Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist stops in Port Huron to address needs of seniors

Just weeks before St. Clair County voters consider renewing a tax to benefit senior citizens, Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist on Wednesday detailed a shortlist of items in the state’s budget he said would help the area’s oldest residents.

There were more funds, he said, for things like congregate and home-delivered meals, nutrition services, home repairs, and medication management — part of the massive $76.9 billion budget settled between Republican state legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for next year.

“All the kinds of things that the Council on Aging does, it makes sure there’s more resources for that being available at the state,” Gilchrist told a group of roughly 40 at the St. Clair County Council on Aging in Port Huron.

“It’s a good complement to the millage I know is up for reapproval again here in August,” he said. The state budget, he added, also “implements a proposal that we’ve made to bolster dental coverage for Medicaid,” leveraging better access to dental services for better health outcomes overall. “I don’t know if you’ve ever had a dental problem, but it is like life-ruining. And too many in Michigan can’t afford it.”

The visit was Gilchrist’s third stop on a “Thriving Seniors” tour around Michigan announced last week.

He said it was all part of an effort to “understand what it takes for us to build communities” to better accommodate seniors.

After he toured the local council’s facility in downtown Port Huron with Executive Director Scott Crawford, the lieutenant governor addressed the room, highlighting other bullet points from next year’s budget — namely, its investment in public education.

He additionally recapped Michigan’s status as an “age-friendly state,” as designated by the AARP and the items Whitmer’s administration believes helped achieve it, ranging from expanding awareness of age-related services to ensuring the transportation needs of older adults and caregivers are being met.

The visit, however, was not free diversions off the talking points.

“That’s the point of this,” Gilchrist later said, addressing local media “… I have things I want to make sure people walk away with, but I also want folks to know that I’m here to walk away with something, too.”

What did the lieutenant governor learn?

Gilchrist took a few questions from residents Wednesday, and among the first to raise their hand was Deem Boldyreff.

President of the local Council on Aging’s board of directors, he asked what could be done about a limitation imposed by the state on a “Project Fresh” program that gives local seniors booklets of coupons for $50 to purchase produce.

“Anybody that wanted a booklet, we’ve pretty much been able to get them a booklet,” Boldyreff said. “But now, for some reason this year, they restricted it to just two for each person. I don’t know why that has happened. We have plenty of booklets.”

Laura Nestle, the council’s foster grandparent program director, coordinates Project Fresh and said it’s a federal program, but that the state of Michigan made the call. And with the two-book limitation, both Nestle and Boldyreff said $50 didn’t go very far over the growing season.

“They take them to the farmer’s market, they get fresh, locally grown produce,” Nestle said. “The farmers turn it back in, and they get reimbursed. So, it helps low-income seniors eat better, it helps the farms. If you have community support, you can purchase more, so we’ve always had great community support, and this year, we had even extra support. But they won’t let us buy more.”

Gilchrist said his team would follow up to learn more before pivoting to what he said was a goal for state leader: Address policy to make things more affordable.

“Pretty much everything is expensive,” he said.

Gilchrist recalled priorities to reverse the state’s decade-old retirement tax — something Whitmer’s office said would save half a million households with pensions an average of $1,000 a year — and their hopes to triple the earned income tax credit.

Gilchrist: County has ‘history of being deeply responsive’ to seniors

After touring the Council on Aging, Gilchrist said St. Clair County already appeared to have a “history of being deeply responsive” to needs of seniors, citing the area as the first to bring in a countywide senior millage and transportation service.

Federal Older Americans Act dollars flow through the state to area agencies on aging, and eventually, to local groups.

That makes up almost 50% of the local Council on Aging’s budget, Crawford said, acknowledging the role state policy plays in senior services. The rest, he said, is the millage, donations and other fundraising.

The tax renewal before voters Aug. 2 asks to levy 0.7983 mills annually, generating over $5.3 million for the first of four years in its millage term.

“If you look at the meals program, there’s the state and federal funds, but that only covers a small portion of the meal,” Crawford said. “It’s the millage that covers the majority of it. So, when the pandemic hit, we could make the blanket statement to any senior in the county, ‘Hey, you want to be on meals because you’re afraid to go out?’ We could do that. We could add them, and within a week, we added 150 new meals clients. There’s other counties that there’s waiting lists to be put on the meals program. I think that’s just one perfect example of with the millage, we can provide so much more.”

Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @Jackie20Smith.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist stops in Port Huron to address needs of seniors