Recordpub.com - Supporters sought for senior levy 2-mill Portage proposal to appear on May 8 ballot

By Mike Sever

Record-Courier staff writer

Supporters of the proposed 2-mill Portage County senior services levy have been making the rounds of senior citizen housing, social organizations and any where they can talk up how the levy will help older residents. Many people, especially older folks, are supportive until they hear the services will cost them more in property taxes.

In the May 8 primary, county voters will be asked to consider a 2-mill, five-year levy to provide more than $6.7 million a year for services to senior citizens.

The 2-mill, five-year levy is estimated to raise $6.73 million annually during its five years. That works out to a new property tax of $70 a year on a property valued at $100,000.

It's hard to deny that seniors can use the help. And levy promoters have said it will help those with moderate incomes who now fall into the gap -- too much income to qualify for Medicaid and not old enough for Medicare.

The League of Women Voters of Kent is sponsoring a public forum on the senior levy and how it would be used, and for whom, at 9:30 a.m. on April 14 in the library at Theodore Roosevelt High School in Kent.

The forum also will include information on the other general levy on the May 8 ballot, a 0.4-mill levy by the Portage County Health District, which serves all the county but Kent and Ravenna.

Money from the senior levy is proposed to fund four areas: care coordination (82 percent); a senior center (8 percent); a Portage County community health center for people of low to moderate income without health insurance (7 percent); and adult protective services for seniors in danger of abuse or neglect (3 percent).

Care coordination covers a variety of services, including visits once or twice a week by a personal care aide or homemaker who helps with bathing, meal preparation, laundry and light housekeeping. It may include home delivered meals and adult day care. Care coordination also serves to link physicians, hospitals and other services for the delivery of care to seniors.

According to a study done by Tomorrow's People Inc., for the Area Agency on Aging 10B, the agency's monthly cost for care coordination is $350 per month.

If it passes, Portage's 2-mill levy would be the single highest in the state. A report on Ohio senior levies done in 2006 for the Ohio Association of Gerontology and Education noted the average millage for senior services levies was 0.6 and ranged from 0.1 in Vinton County to 2 mills in Belmont County (which is the total of three separate levies).

The report was done by the Scripps Gerontology Center, Miami University, and the Ohio Department of Aging.

As of this year, nearly 70 of Ohio's 88 counties have senior service levies. The amounts raised by these levies varies greatly, depending on their population and property values. Levy proceeds in 2004 ranged from $17.3 million for Hamilton County and $21 million for Franklin County to 14 levies collecting $200,000 or less.

How much those levies deliver in services may be measured by revenue per capita -- or tax dollars per capita for the county's age 60 and older population.

In 2004, the highest per capita county was Delaware, with a $3.1 million annual levy serving a countywide senior population base of just over 16,000 persons. That averages out to $190 per older person.

Others in the top five, according to the Gerontology Association report, were Butler ($8.2 million levy and $159 per person); Warren ($3.8 million levy and $155 per person). Clermont ($4 million levy and $146 per person; and Clinton ($1 million levy, $145 per person).

Portage County's $6.73 million annual levy would average out to $300 for every person over 60 years of age in the county, using the 2000 Census figure of 22,396 people of 60 years and over. Reducing that total number to an "at risk" population would increase the per capital revenue dramatically.