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Adult services an example of funding challenges

 
The Oklahoman Editorial | Published: December 2, 2009    Comment on this article Leave a comment

House appropriations subcommittees began meeting this week with state agency directors regarding the budget crunch. The Department of Human Services gets an hour on Thursday. A month might not be enough time.

photo - Michael Avila, 38, works on a children's puzzle with a friend at Metropolitan Better Living Center in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Michael, who has cerebral palsy and can't speak, works puzzles everyday with another man who can't speak. Photo by John Clanton
Michael Avila, 38, works on a children's puzzle with a friend at Metropolitan Better Living Center in Oklahoma City on Tuesday, June 9, 2009. Michael, who has cerebral palsy and can't speak, works puzzles everyday with another man who can't speak. Photo by John Clanton

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DHS is the mammoth agency charged with housing Oklahoma’s foster children, feeding the state’s poor and caring for its elderly and infirm. It’s currently embroiled in a federal lawsuit over the job DHS has done protecting foster children. It is dealing with an ever-growing demand for food stamps — the number of recipients in October was up 26 percent, to nearly 547,000, over a year ago — and is bracing for what will be a burgeoning senior population in the coming years.

The latter is a compelling issue that was explored recently by The Oklahoman’s Ron Jackson and John Clanton. They focused on adult day services, which serve the developmentally disabled and functionally impaired. Adult day services comprise a small part of the state’s elder care and a tiny piece of the DHS budget. Advocates are concerned about cuts to the program, which they say needs to be enhanced, not trimmed.

The adult day services budget for this fiscal year was $3.3 million, which was distributed to 32 centers across the state.

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Related Topics: Culture and Lifestyle, Health and Fitness, Politics, Family, Foster Care, Government and Politics, Long-Term Care



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