Saturday, April 12, 2008

Senior Center Funding

There was an interesting Projo letter Fri. Nt. It was from the Portsmouth Multi Purpose Sr. Ctr. Director, Cynthia Koniecki. In it she is complaining about the loss of grant funding through the Dept. of Elderly Affairs. She mentions a membership of more than 1000.

Now Portsmouth like Newport & many other areas operates its center as a private non-profit (501(c)3) organization. This means it operates off of state grants & local community funding. 60% of its budget is raised in-house through fundarisers, etc. Middletown does not do this. According to our Charter it is operated & budgeted like any other town dept.

Last year Middletown's Senior Center rec'd appx. $200,000 in local funding, the highest in our area. What is the membership? I'm going to hazard a guess from various materials I've seen at a generous 250. That means the town is spending appx. $800/per member. Members pay extra for meals and many activities.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

200k for the senior center is terribly over-burdening or taxpayers in Middletown. The problem is the director is over paid, has her family running things, which keeps away a large crowd who would other wise, take advantage of the center however, are found in Newport or other surrounding communities avoiding the “family” so to speak.

Middletown needs a change, no longer should they accept a director that is also the VP and sometimes acting Chair of the Middletown Democrat’s Committee. Her bother is the council president and she is on the committee to endorse the next slate of candidates!

In addition unlike most, this senior department head goes before the council on many occasions demanding more taxpayer money? $11,000.00 for painting one room? What does a full time janitor/ matinance man do, answer the phone?

Anonymous said...

Waste? Fraud? Abuse? an unfair use of taxpayer dollars? Surely, the "guv" or "june gibbs" or "bruce long" must be to blame??!! It can't be the corrupt democratic machine you seek to ingratiate that is responsible? This is a microcosm of the fraud waste and abuse at the state level perpetuated by, no, not George Bush, or even the evil Dick Cheney but 60 years of democrats in power in RI!

Anonymous said...

A rather simplistic charge/answer to corruption/waste. I haven't actually written any of these things. I definitely haven't noticed that any political party has sole ownership of corruption or being ethically challenged. Wrong blog?
So who is the machine? Please tell me as I have not yet ingratiated myself. And what would my reason be for doing so, pray tell?
My article did not blame Bruce or June or the Guv. I do believe that it was the letter writter who was complaining about the Guv's budget, although you could well add me to the list.
You may have missed the mark on relevancy to the posting or is this just a general rant? Please, don't let pertinent facts get in the way, much less participate in any real discussion on the topic.
So why don't more Republicans get elected? Ah, it's the ever-present conundrum, isn't it? A real mystery, to be sure.
Good spelling, though. I guess this means you don't like my George Bush clock.

B42 said...

Don't you just love how your loudest critics always post Anonymously?
Keep up the good work Eileen :)