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Adult protective services caseloads, ADRC expansion and Meals on Wheels usage discussed
Summary
Presenters told Finance Division 3 that Adult Protective Services has 70 staff carrying roughly 97 cases each, ADRCs now have 63 staff statewide and new HB2 funding expanded person‑centered counseling and home visits; Meals on Wheels delivered almost 2 million meals and is a primary source of food for many recipients.
Department officials briefed Finance Division 3 on March 10 about adult and aging services, reporting staffing, caseloads and program statistics for protective services, aging and disability resource centers, and nutrition programs.
Melissa Hardy told the committee that Adult Protective Services (APS) has 70 staff statewide and that APS workers carry about 97 cases on average. “In total, we have 70,” Hardy said when asked about APS staffing, and she added the program uses prioritization tools to triage higher‑risk cases and that investigators still conduct face‑to‑face visits.
Hardy also described aging and disability resource centers (ADRCs, also referred to as ServiceLink) as a braided funding network. The department contracts with seven providers operating 13 sites; Hardy said ADRCs employed about 63 staff statewide and that recent HB2 funding increased person‑centered counseling and supported an increase in in‑home visits. She told the committee that more than half of ADRC encounters are virtual or by phone: “I would say more than half are, you know, either via telephone or visual or virtual.”
On nutrition services, the department reported serving more than 37,000 individuals and delivering nearly 2 million meals in state fiscal year 2024. Department staff emphasized the ancillary role of meal delivery as a welfare check: 61% of meal recipients told contractors the meal was their primary source of nutrition, and 41% said the delivery person was the only person they saw that week. Committee members asked how meal providers escalate concerns; Hardy said contractors report concerns up to contract managers and the department can coordinate with ADRCs or APS or request a wellness check by local law enforcement.
Hardy and White noted that many recent IT improvements — notably moves into the New Heights platform — enabled better tracking of encounters and service authorizations, and the committee asked for a future session focused on leveraging IT to drive productivity and reimbursements.
Ending: Committee members asked the department to return with comparative trends by county for ADRC encounters and home visits and requested more disaggregated APS and nutrition data to identify hot spots and staffing needs.
