By Lindsay Street, Statehouse correspondent | Things are unlikely to change any time soon for the Lieutenant Governor’s Office on Aging — and that bothers Meredith Breen of Charleston, a policy advocate for seniors.
A bill restructuring the lieutenant governor’s office is on life support in the session’s final days. It passed the Senate but was referred to the House Judiciary Committee, which held its final meeting Wednesday without voting on a bill that dictates where the office’s duties go once it is absorbed by the governor’s office on Jan. 1.
The bill would give the Office on Aging a seat at the table as a cabinet agency, which could allow it to have a louder voice for funding.
And funding is key, Breen said. South Carolina is second in the nation for senior hunger, according to a five-year report issued by AARP in 2015. A more recent study found that 19.3 percent of adults over the age of 60 in South Carolina faced the threat of hunger in the past 12 months in 2017.
When asked if the bill was definitely dead, S.C. Rep. Peter McCoy, the Charleston Republican who chairs the House Judiciary subcommittee in which the bill sits, said he would have to talk to Judiciary staff. McCoy did not respond to further requests seeking comment.
According to Catherine McNicoll, director of legal and legislative affairs in the lieutenant governor’s office, not much will change if S. 1120 isn’t passed.
“It will be a change of administration,” McNicoll said. “It would operate fairly smoothly regardless.”
She said the agency can expect no changes during this coming fiscal year. The Office on Aging is funded through state funds with a federal match. Once the administration change occurs, it will be the seventh time since 2008 that the office has undergone new leadership.
Breen said this is another misstep for lawmakers when it comes to leadership on senior issues in the state. She said the office is suffering from a “leadership vacuum.”
“Everyone just shrugs their shoulders and says it’s here for now,” she said.
S.C. Sen. Chip Campsen, R-Charleston, who sponsored S. 1120, did not return phone calls seeking comment. Sen. Thomas Alexander, R-Oconee, said the bill will be taken up again in January. Alexander chairs the Joint Legislative Committee on Aging.
“We’ll get there. It may not be as quickly as we hoped … (but) sometimes these things take some time,” Alexander said.
He echoed Breen’s comment that it’s important to have the office become a cabinet agency and bring a louder voice to senior issues in the state.
“That elevates the senior issues to the highest level,” he said.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!
Alexander and his crew of Senate busy bodies can’t decide how to excerise control over the Lt Gov.