editorial is to blame the demise of the JOY Center on poor participation by the senior community. By all professional standards, assertions are not true.
The [Times] editorial asked if there is a business plan to deal with the financial issues. That question should have been asked before the opening of the center. That is what good municipal planning is about. Study the matter, then act accordingly. It appears there was a motive but no plan.
The Times editorial asked a question about the current plan for CLOSING the center. The question was ignored and attention deflected back to the OPENING of the center, suggesting that the question about planning should have been asked before the center opened. Wouldn’t the planning of the opening of the JOY center have been the responsibility of the five key municipal managers: Kujawa, McGrath, Figaski, Wolfe, and Adair?
When it came to closing the center, the only thing that changed managerially was that Kujawa was replaced as supervisor. Four of the five municipal managers that unanimously approved the opening of the JOY center were also part of the unanimous decision to close the JOY center. What changed their minds?
Failure to operate the center within the guidelines of the Pennsylvania Department of Aging made the JOY center ineligible for state grants. That leaves the cost solely on the Millcreek taxpayers.
Which Pennsylvania Department of Aging guidelines did the JOY center fail to operate within? Also, there are other sources of revenue for the JOY center besides state grants. There are membership fees, donations, benefactors, and naming rights for the whole operation or sections of the operation.
A lack of project management from inception created the problem. The project includes a lease with free rent for the first year, but the lease actually spreads out four years of rent over a three-year period. That is akin to auto deals with no payment for 90 days; you just pay for it at the end.
This suggests that negotiating a lease with no payments for the first year is a lack of project-management smarts. Any businessman will tell you that when you open a new operation (for-profit or non-profit), people or clients don’t suddenly come rushing in when you open your doors. It takes time to build up the clientele. Cash flow is atrocious that first year, because bills have to be paid but revenue isn’t coming in yet. So, what is presented as a lack of project management is actually smart.
The lease includes the $10,000 purchase of existing office interior work spaces from the U.S. Postal Service. The partitions and desktops are not in use and there is no current plan to use them. No one wants them, and they are only worth scrap metal according to an office interior professional.
The president of CCom personally inspected a batch of those partitions, and they are just fine. That’s probably why the municipal employees have apparently been coming over and taking them for use in municipal offices.
If you talk with professionals who administer senior programs, they will tell you operating and funding such programs is not easy. They will also advise you it should be a regional effort and that such centers require public-private partnerships with corporations, educational facilities and health-care services to be successful.
Doesn’t it usually take more than eight months to implement the basics of the programs to the point where corporations, education facilities, and healthcare services can see a viable, well-run operation? Was any effort expended by the township to identify, contact, or encourage any public-private partnerships? If the plug hadn’t been pulled on the JOY Center so quickly, those public-private partnerships could have been nurtured in time.
Perhaps Millcreek residents should look at the numbers, then decide if the action was right. The cost for the township to operate the center is about $850 per member per year. The cost per resident per year for the police department is $169.
First, the $169/resident figure for the police force was arrived at by dividing the total police cost/year (about $8.8 million) by the total number of residents (about 52,000), whether every resident needed the police that year or not.
Compared to the $169/resident/year cost of the police department, the $850/member/year is a frightening number. But that’s comparing apples to oranges. To compare apples to apples, just like the police department calculation, you need to use the total eligible senior population of the senior center. To make that calculation, take the total annual cost of the JOY center ($187,000) divided by the total eligible senior population (16,486 by your estimate) to arrive at $11/eligible member/year. That’s a far cry from $850 per member per year.
Mr. Groh ignores other planned and available sources of income or revenue. The first very large source of potential revenue is found in the 24 empty offices contained in the JOY Center. With utilities included, each office could be rented at an average of $250/month for a $72,000/year rental income. So the annual cost of the JOY center would then be $187,000 less the $72,000 rental income = $115,000. Dividing the $115,000 net cost per year by 16,486 eligible members = $7/eligible member/year. You can further reduce cost by subtracting membership fees (500 members times $45/year = $22,500. Fundraisers, grants, benefactors, and naming rights could easily add up to another $50,000.
So, let’s look at the total effect. Total cost of $187,000/year less $72,000 rental revenue, less $22,500 membership fees, less $50,000 in grants, benefactors and naming rights would put total cost at $42,500/year. Divided by 16,486 eligible members, the cost could actually equal $2.58/eligible member/year.
The JOY Center does not have authorization to rent the 24 offices. The township has to do that. Why aren’t the offices rented? One of the official reasons given is that the JOY Center has only 16 parking spaces available.
Similar to the K-Mart plaza across the street, the JOY Center is located in a plaza. The Millcreek lease of the facilities assigns 16 parking spaces, on the front and side of the center, as exclusively for JOY center use. However, customers visiting the post office can legally park there. Conversely, JOY members and tenants can legally park anywhere in the plaza. Parking is not a problem and should not deter the operation of the JOY Center nor any efforts to rent available office space in the facility.
So, why are the supervisors leaving $72,000 of taxpayer funds on the table? The only ones that can answer that question are the supervisors – and they’re not talking.
Yes, seniors are people who have needs like everyone else. They are also the same group that is affected significantly by municipal tax increases.
We agree. The seniors are affected significantly by municipal tax increases. The $6 million of property tax increases in the last three years is a tough pill for many seniors to swallow, particularly when the supervisors are saying we can’t afford a senior center that Mr. Groh says costs $187,000/year or $850/member per year. We’ve shown that the net cost could be as low as $42,500/year or $2.58/member per year. That’s a significant difference.
Spending taxpayer dollars wisely comes down to a matter of priorities. It’s a question of where the tax dollars are going to be spent. As John Groh concludes in his guest editor column . . . one must ask if it is money well spent.
So, there you have it–excerpts from Supervisor Groh’s guest editorial and CCom’s rebuttal. It would be ideal if all parties could sit down and come to some agreement that works well for everyone.
Ann Silverthorn (Twitter: @annsilverthorn) is a blogger who also writes about a wide variety of topics in numerous genres, including non-fiction, fiction, poetry, travel, and grant writing.
Leave a Reply