janice Ayres: Stutzman trying to ax youth, senior programs

Why does the Republican-led House want to abolish the Corporation for National and Community Service?

The CNCS funds cost-effective programs for youth, seniors and the disabled that save the taxpayers millions of dollars because of the thousands of hours volunteers give to the nation's people in need.

The House passed HR1, which eliminated CNCS; however, the bill died in the Senate - thank goodness. Now here comes new Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., who has introduced a stand-alone bill to once again abolish CNCS. According to a recently published story, Stutzman said that he had a problem with paying volunteers any money and that CNCS is unnecessary and expensive.

In 1993, Congress created CNCS which operates a half-dozen community service programs, including Senior Corps (Foster Grandparent, Senior Companion and RSVP) to help people 55 and older, and AmeriCorps for young adults to serve. CNCS reported that more than 1.5 million people perform community service each year to help others.

"It's the poverty line; nobody is getting rich off this program," said Aoife McCarthy, press secretary for CNCS. She said two Senior Corps Programs - Foster Grandparent and Senior Companion - pay a stipend of $2.65 an hour to cover volunteer costs, and RSVP pays none at all except for volunteer's out-of-pocket reimbursement, if funds are available.

The programs for youth such as AmeriCorps give a living expense of $11,000 and up to $9,500 a year for college tuition, in exchange for 1,700 hours of community service which includes disaster-relief events. This program has been a successful incentive for youth to follow a positive path in life rather than one of drugs and crime, which costs taxpayers millions every year.

I was privileged to be invited to the White House for the fifth anniversary of these programs under the Clinton administration, and heard firsthand how AmeriCorps programs had changed the lives of youth who had been high school dropouts and were into drugs and crime.

As stated previously, a year ago the Republican-led House approved an appropriations bill to eliminate federal funds for CNCS; the Democrat-led Senate didn't even consider it. CNCS, however, still lost half of its funding in the process. The Senior Corps programs in Nevada all lost funding, with RSVP being hit the hardest - $13 million.

McCarthy said it wasn't as if the agency received all its funds from the government, as it gets more than $800 million a year from other sources. She said that if the agency was abolished, people in need would not receive that funding.

Those of us in Nevada who operate agencies under CNCS to help seniors remain in their own homes as long as possible don't understand why we are constantly under threat of elimination. We are saving taxpayers millions of dollars by keeping indigent seniors at home and out of costly institutions where they would likely end up. Indigent seniors count on us, as our services are free of charge.

I suggest that Rep. Stutzman use whatever talents and time he may have to concentrate on jobs, Wall Street, returning veterans, hunger and home foreclosures and cease trying to fix what isn't broken.

Doing away with CNCS would fire more than a million volunteers who work very hard to help others, especially keeping seniors at home. If Congress thinks they have a Medicare/Medicaid problem now, they haven't seen anything yet if these volunteer programs go away. It is the old "penny-wise, pound-foolish" mentality. Stay tuned.

• Janice Ayres is president of Nevada Senior Corps Association.