Commission adds $10K for senior meals

The Clovis city commission picked up the check for senior meals to the tune of $10,000 Thursday night, giving the Curry Resident Senior Meals Association help rounding out the fiscal year.

The meal site, which plans to make a request for another $10,000 from the Curry County Commission next week, was hit with immediate and future budget cuts of nearly $20,000 when it missed benchmarks based on total meals served. The site was closed 21 days over the last few months, leading to the missed benchmark.

The meal site spends about $20,000 a month, Director Kim Kimmerly said, and its remaining budget for the final three months of the fiscal year is $51,000.

That funding would be cut further if attendance at CRSMA continued to drop, since the site is funded through reimbursements from the state based on total meal service.

When asked why turnout had dropped at the site, frequent site visitor Gerald Radcliff explained that once CRSMA took a financial hit the options for food followed suit. Some of the changes included discontinuation of the salad bar and a cutback in the variety of beverages offered. Cherisse Perez, who runs the meal site, said the funding would help CRSMA restore some levels of service. She added that the association was also having trouble due to rising costs from suppliers.

Radcliff said he has been eating at the meal site most days since his wife passed away in late 2008, and that it provides service to hundreds of seniors who are shut in or barely able to get to the center.

“We have people who I’m certain eat only one meal a day,” Radcliff said, “and it’s there.”

Radcliff asked audience members who ate at CRSMA to please stand up, and about two-thirds of the 60 people attending the meeting stood.

The commission, just like in its April 2 meeting, was willing to help, but City Attorney David Richards said the commission couldn’t give $10,000 outright to CRSMA because of the anti-donation clause.

“The only option the commission would have would be to amend its existing contract with a one-time adjustment (of $10,000),” Richards said, “and there is some basis for that.”

Of the 21 days CRSMA was closed, Richards said, seven were weather-related. The remainder were for maintenance issues at the city-owned building. A contract adjustment had some justification, Richards noted, because the city had landlord responsibilities.

Commissioners pointed to CRSMA policy that required workers be paid on days the site was closed. Those payroll expenses added up to more than $10,000, said Perez. Kimmerly and Perez said there are ongoing meetings to look at policy changes at the meal site to avoid trouble in the future, with Perez apologetic because she already felt like she’d failed CRSMA and the city.

Mayor Pro Tem Juan Garza said that he and Commissioner Chris Bryant, restaurant owners themselves, could relate to difficulties when a food supplier increases prices but the customer base won’t tolerate a price hike. Garza said he would speak to the vendors that he also does business with to see what help they can provide CRSMA.

“It’s a learning experience when you deal with vendors,” Bryant said. “You’re learning, but don’t come away from this feeling you failed.”

Commissioner Fidel Madrid said that contingent on the commission giving the $10,000 as a contract adjustment, CRSMA couldn’t just wait until it was in trouble to come to the commission again.

Kimmerly said periodic updates were part of the policy changes planned.

Nancy Arias, deputy director for the state’s non-metro agency on aging, issued a challenge to the meal site users. If they each brought two friends to the site when they went, the increased attendance would help CRSMA meet benchmarks.