Lake City Senior Center at a crossroads

We have a wonderful facility in the Lake City Senior Center or LCSC. That is still the legal and corporate name. A branding decision was made to change the public name to Lake City Center. To quote Dragnet, "The name was changed to protect the innocent." In this case, War Babies and Baby Boomers who in their 60s and 70s now are not yet old enough to go to a "senior center."

It has been re-furbished, re-painted and re-configured. There is a pool room, classes and groups for China painting, water colors, quilting, knitting, line dancing, cards, bingo, pinochle, a computer training center. It is a beautiful venue for weddings and receptions, retirement parties, business meetings or conferences. Jan, the chef, provides outstanding food service from a commercial kitchen for the lunches four days a week, Meals on Wheels dinners and a myriad of catered occasions. We are the best kept secret in Coeur d'Alene, and we will disappear in about a year unless things change.

The question then becomes, how much do the people who live in Coeur d'Alene think they need a senior center? If there is no help, then the answer is "not much." The ball is now is your court people. In the past few years; the downward spiraling of the economy, a shift in social habits, the curtailment of social activities to save money; and the abject failure on the part of state and federal agencies to fulfill their fiscal promises have combined to place the LCSC in serious financial straits.

The Board of Directors are concerned for the future existence of the center as am I, but are at the same time aware that most things in the public arena have a life span, and no amount of hand wringing by those involved can make things live past their utility.

The LCSC started more than 20 years ago as the dream of several individuals who perceived a need for a place for seniors to recreate, socialize, eat and learn, as well as a service center for seniors who had various needs including nutritional support. The reimbursement for nutritional support was never intended to fully pay for the service.

Regular rentals of the facility, individual small fees for use, and the occasional bequest have helped us to survive thus far. A substantial endowment would be the preferred means of filling the gap.

LCSC is not profligate in its expenses. Their staff is paid at the lower end of the spectrum for the various positions of employment. There are only nine paid positions, six of them part-time.

We have many volunteers who also see the need for service to seniors and help reduce expenses by their service. In recent months, LCSC has had to shift thousands of dollars from their meager savings to operating expenses in anticipation of promised government reimbursements.

The Area Agency on Aging reimburses us for some of our nutrition support. They are not the problem, but they receive federal government payments, never on time and are understandably delayed in passing on the funds to the end-users. At the end of June, the state of Idaho in its infinite wisdom withdrew all un-billed funds from all state agencies, overlooking the fact that organizations such as ours cannot bill until the end of the month, leaving us $4,000 in the red for reimbursement of our nutrition program.

Then there is Medicaid. We sent the required forms for reimbursement to them four times. Via mail, email, fax and finally delivered in person.

They denied receiving the forms until they had to sign for them in person. This is just another sign of the ineptitude of our bloated federal government's bureaucracy. Then Medicaid decided unilaterally that it needed signatures from our nutritional support recipients, so now we not only have to embarrass our recipients and we have to inconvenience the volunteers who deliver the Meals on Wheels, and prove that we are serving nutritious meals AT A LOSS. Under Medicaid we receive $5.25 for the $7 meals we deliver. Medicaid inefficiency is a $4,000 hit.

For the meals served on premises and Meals on Wheels, LCSC receives $3.30 and $3.50 respectively. The meals still cost about $7 each. Will the money eventually come, maybe, but it might arrive at the post office and be undeliverable.

Kent Setty is a Coeur d'Alene resident.