Local senior citizens are planning to protest a possible cut of
half the city’s regular funding for programs, games and activities
they use at the Centennial Recreation Center.
Local senior citizens are planning to protest a possible cut of half the city’s regular funding for programs, games and activities they use at the Centennial Recreation Center.
The current draft of the city’s recommended budget for fiscal year 2010-2011 proposes cutting Morgan Hill’s share of funding to the senior center by $37,500 – exactly half the city’s contribution from last year. The funding goes directly to the Mt. Madonna YMCA, which runs the senior center, according to recreation and community services department Director Steve Rymer.
The senior center offers a variety of social, competitive and fitness programs for senior citizens, five days a week, such as aerobics, bridge groups, line dancing and even video game competitions. While the most popular senior center offering – daily lunch paid for through Santa Clara County’s senior nutrition program – will remain, the protesters want the city council to know how much the other services benefit the local senior community.
“It’s devastating for them,” said Morgan Hill senior citizen John Tarvin.
The protest is planned for 11:15 a.m. Friday in front of the Centennial Recreation Center, 171 West Edmundson Avenue.
Up to 100 senior citizens are expected to attend the protest, displaying signs indicating their displeasure with the proposed cuts and singing along to the “Morgan Hill Centennial Recreation Senior Center Blues.”
“We just want people to be aware of what’s happening to the seniors,” Tarvin added.
About 30 seniors, including Tarvin and his wife, attended a line-dancing class Tuesday, though as of July 1 that class is proposed to be cut. Other seniors enjoy video-game bowling in the afternoons, Tarvin said.
“These are some really frail seniors, and it’s their way of getting out and doing a little bit of exercise,” he said.
The recommended cut of $37,500 would reduce the operation hours at the senior center from seven to five hours per day. Other areas of the department that would suffer from the recommended budget are the teen center, which would be closed Mondays and Tuesdays starting July 1. The department would also no longer sponsor Youth Action Council activities with tax dollars.
The cuts, which total about $130,000 from this year’s projected year-end expenses of $4.9 million, are based on the city council’s priorities as identified in a goal-setting workshop Dec. 2009, Rymer said. The services that are proposed to be cut are those that do not generate revenue, and are the least-used services. The suggested budget includes other cost-containment efforts, and a recreation coordinator position is slated to be eliminated.
Also part of the department’s budget is the operation of the Community and Cultural Center, which is proposed to be closed Mondays and Tuesdays in the citywide effort to reduce expenses.
Furthermore, the city would implement a $2-per-day fee to use the CRC computer lab in the evenings and on weekends, and would no longer participate in South County Collaborative efforts to promote support groups, youth activities and workshops if the city council adopts the recommended budget.
Staff hours at the senior center will be reduced as a result of the proposed cuts, but Rymer did not know by how much as the on-site employees are paid by the YMCA.
The suggested cuts are part of a citywide effort to cut this year’s budget by $2.3 million, as a result of a continuing decline of revenues from sales, property and hotel taxes. Most of the city manager’s suggested cuts are in personnel costs, as the equivalent of 15.9 full-time positions are proposed for elimination. Thirteen city employees would be affected by those cuts, with the loss of their job or a reduction of hours next year.
One way to save the senior center programs and staff, Tarvin suggested, is to add $1 per month to memberships at the city’s CRC and Aquatics Center. There are currently about 3,162 membership units, including family memberships, at the facilities, and Tarvin noted that an extra dollar added to each $80 monthly membership fee could easily subsidize the senior center.
There are about 5,000 citizens age 65 and older in Morgan Hill, Tarvin said. The senior center reported about 40,000 visits by individual seniors last year, and up to 80 people attend lunch every day there, he added.
