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COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JOINT HEALTH, HUMAN SERVICES, AND OLDER ADULT SERVICES COMMITTEE HEARING STATE CAPITOL MAIN BUILDING ROOM 140 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA MONDAY, APRIL 17, 2017 IN RE: CONSOLIDATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGING, DRUG AND ALCOHOL PROGRAMS, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES BEFORE: HONORABLE MATTHEW BAKER, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN, HEALTH COMMITTEE HONORABLE VANESSA LOWERY BROWN HONORABLE ALEXANDER CHARLTON HONORABLE BECKY CORBIN HONORABLE JIM COX HONORABLE MARY JO DALEY HONORABLE PAMELA DeLISSIO HONORABLE KRISTIN PHILLIPS-HILL HONORABLE AARON KAUFER HONORABLE STEPHEN KINSEY HONORABLE HARRY LEWIS, JR. HONORABLE MICHAEL SCHLOSSBERG HONORABLE JUDITH WARD HONORABLE MARTINA WHITE HONORABLE DAVID ZIMMERMAN ————————— JEAN DAVIS REPORTING POST OFFICE BOX 125 • HERSHEY, PA 17033 Phone (717)503-6568 1 BEFORE (cont.'d): 2 HONORABLE TIM HENNESSEY, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN, AGING & OLDER ADULT SERVICES COMMITTEE 3 HONORABLE CAROLYN COMITTA HONORABLE MARY JO DALEY 4 HONORABLE PAMELA DeLISSIO HONORABLE MICHAEL DRISCOLL 5 HONORABLE CRIS DUSH HONORABLE JONATHAN FRITZ 6 HONORABLE STEVE McCARTER HONORABLE ERIC ROE 7 HONORABLE FRANCIS RYAN HONORABLE WILL TALLMAN 8 HONORABLE PARKE WENTLING HONORABLE GENE DiGIROLAMO, MAJORITY CHAIRMAN, 9 HUMAN SERVICES HONORABLE BUD COOK 10 HONORABLE MICHAEL CORR HONORABLE CRIS DUSH 11 HONORABLE JONATHAN FRITZ HONORABLE RICH IRVIN 12 HONORABLE AARON KAUFER HONORABLE HARRY LEWIS, JR. 13 HONORABLE THOMAS MURT HONORABLE ERIC ROE 14 HONORABLE JUDITH WARD HONORABLE PERRY WARREN 15 16 ALSO IN ATTENDANCE: 17 WHITNEY KROSSE, REPUBLICAN EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HEALTH COMMITTEE 18 BECCA SAMMON, DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HEALTH COMMITTEE 19 NICOLE SIDLE, REPUBLICAN RESEARCH ANALYST, HEALTH COMMITTEE 20 CAMILA POLASKI, DEMOCRATIC RESEARCH ANALYST, HEALTH COMMITTEE 21 PATIENCE HILL, REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT, HEALTH COMMITTEE 22 DINA WHITE, DEMOCRATIC EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT, HEALTH COMMITTEE 23 24 JEAN M. DAVIS, REPORTER 25 NOTARY PUBLIC 2 1 I N D E X 2 TESTIFIERS 3 4 NAME PAGE 5 REBECCA MAY-COLE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 12 P4A, (PA ASSOCIATION OF AREA AGENCIES ON AGING) 6 DIANE A. MENIO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 18 7 CARIE, (CENTER FOR THE ADVOCACY FOR THE RIGHTS AND INTERESTS OF THE ELDERLY) 8 LINDA DOMAN, PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 24 9 SWPPA, (SOUTHWESTERN PA PARTNERSHIP FOR AGING) 10 HANNAH WESNESKI 58 11 RICHARD EDLEY, PRESIDENT & CEO, 67 REHABILITATION & COMMUNITY PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION 12 GEORGE HARTWICK, DAUPHIN COUNTY COMMISSIONER, 73 13 COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ASSOCIATION OF PA 14 DEB BECK, PRESIDENT, 119 DRUG & ALCOHOL SERVICE PROVIDERS ORGANIZATION 15 OF PENNSYLVANIA 16 GARY TENNIS, FORMER SECRETARY, 132 DEPARTMENT OF DRUG & ALCOHOL PROGRAMS 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 * * * 3 MAJORITY HEALTH CHAIRMAN BAKER: The hearing will 4 now come to order. We have a lot of wonderful committee 5 members here. 6 I've been asked by the committee transcriber -- 7 you won't see them here but they are listening. This is 8 being televised. It's being taped. And we'll very quickly 9 -- if members would come to the mike. They are going to be 10 putting your name in the transcript. And we found out last 11 time we did this that we didn't always go to the mike and so 12 some members were not properly recorded in the transcript. 