TALLAHASSEE — Thousands of Florida’s neediest residents get little help in the nearly $89 billion state budget signed by Gov. Rick Scott on Friday, with massive, years-long waiting lists for critical services left almost untouched by state lawmakers.
Despite these needs, a $3 billion budget surplus helped fuel a $171 million, election-year tax-cut package, approved by lawmakers as one of their last tasks before adjourning the 2018 session last week.
The Republican-led Legislature also salted away another $3.3 billion in reserves.
But such programs as community care for the elderly, senior home care and services for Floridians suffering from Alzheimer’s disease drew only $2.1 million in additional cash – enough to take a few hundred people off waiting lists, but leaving almost 10,000 more unserved.
In a state where almost one-quarter of the population is over age 60, advocates say the new money won’t go far.
“We’re headed in the right direction, since it’s not a cut. But it’s just not enough,” said Robert Beck, a Tallahassee lobbyist for the Florida Association of Area Agencies on Aging, which oversees elder service programs across the state.
But Sarah Gurtis, president and CEO of the Council on Aging of Volusia County, said she was outraged by the priorities of lawmakers.
“There’s no strategic plan,” Gurtis said. “The Legislature knows it has to take care of businesses, and tourism, but what about one of our largest populations? Seniors. They get a drop in the bucket.”
The budget tightened as lawmakers scrambled to put together a $400 million package focused on school security and mental health treatment in the wake of the Valentine’s Day massacre of 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
But the emergence of a sizable tax cut – Scott and House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, made campaign-like stops last week touting it – left Democrats and advocates questioning what gets the attention of lawmakers.
“I feel like the financially disadvantaged always get pushed around here,” said House Democratic Leader Janet Cruz of Tampa. “They always talk about the people they take off the waiting lists. But they never talk about the people who still sit there.”
Critical care lists
The lists are long and never shrink much — even in a year when Scott is heightening his promotion of Florida’s strong economy, in advance of what is expected to be his soon announced candidacy for U.S. Senate, challenging Democrat Bill Nelson.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Erin McLeod, president and CEO of the Sarasota headquartered-Friendship Centers, which provides senior services in Southwest Florida. “It’s inequitable, unfair and just not a good use of taxpayer money.”
Community Care for the Elderly, which can provide home-health aides, meals, and help with housekeeping or getting to shopping or doctor’s appointments, has 6,400 fragile seniors on a statewide list who are considered in critical need of help.
Lawmakers put $500,000 into the program, enough to help 61 people, lawmakers said.
“We always invite people to move to Florida when they’re healthy and have money,” said Terri Barton, executive director of Aging True, which runs senior programs in Duval County. “But when they live into their 80s or 90s, lose a spouse and run out of money, we say, ‘You’re on your own.’”
A related state program, Home Care for the Elderly, drew $800,000 in the budget – enough to take 215 people off a high-risk waiting list with 1,200 people on it.
Alzheimer’s care has 1,160 on a critical-needs waiting list that will see 66 more people getting care with the $800,000 lawmakers steered to it.
Overall waiting lists – not just for the most in-need – include many more thousands who sign up but really have no chance of ever getting services until their physical condition deteriorates to reach a critical status.
It’s shortsighted for lawmakers not to put more money into the programs, critics say. Home care can keep older Floridians out of nursing homes – which costs state taxpayers much more.
Almost 90,000 Floridians are in nursing homes, costing state and federal taxpayers $3 billion through Medicaid, records show.
“I’m in my own place, but if it wasn’t for this program, I’d be on the street or in a nursing home,” said Mary Sanders, 74, a retired chef, who lives in Sarasota.
Sanders has received meals and housekeeping help for almost two years through Sarasota’s Friendship Centers.
“You work all your life, then you fall through the cracks,” said Sanders, who moved to Florida 32 years ago, but whose retirement savings were depleted caring for her husband, who died in 2012.
Disabled left out
Still, one of the most overlooked areas in the budget involves services for those with disabilities. The state’s 21,000-person waiting list would draw no new money in the state budget year beginning July 1.
Scott had recommended $18 million in his budget recommendation last November. That was forecast to take 900 people off the Agency for Persons with Disabilities waiting list.
But those APD dollars were rolled back to zero in final budget negotiations between the House and Senate this month.
“We would’ve hoped that the Legislature supported the governor’s position on the waiting list,” said Melanie Mowry Etters, APD spokeswoman.
House Ways and Means Chair Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, said the school shooting in Parkland forced lawmakers to scale back spending across many parts of the budget, to free $400 million needed for the response.
“Four hundred million dollars came from the tax-cut package, it came from everywhere, including member projects," Renner said. "We had to reorient the K-12 budget … we did the best we could with available dollars."
Senate leaders said the budget does increase to $130-a-month the personal needs allowance given Medicaid patients in nursing homes, up from $105.
The almost $17 million provision gives seniors some extra cash for snacks, haircuts, books and buying other items – once they’re in a nursing home and any savings they have goes to helping cover the cost of care.
Kristen Griffis, executive director of Elder Options in Gainesville, which serves 16 Northeast Florida counties, said the modest amounts lawmakers budgeted for home-care programs may take even fewer people off waiting lists than projected.
After all, the rising costs of services will likely absorb much of the increase, she said.
“A half-million dollars for a statewide program in a place as big as Florida?" Griffis said. "That won’t go anywhere.”