State officials study ways to revive defunct Aging Department

ctnow.com ^ | February 8, 2006 | Associated Press

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...the task force would also help determine what programs should be created or bolstered in health care, transportation, housing, nutrition, education, recreation, employment and other areas.

The General Assembly last year decided to re-establish the Department on Aging, which was disbanded in 1993 during budget cuts. Its administrative responsibilities were folded into the Department of Social Services, and a 17-member commission on aging was created as an independent advocacy group.

Twenty-three states have separate departments on aging ...according to a 2005 report from Connecticut's Office of Legislative Research.

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"I get calls from all over the state from people who just don't know where to go, from their adult children who don't know who to turn to with their questions," said state Sen. Edith Prague of Columbia, a former commissioner of the Aging Department and chairwoman of the task force to revive it.

"They call me because they know my name, but someday there won't be an Edith Prague to call, and then who will they turn to?" she said.

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John Erlingheuser, advocacy director for AARP Connecticut, said its highest priority this year is to seek more financial assistance to help seniors pay for increasing utility costs, and to urge legislators to block utility companies from passing on their energy-procurement fees to consumers.

"Our members are demanding action on this," he said. "These higher costs affect everybody, but they disproportionately affect seniors because being on fixed incomes, they have less ability to pay these increases."

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Replace Edith with an endless voice mail loop and a web site that links to AARP for all questions, and there's the end of the problem... and the inexorable spending.

CT is mostly rural. The best program is Meals on Wheels. However, day after day, I see the district transportation buses that are supposed to be full of spry elderly people dashing from store to store over a space of 20+ miles. The buses burn up fuel (paid for by taxpayers) and for the most part no one uses them.

[Red Badger]

The Aging Department died?............

[Pessimist]

Yes. As we all age, certainly there will come a time we will turn to our government for advice on how to do it. / sarc