A line item on Gov. Wolf’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2017-2018 could create problems for Experience Inc.

The local Area Agency on Aging, Experience Inc. Executive Director Danell Sowers said, “under his proposal, the Department of Aging, Department of Human Services, Department of Health, and Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs would be combined into the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Human Services.”

In 1965, Sowers said, the Older Americans Act was passed, which provided aging services for older adults. Those services were housed under the Department of Public Welfare (now the Department of Human Services) from 1965 through 1977, at which time a grassroots movement headed by Pennsylvania’s senior population campaigned successfully for a separate cabinet-level position.

They felt that their voices, and the voices of their advocates, were going unheard and their needs going unmet as a result of the services being housed under a larger agency, according to Sowers.

In 1978, Sowers said, “with purpose and intent, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 70.”

The act created the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, with a Secretary of Aging that reported directly to the governor.

Since that time, Sowers said local area agencies on aging have worked through cooperative agreements with the Department of Aging “as the trusted resource and advocate in communities representing every county throughout Pennsylvania.”

The Department of Aging is funded through the state’s lottery dollars and supports Pennsylvania’s senior population through services like home-delivered meals, in-home care, senior centers, Medicare counseling, and protective services.

The proposed consolidation of these four departments under the proposed Department of Health and Human Services, Sowers said, has not been clearly detailed yet and, as such, “we’re not opposing or supporting it because there are no details, but we are letting seniors know what this could mean to them so that they can decide how the feel about it for themselves.”

The proposition, she said, is essentially the repeal of an entire legislative action and the potential dismantling of agencies.

It’s a proposal that says senior care in Pennsylvania will go back to what it was before the Department of Aging was set apart from its umbrella agency.

“The Department of Aging,” said Sowers, “was created with intent and purpose.”

And the proposed consolidation into a Department of Health and Human Services “doesn’t mean that the new department wouldn’t necessarily work,” said Sowers, but “we’re concerned about having the voice of senior citizens and our job of advocating for senior citizens lost in the shuffle.”

Among the many questions Sowers said local Area Agencies on Aging have are how lottery dollars will be used moving forward — will they continue to fund senior services or will the allocation change with the creation of a new department? Also, Sowers said, “the needs of senior citizens are unique” from the needs of others receiving services, and that reality may be lost in the transition. According to a press release from the Pennsylvania Association of Area Agencies on Aging, “local flexibility is necessary to meet the diverse needs of our seniors living in our varied communities and must continue.”

Right now, Sowers said, Experience, Inc. is focusing on educating local seniors and monitoring and participating in the discussion regarding the proposed change. Anyone with questions on the proposed change can contact Experience Inc. at (814) 723-3763.