The Assembly health committee of the Senior Legislature voted last week during its annual four-day meeting in Sacramento to push a bill to adopt a state strategic plan on aging.
The state developed an aging plan in 2009, complete with 28 specific action-item recommendations, but the Legislature never codified it, according to Jim Levy, a senator in the Senior Legislature.
“Those 28 proposals were supposed to go to the Legislature in 2010 and it moved through committees and a floor vote,” Levy said, before getting stuck in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations. “They said no, it’s going to cost $4,000 to do this.”
This time around, Levy said, the provision for state money will be withdrawn, and the $4,000 to implement the proposals will either come from federal funds or private donations.
“This bill is to request that the government put together a strategic plan on aging,” Levy said. The 2009 report did the hard part, he said — convening the experts, narrowing down the concerns, writing up recommendations. The next step is to put those ideas into action, he said.
“The first recommendation is very good,” Levy said with a smile. “It says the state has to change their philosophy on aging issues.”
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