FREEHOLD – Freeholder Barbara J. McMorrow today offered testimony before the Casino Revenue Fund Advisory Commission seeking to increase the percentage of casino revenue funds that are allocated to senior citizen and transportation programs for the disabled and homebound.

Due to a decline in casino revenue caused by the current economic downturn, the projected shortfall in the state’s Senior Citizen and Disabled Resident Transportation Program in 2009 is nearly $4 million. Monmouth County’s share of the shortfall is estimated to be about $232,516.

 

“In Monmouth County, this decrease equals 15,500 rides per year for seniors and disabled people who depend on the county’s Senior Citizen Area Transportation (SCAT) buses to get to their doctor’s appointments, therapy treatments or food shopping,” McMorrow said. “For many who are homebound, the Meals on Wheels program offers them the only hot meal of the day.”

 

Despite current economic conditions, these shortfalls can be restored from cost savings to New Jersey now that the Pharmaceutical Assistance for the Aged and Disabled (PAAD) is federally funded, McMorrow said. Since 2006, PAAD program costs have been reduced by hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the implementation of the federal Medicare D program.

   

McMorrow and other senior citizen advocates around the state have asked the state Legislature to pass Assembly bill A-2046 and its Senate companion, S-1830, which provide for a 1 percent increase in the portion of casino revenue tax that would be earmarked for transportation. This would be an increase from 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent, the first increase in 10 years.

 

“The bills are part of the solution as we look to a permanent solution for funding community transportation and Meals on Wheels,” McMorrow said. “This community transportation funding crisis will negatively impact New Jersey’s older adult population, persons with disabilities, economically disadvantaged, veterans and other transportation-dependent people if we do not act now.”

 

Services provided through community transportation include non-emergency medical appointments, trips for dialysis, physical and mental therapies, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, non-competitive workshops, employment, nutrition sites, Meals on Wheels, food shopping, veterans services, recreational activities and many other activities.

 

“In Monmouth County, Meals on Wheels are delivered to 1,200 disabled and homebound people each week,” McMorrow said. “In making your decision I ask that you consider the fact that New Jersey’s senior citizen population is increasing. New Jersey has the fourth-largest senior citizen population in the country with 1,442,782 seniors who are over the age of 60.

 

The two bills aimed increasing the funding are supported by the Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders and New Jersey Council on Specialized Housing (NJ COST).

 

NJ COST, together with the New Jersey Association of Area Agencies on Aging, has been sponsoring a statewide petition drive to bring attention to the need to close the funding shortfall before 2009. McMorrow has already delivered to Trenton some 4,000 paper plate petitions signed by senior citizens in Monmouth County. Statewide, 35,000 petitions have been collected.

 

“Certain segments of our society simply cannot do more with less,” McMorrow said. “If redirecting a small percentage of funding will guarantee that New Jersey seniors and the disabled can continue to access essential transportation services, then it is something that should be done.”

 

The Senior Citizen and Disabled Resident Transportation Program assists counties in developing and providing access to fixed-route transportation services, where available, and creating local transit services where they are not.

 

#    #    #