Marin grand jury urges county to create aging services division

A new civil grand jury report on Marin’s burgeoning senior population urges the county to elevate the office on aging to a division level within the Department of Health and Human Services.

The report — titled “The Coming Wave of Older Adults — Is Marin Prepared?” — says the county’s Adult and Aging Services office is “buried” in the health bureaucracy. This makes it difficult for its concerns to “receive the attention that is called for by the county’s own studies,” the report says.

The same recommendation was made by Githens & Associates, a consultant the county paid $125,000 to produce an integrated aging services study. The results of the study were presented to county supervisors on Feb. 7.

“I was really happy to see that the grand jury report quoted a lot of the information that was in the integrated aging services study,” said Teri Dowling, who heads the steering committee of Marin’s Aging Action Initiative. “They are both in alignment. That is very encouraging. Now we need to have some action.”

County supervisors did not approve the Githens report in February.

“They just accepted it,” said Diana Lopez, who heads the Marin County Commission on Aging. “They sent the recommendations to Benita McLarin and Kari Beuerman to cost them out.”

McLarin is the director of the Department of Health and Human Services; Beuerman works under McLarin as director of the social services division.

The grand jury report notes that supervisors requested further information on the financial impact of some of the recommendations.

“As of the writing of this report, no additional information has been presented to the board,” it says.

Lopez said that at a stakeholders meeting following the presentation, “Benita McLarin took creating a department and elevating aging and adult services to the executive level completely off the table.”

Dowling agreed.

“It was not to be discussed at that time,” Dowling said. “It was taken off the agenda. It was disappointing.”

McLarin would not say Friday if she is willing to consider adopting the recommendations from the grand jury and Githens reports.

“We are reviewing the Grand Jury report,” she wrote in an email, “and will be providing a formal response in August, which will include additional information reflecting the hard work we are doing on behalf of the older and disabled adult population in Marin.”

“There have been several meetings of stakeholders,” McLarin said, “and some initial potential projects and initiatives from the study have been proposed and evaluated for costs.”

Lopez said that in subsequent meetings county officials have discussed how to use $611,000 allocated to aging services this year. Lopez said she would like some of the money to be spent on determining the cost of creating a separate department of aging services within the county.

The grand jury report notes that even though 33% of Marin’s population is over the age of 60, the AAS budget constituted just 2.3% of the $236 million Department of Health and Human Services budget in the current fiscal year.

Another of the grand jury’s recommendations is that AAS budget be increased so that other recommendations both in its report and the Githens study can be implemented.

One of these involves the creation of a multilingual electronic portal to provide access to information about county services available for seniors. Another is paying travel stipends to employees of Marin In-Home Supportive Services, or IHSS, who work in rural areas.

The report states that the $16.95 per hour that Marin IHSS caregivers receive now does not support the cost of living in Marin. The report also notes that since IHSS caregivers are not paid for their time to drive to western Marin or for their transportation costs, it is difficult to find IHSS caregivers there.

“Caring for our most vulnerable and disabled residents is skilled and dangerous work and yet they are paid less than fast food workers,” said Meredith Parnell, director of homelessness prevention for the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Marin and a member of the Marin Organizing Committee.

“MOC believes that the county needs to pay the maximum allowable amount,” Parnell said, “if Marin is going to be able to compete with the other counties in the Bay Area, most of whom are paying more.”

Parnell said San Francisco recently authorized a four-year contract to pay IHSS caregivers there $25 an hour starting in September. The Marin Organizing Committee is advocating for Marin IHSS caregivers to be paid $26 an hour.

The grand jury report also recommends that supervisors create an ombudsman position within AAS to assist community organizations and nonprofits.

McLarin wrote in her email that she is pleased that County Administrator Matthew Hymel will be recommending a new permanent position supporting the county’s “age forward” initiative when he presents the fiscal 2023-24 budget to supervisors later this month.

According to the county, the initiative “involves weaving or embedding an ‘age-forward’ approach — or lens — into daily and long-range work to help the county advance a more equitable community for all residents across their lifespan.”