Focus on the Senior Corps: Obama Target for FY 2015 Cuts!

Statement of

Alan G. Lopatin

Washington Representative, National Senior Corps Association

March 11, 2014

It is with sadness that I appear on behalf of the National Senior Corps Association and the more than 300,000 older Americans who serve in organized Senior Corps programs to share our deep disappointment over the Administration’s proposal to first cut and then eliminate RSVP, the Senior Companion Program, and the Foster Grandparent Program. 

At a time when experts and nonexperts agree that the health care and annuity costs associated with the retirement of Baby Boomers could bankrupt the country, why in heaven’s name would this Administration seek to curtail the one organized opportunity for seniors to give back to their communities?  As a member of the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations, I sit as one of small handful of “givers” in a room that reflects more the needs of an aging population.  The proposal for cuts and changes in the Senior Corps in this environment is a really dumb idea.

It is difficult to sum up the demise of over 40 years of senior service in two minutes, but efficiency has been the watchword of Senior Corps.

NSCA strongly opposes the move of RSVP funds to the Volunteer Generation Fund (VGP) and elimination of 66% of that line item.  Millions of Americans and thousands of local non-profit organizations will lose services and non-profits will be left without a viable resource to sustain services to the nation’s neediest populations should this proposal be enacted by Congress.

In 2012, there were 296,000 RSVP volunteers, a decrease of over 100,000 volunteers from the 2010 level of engagement when RSVP was reduced by 20% overnight.  By cutting another 66%, RSVP will lose another 195,000 volunteers currently serving – 40,500,000 hours of service which will no longer be delivered through the 65,000 community organizations that collaborate with RSVP.

NSCA strongly opposes the transfer of FGP and SCP to the AmeriCorps management and funding system, proposals to cut back on the service commitment by those senior who serve under the new structure and, at the same time, reducing funding for these opportunities for low-income seniors to serve by over $20 million. 

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On a personal note, I spent over a decade working on Capitol Hill for the House Budget Committee and the House Committee that wrote the national service authorizing law.  And I have worked with the Senior Corps Directors for nearly 20 since.  From my perspective, the President’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget for the Senior Corps sets a new standard for budget and authorizing audacity – by boasting that this budget “proposes to support a record 114,000 AmeriCorps members” (while conveniently glossing over the accounting gimmick of transferring 30,000 Senior Corps volunteers to AmeriCorps) and highlighting the fact that the transfer will “allow AmeriCorps to surpass the goal of reserving at least 10 percent of member positions for seniors, as laid out in the 2009 Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act” – a provision intended to EXPAND senior opportunities, not contract them.

And, to get even more personal, when I read the budget, I really had to wonder, “was this meant in spite?”  In May, I will celebrate the third anniversary of my 55^th birthday.  Was this budget intended to deny me the chance to serve as a Senior Corps member? 

Thank you for this opportunity and, in advance, for continued opportunities to serve.