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Subcommittee refers request to create $20,000 Lifeline revolving account for senior center to finance committee
Summary
Welfare members referred to finance a proposal to create a revolving account to hold Lifeline program revenues, allowing Gardner Senior Center to manage equipment purchases and rentals for the community Lifeline service after Haywood stopped managing the program.
The Welfare Subcommittee voted to refer to the Finance Committee a request to create a revolving account capped at $20,000 so the Gardner Senior Center can manage local Lifeline personal emergency response services and related revenues.
Director Ellis told the subcommittee Lifeline — a long-running pendant-and-push-button emergency response program formerly managed by Haywood — had been at risk when Haywood restructured after bankruptcy and staff retirements. The senior center has agreed to take on installations, testing and equipment rotation for an interim period and asked for a separate revolving account so fees collected can be used directly to buy and maintain units. Ellis said each HomeSafe unit costs about $480 and the program recycles returned units.
Staff and councilors pressed for details about liability and the program’s scope. Ellis and other senior center staff said the center’s role is to register users, install and test devices, and provide basic tech support — not to respond to emergency calls. Those calls go to the Lifeline monitoring center, which dispatches emergency services. Volunteers perform installs and monthly checks at the senior center’s direction; Ellis said training for volunteers had already been held and that Haywood had been depositing revenue in its account but requested Gardner assume fiscal management.
Councilors asked whether the service should be run by the senior center and whether the request was time sensitive. Ellis said the immediate need is to create a revolving account so incoming fees can be deposited and spent directly on equipment rather than falling to the general fund and becoming subject to appropriation delays. The subcommittee approved a motion to refer the item to the Finance Committee for further review; the motion passed on a voice vote.
The discussion also raised follow-up items: staff should provide the Finance Committee with answers about liability waivers for volunteers, the projected revenue and expense flows into the proposed revolving account, and how the program will be budgeted in FY26 if the revolving account is created.
