-Comptroller Recommends Agency Delay RFP By 6 Months-

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., joined by the Council of Senior Centers and Services, other advocates, and seniors from across the city, held a City Hall news conference on Sunday, March 30, 2008 to highlight problems with the Department for the Aging’s plan to revamp services and senior centers. Standing next to Thompson is City Council Member Gale Brewer.

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., joined by the Council of Senior Centers and Services, other advocates, and seniors from across the city, held a City Hall news conference on Sunday, March 30, 2008 to highlight problems with the Department for the Aging’s plan to revamp services and senior centers.

View the Comptroller's Statement

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. was joined by dozens of seniors and advocates today to call on the New York City Department for the Aging (DFTA) to reevaluate its plans to revise service delivery to seniors and to ensure that senior centers are not closed as a result of any reorganization.

“City Hall is pushing ahead with a fundamental restructuring of sensitive services that will have ramifications far beyond when the Mayor has left office,” Thompson said at a news conference on the steps of City Hall. “Regretfully, it appears that these new initiatives are scheduled to be launched after a rather perfunctory public comment period and on the advice of a very limited number of stakeholders.”

Thompson’s announcement comes shortly after the Comptroller sent a response to DFTA discussing its Concept Paper for the “Modernizing Aging Services” program. In that response, Thompson urged the agency to delay plans to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) that would fundamentally reorganize service delivery to seniors by six months.
You can view Thompson’s response at www.comptroller.nyc.gov.

“I have very strong concerns that DFTA may be preparing to close senior centers,” Thompson said. “While it is absolutely necessary to move our senior centers towards a more comprehensive promotion of healthy aging, DFTA must accomplish this with a more thorough and considered approach. These issues demand our utmost attention and concern.”

“Senior citizens deserve our strongest support and advocacy,” said Senate Democratic Leader Malcolm Smith.  “The City’s proposed “Modernizing Aging Services” program could place our seniors at-risk by trimming down necessary services while locking the City into a long-term agreement without adequate public input.   We can’t jeopardize the health, nutrition and quality of life of our seniors in an effort to save money.  I urge the Mayor to reverse this decision now.” 

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said, “Under the city’s new proposals, senior centers will be under pressure to cut costs while at the same time adding new health and wellness programs for aging baby boomers. This will put core services like meals and transportation at risk. That’s why I am asking that this plan be reconsidered. At the very least, it should be delayed for six months and piloted with a small number of centers before it goes system-wide. We cannot afford to put the core senior services that so many older seniors rely on in jeopardy.”

Bobbie Sackman, Director of Public Policy with the Council of Senior Centers and Services (CSCS) of New York City, pointed out that Mayor Bloomberg’s plaNYC 2030 projects a 44 percent increase in the over-60 population by 2030, supporting the need for an expansion of senior centers and supportive housing.

“This completely contradicts DFTA’s plan,” Sackman said. “A frail, homebound, elderly person could lose his or her case manager, Meals-on-Wheels delivery person, or senior center that prepared the meal by the end of the year. These three important relationships should not be severed. Seniors around the city understandably are afraid that their senior center may close. We call on DFTA to rethink these proposals because they involve life saving services that affect thousands of New Yorkers.”

One of Thompson’s major concerns is how DFTA assesses which centers are considered “underutilized.” According to the agency, 44% of all senior centers are underutilized. However, this calculation is based on the number of meals served in a center, not the number of seniors in attendance.

“Using meal counts to determine if a center is underutilized is anachronistic and can be misleading,” Thompson said. “Given that these so-called underutilized centers appear to be candidates for closure or consolidation, DFTA must find better ways to measure center success. As the senior population in New York City is expected to grow 44% by the year 2030, which will only increase the demand for services, I would seriously question the advisability of closing any centers.”

A report issued by the Comptroller’s Office last September entitled Health and Wealth: Assessing and Addressing Income Disparities in the Health of New Yorkers documented that heart disease, diabetes hospitalization rates, and diabetes death rates increased throughout the city from 1995 to 2005, especially in lower-income neighborhoods.  Congruently, an informal survey of DFTA senior centers found that although the vast majority of senior centers offered hypertension screening, only a fraction offered screening for diabetes, glaucoma, and hearing loss. 

Thompson believes that these findings underscore the importance of requiring all senior centers -- particularly those in lower-income communities -- to offer a full range of health screenings, as diseases can be detected more quickly, and treated more expeditiously through regular screenings. 

Thompson also noted that most seniors are strongly attached to their current center and programs, and relocating them because of consolidation could discourage many from attending any center due to travel limitations and disorienting changes in surroundings and routine.

Additionally, Thompson expressed apprehension that DFTA’s planned consolidation of the Meals-On-Wheels program will result in fewer dietetic options, as many senior centers currently adapt meals to the ethnic cuisines of neighborhood clients.

As a result of these concerns, the Comptroller recommends that DFTA delay the issuance of its RFP by six months, which would allow for additional time to develop a clearer model of service delivery. The extra time could also be used to explore possible partnerships with other city agencies and community health care providers to develop enhanced senior programs.

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