UNIONVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Braving the brutal cold of rural northern Missouri to deliver hot meals is part of the job for Nikki Hill. For many of her elderly clients in Putnam County, it’s the difference between remaining independent or being confined to a nursing home.

“A lot of them can’t get out and go anywhere,” said Hill,a PC Cafe and Resource Center driver. “They really appreciate it.”

In 2002, county voters approved a property tax levy of 5 cents per $100 of assessed value to pay for meal delivery, emergency heating aid, weather radios and other services for seniors 60 and older. Putnam is one of 46 counties in the state to earmark a sliver of tax revenues for such services in the nearly two decades since state lawmakers first gave approval.

The popularity of the senior tax in those counties has emboldened elderly advocates to push for similar programs in the 68 other counties without levies. They met recently in Columbia to swap ideas and build support.

“There’s just not enough state and federal money to provide for our growing population,” said Tina Ulridge, executive director of Clay County Senior Services in suburban Kansas City. “It’s not just for the frail senior who is low income. It’s to improve the quality of life.”

The levy provides Ulridge’s agency with $1.7 annually, allowing it to serve between 22,000 and 25,000 seniors each year. Programs range from low-cost rides to medical appointments or adult day care to meals on wheels and subsidized exercise programs.

For a homeowner with property valued at $200,000, the added costs are less than what many consumers typically pay for video rentals or junk food, Ulridge told participants at the Missouri Show Me Summit on Aging and Health.

“If you buy two 12-packs of Coke a month, that’s probably $100,” she said.

In a faltering economy, that line of reasoning has met with mixed results of late. Voters in both Warren and Buchanan counties rejected a senior tax in August, although Buchanan voters initially approved a levy of 10 cents per $100 assessed value in a primary election.

Missouri is one of eight states where local governments can pay for senior services with property taxes, said Robert Applebaum, a sociology and gerontology professor at Miami University in Ohio. The others are Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota and Ohio.

“It’s still a relatively rare phenomenon,” said Applebaum, who also directs the Ohio Long-term Care Project. “You create competition. There’s only so much property tax that can be levied. If you tax for seniors, you’re taking away money for schools.”

By targeting seniors as young as 60, the Missouri programs serve a population too young to qualify for Medicare, the federal health insurance for qualified people 65 and older.

And those who can’t qualify for Medicare but still need help can also tap local senior assistance efforts, Applebaum said.

“Older people get kind of left out ...unless they are completely destitute,” he said.

In isolated Putnam County, which stretches for 518 square miles along the Iowa border, the meal delivery program is particularly valuable, said Mary Clapham, director of the PC Cafe and Resource Center. Nearly 25 percent of the county’s 5,000 residents are eligible for services.

County clerk Sue Ann Varner sees the program’s benefits firsthand. Before the tax’s passage in 2003, the senior center delivered meals only within the Unionville city limits. Now it serves the entire county, including Varner’s mother-in-law, who lives 22 miles away.

“It helps her stay in her home,” she said. “For some, (the driver) might be the only person they see all day and all week.”

Ulridge, the Clay County senior advocate, offers another line of reasons to persuade skeptics about the virtues of yet another tax, however nominal. For her, keeping elderly citizens independent and off public assistance makes good financial sense.

It’s an economic development tool in some ways,” she said. “They’re going to continue to pay into the county tax base and purchase services in that community.”

 

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