Report Contradicts Audit of Meals Program for Senior Citizens

The director of a program that serves free meals to senior citizens in Orange County said she has been vindicated by a rebuttal released Monday to an audit that alleged her agency was overpaid.

The rebuttal by the Area Agency on Aging contradicts the Orange County Grand Jury’s audit in September, which concluded that the program had been receiving more than its fair share of public funds.

“It’s been frustrating,” Shirley Cohen, executive director of the Feedback Foundation in Anaheim, said. “We work hard, we underpay our staff, and this has been like a kick in the teeth.”

The Grand Jury’s audit alleged that the Agency on Aging had been giving the foundation 63% of its funds for such programs, while the foundation served only 39% of the county’s senior clients. The report also alleged that the foundation spent a higher average amount per meal, $2.63, than any other agency providing the same service.

The Agency on Aging’s rebuttal said the Feedback Foundation serves 55% of the county’s senior clients with 61% of its funding. And the agency spends an average of $2.31 per meal, slightly less than its two competitors, that report found.

“We stand by our numbers,” said Peggy Weatherspoon, director of the Area Agency on Aging, which oversees the county’s meals programs for senior citizens. “We are totally confident that the numbers we have used are accurate, and that we distribute the money fairly throughout the county.”

Weatherspoon said she believes the Grand Jury’s audit failed to consider a portion of the estimated $1 million in federal funds that the county receives annually to help feed its senior citizens.

“Not including that funding led them to discrepancies that didn’t exist,” she said. “I’m sure it was inadvertent, but now it’s been clearly demonstrated that we do distribute the funds fairly and equitably.”

The vindication is only partially a comfort to Cohen, however, who said a county panel has recommended that the contract for senior meals in Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa be given to another agency. Because of the foundation’s fixed costs, the loss of those 380 clients would drive up the cost of each meal by about 24 cents, she said. To recoup the loss, she said, the foundation would have to drop about 90 clients elsewhere.

“We are still taking the hit,” Cohen said. “Losing those [two cities] would be like losing a couple of my kids.”

But Weatherspoon, whose agency oversees the process, said the panel’s recommendation is based on competitive bidding, not allegations of unfair funding.

“It’s a separate process,” she said.

The matter is to be considered by the Board of Supervisors on May 5.