Task Force, Working Group Tackling Issues Impacting Senior Citizens; Created by Legislature to Focus on Fraud, Senior Centers
/The Connecticut legislature established a 10-member task force to study ways to protect seniors from fraud, this past spring. It requires that the study include available planning services for Medicaid applicants. The task force must report its findings and recommendations to the Aging and Human Services committees of the legislature by the first of next month, January 1, 2022.
Members of the 10 member task force, appointed in accordance with Public Act 21-84, include co-chairs Joan Wilson, an elder law attorney, and Michael Werner, a legislative aging policy analyst at the Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity & Opportunity (CWCSEO).
Also serving on the task force, according to legislative records, are Matthew Barret, President/Chief Executive Officer for the CT Association of Healthcare Facilities and the CT Center for Assisted Living; Steven Rubin, and elder law attorney; Anna Doroghazi, Associate State Director for Advocacy and Outreach at AARP CT; Michele Jakab, Director of Human Services for the town of Trumbull; Jacqueline Haywood, a retired Aetna executive with experience in property management in elderly housing communities; Marie Allen, Executive Director of the Southwestern Connecticut Agency on Aging; Lara Stauning, and attorney with the State Unit on Aging in the Department of Aging and Disability Services; and Matthew Antonetti, legal director at the Department of Social Services.
The first meeting of the Task Force “must be held no later than August 27, 2021,” according to the law. The Task Force met on November 4, described as its “first full public meeting,” November 18, and December 2. The meetings were conducted on CT-N, and videos of the discussion remain available, including testimony from various experts in the field from inside and beyond Connecticut.
There is no indication that a report has yet been completed or conveyed to the legislature for consideration in the 2022 session, which begins on February 9. The Task Force will next meet on December 16, and is considering conducting a public hearing in early January.
Also this past spring, the House and Senate approved the establishment of a 14-member statewide Senior Center Working Group in Public Act 21-7 to develop a coordinated plan for senior centers and municipal services for seniors. Their deadline to complete their work is still a year away, January 1, 2023.
The law spells out the objectives of the working group:
develop an annual plan to support and develop senior centers and municipal services for older adults, including identifying training needs and coordinating existing resources;
evaluate the feasibility of implementing standards for delivering core services and make recommendations for these standards, including those allowing for parity of core services across municipalities while maintaining service delivery flexibility;
consult with the five area agencies on aging and other agencies;
facilitate coordination and communication among senior centers and municipal services for older adults with executive branch departments, including the departments of aging and disability services, housing, mental health and addiction services, public health, social services, and transportation, as well as with community agencies and initiatives impacting older adults;
develop and provide access to best practices and procedures for senior centers and municipal services for older adults; and
recommend any necessary appropriations or legislative changes to the legislature’s Aging, Housing, Human Services, Planning and Development, Public Health, and Transportation committees.
By January 1, 2023, the working group must report its findings and recommendations to the Aging, Housing, Human Services, Planning and Development, Public Health, and Transportation committees of the state legislature. The working group terminates when it submits the report or January 1, 2023, whichever is later.
The law requires the first meeting of the task force to be held prior to November 30, 2021. It was apparently held on November 4, via Zoom and YouTube Live, although minutes of the meeting do not appear on the Task Force website.
In legislative testimony supporting the establishment of the working group, CWCSEO’s Werner pointed out that senior centers “have been a forgotten workforce that have shown themselves to be critical during the coronavirus pandemic.”
He added in his February 9 testimony before the Committee on Aging that “because senior centers are largely underdeveloped, offerings and quality of programs may vary largely based on which community a senior resident resides in, calling the objectives of the working group “especially urgent now.” Werner also expressed the hope that it would “address the need for core competencies and coordinating support for senior centers, so they may deliver better outcomes and help our older residents to age well in Connecticut.”
