Area Agency on Aging planning ahead for funding
BUTLER TWP — The Butler County Area Agency on Aging is planning for fundraisers at its senior centers to help offset the loss of more than $400,000 in next year’s budget because of the expiration of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.
Beth Herold, administrator of the Butler County Area Agency on Aging, said during an advisory board meeting Tuesday morning, March 19, that fundraisers were a regular occurrence at senior centers pre-COVID. Herold said much of the ARPA money the Butler County agency received was used on one-time purchases, but the money did help build up certain programs in the agency.
One-off programs the agency put money into include home modifications and medical equipment purchases, and it also put more funding into its caregiver support department and its home-delivered meals program.
“You increased all these programs, but now all that funding is cutting off,” Herold said. “How do you continue all those programs?”
Herold said individual senior centers can run fundraisers after getting approval from the Area Agency on Aging. Money raised by a senior center stays with that senior center, Herold said.
There is also talk of fundraisers on a countywide scale, which would put money into one fund that could be allocated to a program when necessary, Herold said.
“We’re looking at doing some bigger trips where the profit we get from those trips goes into an all-center fundraising category and then we could disperse it for different activities,” Herold said.
Herold also said the agency won’t know what it is getting from the state budget until October, which is why agency administrators are working on fundraising and budgeting initiatives now.
“We’re just trying to be proactive,” Herold said.
