BILL ANALYSIS �
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AJR 29
Author: Brown (D), et al.
Amended: 2/27/14 in Assembly
Vote: 21
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-0, 2/27/14 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT : Senior nutrition services and programs: funding
SOURCE : Author
DIGEST : This resolution memorializes the Congress and
President of the United States to restore federal funding cuts,
due to sequestration, to senior nutrition programs, and to
declare senior nutrition services and programs exempt from
further budget cuts.
ANALYSIS : This resolution makes the following legislative
findings:
1.The United States federal budget reductions, known as
sequestration, began on March 1, 2013, and in 2011, the United
States Congress adopted, and President Obama signed, the
Budget Control Act of 2011 (the Act), as an intended
compromise and incentive to address fundamental federal
budgetary policy and direction.
2.Section 302 of the Act directed that, if a 10-year deficit
reduction plan was not enacted, significant amounts of
discretionary federal fiscal year 2013 funds would not be
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available for spending and, as the Act mandates, and because
Congress failed to pass a bill reducing the federal deficit by
$1.2 trillion, that amount will be automatically sequestered
through across-the-board federal budget cuts from mandatory
and discretionary spending in the years 2013 to 2021,
inclusive, unless Congress takes alternate action.
3.The cuts enacted by the Act, initially set to begin on January
1, 2013, were postponed by two months by the American Taxpayer
Relief Act of 2012 (P.L. 112-240), thereby amplifying the
impact of spending reductions starting on March 1, 2013.
4.The Act requires that every federal program be cut equally,
including programs and services authorized by the Older
Americans Act of 1965 and administered by the Administration
for Community Living which oversees food and nutrition
programs, elder abuse prevention, caregiver support, healthy
aging, and employment for low-income seniors isolated due to
extreme poverty and disability.
5.Nutrition programs provide important links to other supportive
in-home and community-based services, including homemaker-home
health aide services, transportation, physical activity
programs, home repair, home modification programs, as well as
nutrition screening, assessment, education, and counseling,
and special health assessments for diseases including
hypertension and diabetes.
6.Home-delivered meal programs provide vital nutrition to
homebound individuals, and provide volunteers and paid staff
delivering meals an opportunity to check on the welfare of
those homebound meal recipients, and to report any health or
other problems those volunteers and staff may notice during
those visits, which may decrease feelings of isolation among
those homebound meal recipients.
7.Congregate nutrition programs provide nutritious meals,
nutrition education, and nutrition risk screening, and provide
seniors with positive social contact with other seniors and
providing meals to eligible individuals can enhance their
ability to remain independent and in their own homes, thus
preventing unnecessary, costly, and premature
institutionalization.
8.Older Californians are far less likely, due to age and
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disability, to obtain employment to compensate for lost
nutrition and other benefits, forcing their families to
back-fill with resources intended to support their children
and placing their entire family's well-being at greater risk.
9.State and federal funding reductions result in the loss of
equipment, deterioration of distribution systems, and erosion
of other innovations created by networks of community
organizations, local governmental agencies, and faith
communities upon which a vast array of food-insecure
Californians rely.
10.According to the Department of Aging, the sequester cuts will
result in federal funds to these home-delivered, congregate
nutrition, and nutrition services incentive programs being
reduced by approximately an aggregate of $6.6 million during
federal fiscal year 2013-14, and approximately an aggregate of
$5.09 million in each subsequent federal fiscal year, thus
depriving thousands of California seniors of vital health and
nutrition services.
This resolution memorializes the Congress and President of the
United States to restore funding to senior nutrition programs,
similar to the way funding was restored for air traffic control
services and memorializes the Congress and President to declare
senior nutrition services and programs exempt from further
budget cuts due to the disproportionate growth of the aging
population and the corresponding disproportionate impact of the
sequester cuts upon that population.
FISCAL EFFECT : Fiscal Com.: No
SUPPORT : (Verified 3/12/14)
California Association of Area Agencies
California Senior Legislature
City of San Bernardino
Meals-On-Wheels Greater San Diego, Inc.
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : 75-0, 2/27/14
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Allen, Ammiano, Atkins, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bocanegra, Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Buchanan, Ian Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Ch�vez, Chesbro, Conway, Cooley, Dababneh,
Dahle, Daly, Dickinson, Eggman, Fong, Fox, Frazier, Beth
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Gaines, Garcia, Gatto, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gorell, Gray,
Hagman, Hall, Harkey, Roger Hern�ndez, Holden, Jones,
Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Logue, Lowenthal, Maienschein,
Mansoor, Medina, Melendez, Morrell, Mullin, Muratsuchi,
Nazarian, Nestande, Pan, Perea, V. Manuel P�rez, Quirk,
Quirk-Silva, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Skinner,
Stone, Ting, Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wieckowski, Wilk,
Williams, Yamada, John A. P�rez
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bradford, Donnelly, Grove, Olsen, Patterson
JL:e 3/13/14 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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