Budget for Department of Aging gets $61 million increase

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By Sean J. Miller | Saturday, September 23, 2006 12:18 AM CDT | () comments

Higher wages for home-care professionals, more funding for adult daycare centers and improved health care for seniors will all be possible under an Illinois Department on Aging budget that has an additional $61 million in funding over the previous year.

That was the message delivered in Moline Friday by Charles Johnson, director of the department, during a news conference at In-Touch adult daycare center.

“This year culminates a major improvement in aging services throughout the state,” Johnson said.

The new funds will increase wages by 29 percent for many of the 16,000 home-care professionals in Illinois, Johnson said. “We know there’s a correlation between the quality (of care) and the rate of pay.”

The department’s budget has increased by more than $200 million in the last three years, he said. “It’s not enough. We can do more and we can do better.”

Illinois has raised the income level a person can have to qualify for a state-subsidized position in an adult daycare facility, he said. “We’ve added about 1,600 clients as a direct result of just changing the (income) level” from $12,500 to $17,500.”

The budget increase also provides daycare centers with additional transportation funding, Johnson said.

Barbara Eskildsen, program manager for the Western Illinois Area Agency on Aging, said rising transportation costs are making it difficult for seniors to travel to and from the daycare centers.

“Transportation is an issue in all the 10 counties we serve,” she said. “In rural areas, there’s hardly any transportation.”

Quad-City adult daycares also have struggled with rising transportation costs, she said.

The increased funding for adult daycares will help with that, said Toni Hunter, director of In-Touch, ensuring the center’s 16 buses can continue to operate.

“For us the biggest positive is the increase in transportation (funding),” Hunter said. Ninety-five percent of the 260 clients have to be brought to or from the center.

The center serves about 80 people a day, ages 28 to 98, she said, and “we’re getting an increase in people.”

Michelle Jech, program director for Alternatives for Older Adults, said the new funding will improve coordinated care for seniors.

Coordinated care helps identify health or psychological problems in seniors before they require full-time care or hospitalization, Jech said.

“The whole point is to keep (seniors) from premature institutionalization,” she said. It costs about $4,000 a month to provide care to a senior in a nursing home, compared to $400 to provide care to a senior at home.

There are currently nine case managers who coordinate care for seniors in the Quad Cities, she said. The new funds “will help us expand the program.”

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.