13 And they're still trying to figure that out. 14 Why don't we start with Chairman DiGirolamo. 15 MAJORITY HUMAN SERVICES CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: 16 Gene DiGirolamo, 18th District in Bucks County. Welcome to 17 everyone. 18 MAJORITY HEALTH CHAIRMAN BAKER: Representative 19 Matt Baker, Chairman of the Health Committee, 68th District, 20 Tioga, Bradford, and Potter Counties. 21 MAJORITY AGING & OLDER ADULT SERVICES CHAIRMAN 22 HENNESSEY: Tim Hennessey, Republican Chair of the House 23 Aging & Older Adult Services Committee from Chester and 24 Montgomery Counties in the southeastern part of 25 Pennsylvania. 4 1 REPRESENTATIVE LOWERY BROWN: Representative 2 Vanessa Lowery Brown, Acting Chairman, Democratic Chairman 3 for the Health Committee, Philadelphia County. 4 REPRESENTATIVE McCARTER: Steve McCarter, House 5 District 154, Montgomery County. 6 REPRESENTATIVE COMITTA: Carolyn Comitta, 7 District 156, Chester County. 8 REPRESENTATIVE TALLMAN: Will Tallman, parts of 9 Adams and Cumberland Counties. 10 REPRESENTATIVE WARREN: Hi. Perry Warren from 11 District 31 in Bucks County. 12 REPRESENTATIVE DRISCOLL: Good afternoon. Mike 13 Driscoll, Northeast Philadelphia. 14 REPRESENTATIVE DALEY: Mary Jo Daley, Montgomery 15 County, serving today as Acting Chair for the Aging 16 Committee, the Minority Aging Committee. 17 REPRESENTATIVE SCHLOSSBERG: Good morning or good 18 afternoon or whenever. Mike Schlossberg, 132nd District, 19 Lehigh County, also serving as Acting Chair of Human 20 Services. 21 REPRESENTATIVE COOK: District 49, Bud Cook, 22 Washington and Fayette Counties. 23 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFER: Aaron Kaufer, 120th 24 District, Luzerne County. 25 REPRESENTATIVE MURT: Tom Murt, Montgomery 5 1 County, Philadelphia County. 2 REPRESENTATIVE WARD: Judy Ward, 80th District, 3 Blair County. 4 REPRESENTATIVE PHILLIPS-HILL: Kristin 5 Phillips-Hill, 93rd District, Southern York County. 6 REPRESENTATIVE DeLISSIO: Pam DeLissio, 7 representing Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, the 8 194th. 9 REPRESENTATIVE IRVIN: Rich Irvin, 81st District, 10 representing Centre, Huntingdon, and Mifflin Counties. 11 REPRESENTATIVE CORBIN: Becky Corbin, 155th 12 District in Chester County. 13 REPRESENTATIVE RYAN: Frank Ryan, 101st District, 14 Lebanon County. 15 REPRESENTATIVE CORR: Michael Corr, 150th 16 Legislative District, Montgomery County. 17 REPRESENTATIVE DUSH: Cris Dush, 66th District, 18 Jefferson and the northern half of Indiana County. 19 REPRESENTATIVE CHARLTON: Alex Charlton, 165th 20 Legislative District, Delaware County. 21 REPRESENTATIVE FRITZ: Jonathan Fritz, 111th 22 District, Wayne and Susquehanna Counties. 23 REPRESENTATIVE ROE: Eric Roe, Human Services and 24 Aging Committees, 158th District, Chester County. 25 REPRESENTATIVE LEWIS: Harry Lewis, 74th 6 1 District, Chester County. 2 REPRESENTATIVE KINSEY: Good afternoon. Stephen 3 Kinsey, 201st Legislative District, Philadelphia County, 4 Human Services and Health Committees. 5 REPRESENTATIVE ZIMMERMAN: Dave Zimmerman, 99th 6 District, Lancaster County. 