SENIOR AGENCY FUNDING REQUESTS MADE

JACKSON -- Nearly $246,000 in funding requests made by organizations that serve the county's senior citizens have been sent to the Cape Girardeau County Commission.

The proposals were considered last week by the Senior Citizens Services Fund Board, which passed the recommendations along to the county commission in letter form.

The commission will have the final say-so on who gets how much money when county tax revenues begin arriving in the spring.

As presented by the board, the requests range from nearly $37,000 to expand St. Francis Medical Center's Lifeline program, which summons emergency medical care at the push of a button, to $1,800 that would help the Jackson Senior Center operate a new van used to deliver hot meals to shut-ins.

The Cape Girardeau Senior Center requests totaling more than $44,000 were whittled by the board to just over $34,000. The money would pay part-time salaries for a dishwasher, bookkeeper, van driver and activities director, in addition to making up for cutbacks in United Way funding and paying some equipment costs.

The board also approved nearly $65,500 in requests from the Hoover Eldercare Center at 805 N. Sprigg St. The money is to be used for two purposes: the new APPLE Project, which would help seniors acquire assistance with filling out forms, making applications and organizing personal papers; and providing adult day care for up to 13 people per day at the center.

Shelba Branscum, chairwoman of the board and also a member of the Hoover board, said the project is one the fund board initiated, shopping the idea around to numerous agencies.

"We try to generate ideas and let people know where the gaps are," she said.

Other requests recommended by the board include:

-- $4,085 to the Gibson Recovery Center to expand alcohol and drug treatment services for persons over 60.

-- $1,500 to the Missouri Veterans Home to pay a speaker fee for a senile dementia workshop. The board declined to fund a request for nearly $15,000 for equipment that would allow expansion of dementia services.

-- $12,000 to Lutheran Family and Children's Services to expand its in-home counseling service for the home-bound or frail elderly.

-- $13,000 to Southeast Missouri Hospital Regional Home Health Services to help recently discharged elderly patients with home chores.

-- $18,500 to Southeast Missouri Area Agency on Aging to continue providing 20 homebound meals to seniors in the northern and northwestern parts of the county. Also $25,106 to provide most of the funding for the agency's Retired Senior Volunteer Program.

-- $17,000 to the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center to provide in-home nursing care.

-- $15,000 to the Lutheran Home to go toward the purchase of a new bus if other funding sources can be found.

All the money derives from the Senior Citizens Services Fund, which is supported through a tax of 5 cents per $1,000 assessed valuation. The tax was passed by county voters in 1990.

Last year, some $269,000 was allocated to agencies serving seniors, an amount which included funds rolled over from the previous year.

The board currently has six members, with an unfilled vacancy that has existed since Ken Lucy resigned in October. The commission thus far has not named a replacement.

Branscum, an associate professor of human environmental studies at Southeast Missouri State University, teaches gerontology.

Other members of the board are Dale Rauh, Maurice Lange, Bill Thompson, Cecilia Sonderman and the newest member, Erwin Dost.

Rauh, employed by St. Francis Medical Center, is on the board of Lutheran Family and Children's Services.

Thompson owns Deal Nursing Home in Jackson, and Lange and Sonderman are retired. As far as Branscum knows, they are on the boards of no organizations that have requested funding.

Dost, appointed to the board to fill a vacancy in September, was not present to vote on the funding requests.

By agreement, board members abstain from voting if they also sit on the board of an organization making a funding request.