Quincy pledges $50,000 to help senior citizens

Last week, Quincy commissioners voted to allocate $50,000 for services for senior citizens in Gadsden County.

Gadsden County Property Appraiser Reginald Cunningham, who appeared before the commission on behalf of the Gadsden County Senior Foundation, said the $50,000 won’t be awarded upfront.

The City of Quincy will receive an invoice from the foundation for services received by Quincy residents.

Cunningham is currently the chairman of Gadsden Senior Services, a nonprofit organization that has operated the county-owned Simon L. Scott Senior Center for many years, providing services to senior citizens.

Gadsden Senior Services is in the process of transitioning all assets and operational documents and services to the Gadsden County Senior Foundation, which will be run by the county.

Commissioner Ronte Harris asked if the commission would be able to suggest services that the commission may see needed.

“Those funds can be dealing with anything that’s related to the citizens from Quincy,” Cunningham said.

Harris said in addition to the services the $50,000 will help provide, he would like to see the City of Quincy sponsor a series of activities at the senior center.

Commissioner Freida Bass-Prieto asked where would the $50,000 from the City of Quincy fit into the foundations’ budget.

“A client that comes from the City of Quincy, we’re going to bill for that client,” Cunningham explained.

Cunningham said the county is contributing $100,000 to the foundation, and he said the foundation is applying for other grants with organizations such as the Area Agency on Aging and expects to receive the rest of its funding by February.

The program was formerly run by Gadsden Senior Services, a private nonprofit organization. Cunningham said the foundation is already providing home-health care services, but it is waiting on licensing to provide personal health care.

“When we lost that contract, all the personal care stuff we were, were doing it under the agency, Area Agency on Aging, up under their license, so we didn’t need our own license,” Cunningham said.

He said with the foundation getting its license through the Agency for Health Care Administration, the organization can provide personal care as well.

In May, Advantage Aging Solutions informed Gadsden Senior Services Inc. that their funding was being pulled and they must reapply during the upcoming request for proposals process for 2023.

The agency redistributed $245,000 of Gadsden Senior Services’ funding for congregate meals to Gadsden Wellness, a nonprofit organization created by former Quincy and county Commissioner Sherrie Taylor, and $557,000 was redistributed to Elder Care of Tallahassee for home health services.

Cunningham said the seniors didn’t like having multiple workers coming into their homes; they preferred one person handling everything while they’re there.

Cunningham said Gadsden Senior Services lost clients because of that and recently had to lay off 12 people because of reduction in services and loss of the home health contract.

“Right now, we’re down to six direct service workers and home health aides that’s doing that particular work,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham said the plan is to get the licensing and corner the market.

“We’re going to pay them a lot more and try [to] grab everybody and put them under this umbrella,” Cunningham added.

Harris said he was in full support of helping the foundation provide the services, which were formerly provided by Gadsden Senior Services.

“I like the idea that what we’re setting aside we know 100 percent, without a shadow of a doubt that it goes to the services for those in Quincy,” Harris said. “Whatever this commission can do to support the longstanding Gadsden Senior Services, which is now the senior foundation, I think we should do that.”

Bass-Prieto said her biggest concern was that the majority of the foundation’s funding won’t be available to the organization until February, which is halfway through the City of Quincy’s fiscal year.

“One big concern is we’re funding this with nonrecurring funds and the likelihood that we’ll have an extra $50,000 next year, I just don’t see it,” Bass -Prieto said.

Bass-Prieto said she would rather give $25,000 to the foundation and put the other half towards helping citizens pay their utility bills.

“Commissioner, I totally hear what you’re saying but I also have heard and listened when we conveniently say that our seniors are the population within the community that’s on a fixed income and have no means of increasing their monthly income,” Harris said to Bass-Prieto. “We’ve used that when it’s convenient for us to use that.”

Harris said he has no problem with setting aside money for additional utility support, but he said the city has lived up to its obligation by providing $100 to every residential customer in the City of Quincy and setting up an extra $4,500 to capture those who may have been missed.

“We have 100 percent lived up to that obligation,” Harris said. “We now have a surplus and this is an opportunity for us to support an organization – a lone-standing organization – not just through funding, but to set the money aside so that there is no shortfall within the City of Quincy,” Harris said.

Harris said if he had known a year ago that the city manager at the time had authorized a letter to support another organization, which he said caused funding to be taken away from Gadsden Senior Services then he would have never supported it.

“I am willing to do any and everything that is necessary to make sure that they’re back on their feet and hopefully next year all we will need to provide to Gadsden Senior Citizens Foundation is the $10,000 that we set aside,” Harris said.

The commission voted 3-1 to set aside $10,000 allocated under aid to private organizations in the city’s budget and additional $40,000 from the American Rescue Plan funding, totaling $50,000 to support the Gadsden Senior Citizens Foundation for services the organization provides to the citizens of Quincy.

Commissioner Bass-Prieto gave the lone dissenting vote. Commissioner Angela Grant-Sapp was absent from the meeting.

As of press deadline on Tuesday, the county still had not clarified who formed the foundation, and the foundation was still not incorporated through the State of Florida.

This is an ongoing story and The Gadsden County Times will continue to report.

Erin Hill - erin@gadsdencountytimes.com

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Quincy commissioner accuses former city manager
and former commissioner of using fraudulent letter to get grant