7 REPRESENTATIVE WENTLING: Parke Wentling, 7th 8 District, portions of Erie, Crawford, Mercer, and Lawrence 9 Counties. 10 MAJORITY HEALTH CHAIRMAN BAKER: I believe we 11 have all the members. We also have our professional staff 12 from the three Committees present as well. 13 We welcome our first panel. We always afford the 14 Chairman the first opportunity to make opening comments 15 before we go into our stakeholder testimony. It's a very, 16 very important issue, the proposal to consolidate the State 17 Departments. 18 Since the first panel is with regard to the Aging 19 Department, we'll defer to Chairman Hennessey. 20 MAJORITY AGING & OLDER ADULT SERVICES CHAIRMAN 21 HENNESSEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 22 Ever since Governor Wolf announced publicly his 23 intention to have a merger between Aging, the Departments of 24 Aging, Health, Human Services, and the Department of Drug 25 and Alcohol Prevention, I've tried to listen to see if I 7 1 thought that it was necessary in all of its facets. 2 As I looked at the Department of Aging over the 3 course of years now, it seems to me to be a smoothly run 4 operation, not something that needed to be lumped into 5 another department, a much larger department, in order to 6 make it function any better. 7 I suppose you'd say I've been skeptical all 8 along. Aging has 102 employees. The Department of Human 9 Services, as it's being proposed, would have over 17,000 10 employees. That's about 170 Human Services employees for 11 every employee of the Department of Aging. 12 I don't know how we don't get outnumbered in that 13 kind of situation. It's an $800 million department, which 14 is run totally from Lottery and Older Americans Act funding 15 from the Federal Government, while Human Services would be a 16 $40 billion operation department and have an operating 17 budget of $40 billion. That's more than probably five or 18 six -- only five or six states have a budget more than the 19 department that we're proposing would be. 20 When you speak of saving $45 million from the 21 dispensing fees, frankly, that would save the Lottery money, 22 but it wouldn't save the General Fund any money. So as you 23 try to put this under a microscope, it looks to me like some 24 of the savings really are sort of ephemeral. They just 25 won't, you know, be realized. And any savings that would be 8 1 realized would be savings to the Lottery, not to the General 2 Fund. 3 I just don't know that it's a good idea. Some 4 mergers are planned. And when they're proposed and they're 5 thought out, their good ideas, you know, when you put them 6 under a microscope, turn out to be not such a good idea. 7 This is one where I think that's not such a good 8 idea. I'm waiting for someone to tell me why it should 9 happen and convince me that I'm wrong. So maybe your 10 testimony today will help us with that. 11 Thank you. 12 MAJORITY HEALTH CHAIRMAN BAKER: Thank you, 13 Chairman Hennessey. 14 Chairman DiGirolamo for opening remarks. 15 MAJORITY HUMAN SERVICES CHAIRMAN DiGIROLAMO: 16 Thank you. 17 Just very quickly. Nothing I have seen in the 18 last week to two weeks has changed my mind. I think this is 19 a terrible, terrible idea. 20 For those that are concerned about the Department 21 of Aging and our senior citizens across the State of 22 Pennsylvania, just take a look at that chart in front of the 23 podium and you'll find out where your Deputy Secretary for 24 Aging and Adult Community Living is, buried all the way down 25 at the bottom of that chart.