Greene County reviews home-delivered meals program; pilots central kitchen and 'grab-and-go' sites

Amanda, a Greene County human services staff member, told the board the county is re-evaluating its home-delivered meals and congregate meal operations and will pilot a centralized cooking model and limited “grab-and-go” library sites this summer.

The move responds to declining congregate attendance, high per-meal costs and operational inefficiencies. "Our meal cost before we started this process was $18.97 a meal when you factor in the rent, the cost of the food, and the cost of the employees," Amanda said. She told the board the county is consolidating cooking operations to one central kitchen in Athens in August and is exploring other long-term cook-site options, including the new Cairo building and off-site vendors.

Why it matters: County staff said shrinking congregate attendance and legacy facility costs mean a large share of limited program dollars go to rent and staffing rather than food. Amanda said some congregate sites serve only one or two attendees on some days, and that paying rent for underused facilities reduces funds available for meals and transportation.

Amanda described steps already under way: a site-by-site eligibility review that reduced the home-delivered caseload, referrals of ineligible clients to five senior centers and efforts to expand volunteer and agency partners. She said the county moved joint cooking from Jewett and another site to a combined site earlier this year and plans to consolidate further to a single Athens kitchen in August to reduce duplicate staffing and transport. "We already moved from, cooking in Jewett to cooking in April and Jewett together at the April site and then cooking in Athens," she said.

Amanda and other speakers described a pilot for library-based grab-and-go meals: libraries in Tannersville and Windham have agreed to host limited-capacity pick-up sites where clients reserve meals a day in advance. Staff recommended capping in-person seating at 10–15 at some sites to keep operations manageable. "They can be dropped off at that site, and you get face to face contact," Amanda said.

Staff are also pursuing delivery partnerships and third-party providers for remote areas. Amanda said she has reached out to Delaware Opportunities and private caterers used by nearby counties; Delaware Opportunities’s delivered meal service was cited in the discussion as costing about $7 per delivered meal. County members noted third-party delivery would not eliminate other program costs such as volunteer mileage, administrative staffing or certain fixed site expenses.

Budget and scale: Amanda gave summary funding figures for the agency’s aging services budget during the discussion. She said the Greene County levy contribution for aging services is about $552,000 and that county expenses for homebound services (volunteer mileage, staff time and packaging, not food) are about $229,000. She said the total program cost is "800,000 and change," with the county providing roughly $500,000 of that; she also cited a federal passthrough figure of about $147,000 and additional funding of about $280,000 for food that comes through state channels.

Operational concerns and constraints raised at the meeting included volunteer availability on mountainous routes, transportation burdens for clients who cannot travel long distances, and kitchen and staffing constraints at potential consolidated sites. Board members urged staff to plan facilities so future changes would not require costly retrofits and to coordinate with towns investing in senior centers.

Next steps: Staff said they will pilot the grab-and-go sites, track attendance, provide updated daily- and monthly-attendance numbers to the board and continue to explore contracting and billing options, including billing managed long-term care plans where eligible. No formal policy changes or budget votes were taken during the discussion; the board asked staff to return with attendance metrics and cost comparisons.

Ending: Amanda said the county will continue the evaluation and report back to the board. "At this point, I'm just trying to get cost under control to figure out where we can best serve the clients from," she said.