Aid lacking for elderly protective services , experts say

A proposal to add $10 million a year to the state budget for adult protective services would better equip Ohio to fight a growing epidemic of abuse, neglect and financial exploitation of the elderly, advocates say.

Even more money is needed, they said, if the state wants to reach elderly residents who suffer silently in the shadows, too frail to care for themselves or afraid to turn in their abusers.

The $10 million in the current proposal “would be between three and four times what the state has ever invested in adult protective services, which is great,” said Will Petrick, state director of Advocates for Ohio’s Future. “But I would hope the investment is just the first step.”

The House Finance and Appropriations Committee added the money as part of an amendment to a larger midterm-budget proposal. The bill passed the House and is waiting to be debated by the Senate.

The state currently provides $500,000 annually, with 52 counties receiving less than $3,000 a year. Over the years, funding levels have seesawed from zero to a high of slightly more than $3 million in the mid-1990s.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, which oversees adult protective services in the state, hasn’t taken a position on the proposed increase, spokesman Benjamin Johnson said.

A coalition of advocates plans to ask the Senate to consider raising the investment to $20 m illion. Similar recommendations have fallen on deaf ears in the past, partly because of the state’s precarious budget.

Full Article & Source:
Aid lacking for elderly protective services , experts say