By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Meatloaf and turkey were on the menu Thursday for the 550 Meals on Wheels recipients in Wood County. The side dish – a big helping of red tape from the state.
The Ohio Department of Aging created a new rule for all home-delivered meals supported by the state, requiring the recipients to sign for the meals each time they are delivered. That may not seem like a problem, but to those who deliver the meals and to those who receive them, it’s a bit of needless bureaucracy that clogs up a pretty efficient system.
Denise Niese, executive director of the Wood County Committee on Aging, said the signature requirement adds time to the delivery routes, compromises the temperature safety of the food maintained by hot and cold packs, and makes some seniors uncomfortable that they need to sign for their meals each day.
But State Sen. Randy Gardner, R-Bowling Green, said he is working to remove bureaucracy from the Meals on Wheels menu.
Prior to the new rule, many seniors looked at the Meals on Wheels system as a dinner being dropped off by a neighborly volunteer, Niese said. Now it feels more like public assistance, she said.
The rule is specific, stating that the meal recipient must sign – not a family member or caretaker.
“It has to be the meal recipient,” Niese said.
And that poses some other problems.
“Some of these folks are pretty frail,” Niese said. Some seniors prefer that meals just be dropped off by volunteers if the seniors are sleeping or in the restroom. But that is no longer allowed.
“Now they have to wake up and we have to get their signature,” Niese said. “We can’t leave a meal.”
“It’s bureaucracy at its finest,” she said.
Sandra Gerety works in the Wood County Committee on Aging production kitchen
Joe Hrabovsky, chef at the Wood County Committee on Aging Production Kitchen, is hearing concerns voiced by many of the delivery volunteers as they pick up the meals.
“It’s hard to get signatures from some of the people,” since many have vision problems, are shaky and don’t understand the change, he said.
But the Meals on Wheels state funding is tied to the signatures. Niese suspects it’s an over-reaction to concerns about fraud. “If there has been fraud in the state, you deal with it. Don’t penalize all seniors,” she said.
Niese and one of the long-time volunteers have written to the state to try to have the change revoked.
Volunteer Vickie Askins said the new rule has added time to her route, and issues for the seniors she serves.
“One of my clients was upset because she couldn’t see well enough to sign the sheet today,” Askins wrote in a letter to state legislators. “Another client was sleeping. Another client is very frail and hard of hearing. One of my clients was just getting home from the hospital where she was treated for pneumonia – so I used my hand sanitizer on the pen, just in case there could possibly be any bacteria or germs that could impact my other clients.”
“Several clients meet me at the door with their walkers so we had to go into their home to find a surface on which they could write. Almost all of my clients were disbelieving that they would have to sign for their meals every day,” Askins wrote. “I personally feel insulted that they may be thinking the volunteers are not being accountable or that someone is taking advantage of the funding they furnish.”
Gardner is listening to Niese, Adkins and others with similar concerns. He pointed out the rule change was made by the Department of Aging, with no input from the state legislature.
“I believe the Department of Aging has the authority to repeal its own rule to meet the common sense threshold,” Gardner said. “I’ve requested that they do that.”
If the rule is not revoked, and the legislature doesn’t receive information that adequately explains the need, then the Department of Aging may be forced to repeal the rule. “This is not a casual request,” Gardner said.
The Wood County Committee on Aging relies on the state funding, with its contract for 2016 and 2017 ($144,790.68) requiring a 15 percent match from program income and local fund ($21,718.60), for a total of $166,509.28.
Last year, the WCCOA delivered a total of 115,189 meals to homes in the county.
Based on the estimate of an additional two minutes per delivery of 550 home delivered meals each day, it is projected that this rule will require an additional 91.6 hour of staff time each week, or 4,767 hours per year, Niese said. This is more than two additional full-time staff positions. Additionally, for those home delivered routes that are serviced by trained community volunteers, it would be expected that an additional 15-20 volunteers per week could be needed.
