New York City Council
Committee on Finance
Chair Council Member Dromm
May 25, 2021
Oversight - Executive Budget Hearing
Thank you for the opportunity to testify at the executive budget hearing.
LiveOn NY’s members include more than 100 community-based nonprofits that provide core services which allow all New Yorkers to thrive in our communities as we age, including senior centers, home‐delivered meals, affordable senior housing, elder abuse prevention, caregiver support, NORCs, and case management. With our members, we work to make New York a better place to age.
As New York City begins to emerge from a pandemic that took the lives of thousands of individuals, many of whom were older New Yorkers, and as this budget, built upon millions in new stimulus funds, will plant the seeds of recovery for our City at-large, the stakes have rarely been higher. As stated by the New York City Independent Budget Office, “the influx of stimulus funding makes this plan one of the most consequential city budgets produced in years. The priorities set forth and decisions made regarding the current financial plan, specifically with respect to how these stimulus funds are spent, are decisions whose effects will reverberate well into the next administration.”
With this in mind, LiveOn NY is appreciative of the investments included in the Executive Budget to both better support older New Yorkers through programs such as Senior Centers, as well as to support the human services sector at large. More specifically, we are deeply appreciative of the decision to fully restore funding for the Indirect Cost Rate initiative; implement the $10 million of outstanding model Senior Center budget funding promises; and include $39.4 million towards Year 1 of the new Community Care Plan, which will expand and better support Senior Centers and NORCs. These initial investments are an important step towards bolstering a long-underfunded sector and a system that has been critical to supporting older New Yorkers through the historically difficult fight against COVID-19.
However, given that the Department for the Aging (DFTA) budget remains at less than ½ of 1% of the City budget despite older adults representing a rapidly increasing 20% of the population, the City must go farther in its Adopted Budget to truly set the trajectory for a recovery that leaves no New Yorker behind. Moreover, to wholly embrace this budget’s theme, “A Recovery for All of Us,” the City must do more to ensure that older New Yorkers, particularly low-income and Black and brown older New Yorkers, are included in that recovery.
Centered around the inequities made apparent during the pandemic, LiveOn NY first proposes three major investments to better address senior hunger, the digital divide, and wages for essential workers.
$16.6 million for Home-delivered Meals. Such funding would provide $13.6 million for weekday meals and $3 million for weekend and holiday meals, both to increase capacity to meet new demand and bring the per-meal rate to the national average. The home-delivered meals program, which is different from GetFood, serves older New Yorkers who, due to chronic illness, mobility limitation, or disability, will remain homebound long after COVID-19 fully subsides. For many meal recipients, this meal delivery represents not only a significant source of nutrients, but the only contact they will have with the outside world that day. Despite the lifeline that this program represents, it has been chronically underfunded for years, with funding lagging far behind the national average, putting the program and the non-profits that administer it, financially at risk year after year.
$4.4 Million to address the digital divide. $4.4 million of this funding would allow for improved technology and service access for older adults by investing in the technology infrastructure at Senior Centers, as well as creating mechanisms to directly support individual access to technology.
As the City works to combat the digital divide, it must also invest an additional $5.89 million to leverage technology to better connect older adults to the services one might need to age in community. More specifically, this investment would broaden the ability for Senior Centers to market their services, and to create an online resource directory, similar to that of the Parks Department, where an older adult might more easily determine offerings from Senior Centers in their neighborhood.
$48 Million Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for essential human services workers. Throughout COVID-19, human services workers across sectors have stepped up to provide critical services in new ways, including to keep New Yorkers older New Yorkers fed, assist older adults in receiving vaccinations, and combating the life-threatening effects of social isolation. Despite this, the wages of these workers, the majority of whom are women and Black and brown individuals, are slated to remain stagnant in a City where costs are notoriously high. It is critical that the FY22 budget rectify this, allocating $48 million in funding to ensure all human services workers can receive a 3% COLA that is not only necessary, but is deserved.
Further, an additional $1.7 million is needed to ensure parity for NORC Directors to Senior Center staff of similar positions. Without such an investment, disparity, created as a direct result of City Contracts, will only continue to be exacerbated in the coming year.
In addition to these new investments, the City must look to restore and baseline all aging Executive one-time funds, including funding for Senior Centers located in NYCHA.
The City must also prioritize hiring staff internally within the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) in order to continue the historic progress made within this Administration’s affordable housing development program. With new federal resources, HPD has an opportunity to fill vacancies and ensure a strong pipeline of affordable senior housing into the future.
Recognizing the significant role that City Council discretionary plays in meeting the hyper-local needs within districts, these funds must also be restored and bolstered as appropriate. Including by:
Restore Council aging discretionary funding to FY20 levels.
A restoration of $2,040,000 that was previously made available through the “Healthy Aging” initiative, must be re-allocated, whether by restoring this initiative or adding the amount to a similar initiative such as Support Our Seniors.
Beyond re-allocating funds that were reduced in FY21, due to budgetary constraints, it is critical that City Council maintain funding for the long-important initiatives such as: NORCs, Immigrant Senior Centers, Support Our Seniors, and all aging discretionary initiatives.
Bolster Council discretionary funding to meet rising needs
Invest an additional $950,000, for a total of $2.86 million, in the Geriatric Mental Health Initiative to better equip providers to respond to the rising mental health concerns that have resulted from isolation experienced during extended periods of stay at home orders experienced by older New Yorkers throughout COVID-19.
New York’s more than 1.8 million older adults are counting on these investments to demonstrate meaningful action for aging in response to COVID-19.
But we know that this action can’t wait. The Administration must also immediately authorize the Department for the Aging (DFTA) to spend the $30 million in currently projected ‘cost-savings’ accrued by the agency over the course of FY21. Rather than having one of the smallest City agencies shoulder the burden of returning cost-savings to the City to balance the current budget, it should instead be invested in ensuring that Senior Centers and services are safe into the future. That would mean purchasing improved ventilation and HVAC systems for all Senior Centers in need to ensure high quality air standards for the population most at-risk to COVID-19. The funds could also go towards one-time technology upgrades, PPE purchases, cleaning supplies, kitchen upgrades for Centers with outdated equipment, and other purchases that, if made now, will promote the safety and sustainability of senior services into the future.
While the needs are vast, the City is poised to meet the unique needs of older adults by strategically using new stimulus investments, state investments, and improved City tax receipts to push the Department for the Aging budget above the ½ of 1% mark once and for all.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.