Jason Maciejewski (00:00):
Welcome to Inside The Senior Alliance, a podcast exploring resources and issues in the field of aging. I’m Jason Maciejewski, CEO at The Senior Alliance, the Area Agency on Aging, serving Western Wayne County and the Downriver area. And joining me today is Dave LaLumia, Executive Director of the Area Agency on Aging Association of Michigan. We also call that 4AM for short. So you’ll hear Dave and I refer to 4AM throughout the podcast. We’re just referring to the acronym for our state association. So Dave, thank you for taking the time to join me today.
Dave LaLumia (00:30):
Thank you, Jason. Good to be here.
Jason Maciejewski (00:32):
So we’ll talk about what’s going on at the state level in terms of aging and resources and things like that. But if you could start off by explaining how 4AM fits within Michigan’s Aging Network, what the role is in terms of being a collective voice for older adults at the state level.
Dave LaLumia (00:48):
Sure. The Area Agencies on Aging Association, or 4AM as you refer to it, is an association that represents all 16 of Michigan’s AAAs. The association works in a number of different areas. We are an advocacy tool. We bring together the priorities that are determined by the AAAs, the appropriation priorities, the priorities around state and federal legislation. And we work to coordinate activities to speak with a single voice on the policy issues that affect the aging network and older adults. We also do other work in other areas. We are a liaison with our State Department of Health and Human Services. We work on policy issues, rules and regulations that affect the aging network and again, try to be a collective voice for the AAAs on those types of issues.
Jason Maciejewski (01:43):
So there are 16 Area Agencies on Aging in Michigan and something like 614 nationwide. So 4AM kind of brings the 16 of us together really on a monthly basis where we have meetings and discuss the various things. We’re all different sizes in terms of Area Agencies on Aging. Some are big, some are small, some have a lot of geography, some don’t. One of the other differences that we have is there’s this kind of urban AAA that The Senior Alliance fits into that being kind of suburban Detroit. You’ve also got a lot of rural AAAs here in Michigan. And could you talk a little bit about the differences between how you work with urban AAAs and rural AAAs?
Dave LaLumia (02:18):
The group is really a diverse group, as you mentioned. You know, in the urban areas, it seems like some of the challenges have to do with integrating and coordinating care among the various agencies, organizations, public and private and nonprofit that are out there providing services. There’s also the highest concentration of older adults and people with disabilities that might be eligible for aging network services in urban areas. So there’s really an integration of care, coordination of care challenge in the highly, the more highly dense populated regions and in the rural areas like Northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, the distances are so great, the provider network is thin. So the challenges have to do with identifying resources that can be brought to impact the needs of older adults and to address the challenges of transportation and of getting people to the resources that exist.
Jason Maciejewski (03:22):
Yeah, certainly the geographical differences near the mileage that just some care coordinators have to travel to see MI Choice participants or other Older Americans Act program participants is quite different than what we experience here at The Senior alliance where we’re geographically pretty compact. So 4AM really does deal with a lot of differences between Area Agencies on Aging and the work that we do. And when we come together, you know, one of the things that we do collectively is determine advocacy priorities. And you play a big role in that, in shepherding us through that process. So could you talk about how 4AM develops our advocacy priorities every year?
Dave LaLumia (03:57):
Sure. The 4AM Board of Directors is made up of each of the CEOs of the 16 AAAs. And as you mentioned, we meet monthly and we discuss what’s happening around the network, the challenges that exist that need to be addressed, what the priorities are. And we also put together an agenda every year for what our advocacy and legislative priorities are going to be. So this is something that we all do together and that we then use as a blueprint or a roadmap during the course of the year, beginning with the appropriations process that will start here next month with the governor’s executive budget and to try and advance the priorities that we’ve identified.
Jason Maciejewski (04:40):
And there’s other players involved here. We have an advocacy committee at 4AM made up of staff, and then we have the Senior Advisory Council that is made up of older adults who meet monthly as well and are engaged in our advocacy work. So there’s a lot of input that goes into that process too. And I think the result of that in 2025 was a pretty positive year for us on the advocacy side in Lansing. You know, we had some wins on the legislative side and in policy. Could you explain how those wins have improved the lives of older adults here in Michigan?
Dave LaLumia (05:11):
The two things that come to mind are there was a supplemental appropriation recommended by the state to add funding to the Aging Network to cover costs related to the increases in minimum wage that we saw last year, and also the increased costs resulting from the earned sick time legislation that was passed. So a supplemental was recommended to provide funding to meet these unfunded costs during the year, and we weren’t sure for a while whether or not that supplemental was going to be approved. And ultimately when the final budget was passed, the supplemental was included. And so funding that was just a little over $17 million was added to the budget of the agents to cover minimum wage and earn sick time costs. And the other one was a federally funded and state funded grant process to create infrastructure grants to waiver agents and to other organizations in the Aging network to improve their, in some cases, physical plans to improve their staffing structure and IT structure and other infrastructure projects. And again, we weren’t sure that this supplemental was going to be approved, but in the end it was. So, you know, I think as we look back on our year last year, there may be some other things, but those two items were really the big ones for the network and I think represent wins for the 4AM and for the Aging Network.
Jason Maciejewski (06:41):
I agree, those were certainly big wins for us. And I’ll throw a third one on the pile here. I think what I’ll consider the evolution of the MI Choice program with the new funding model that has taken into account some of the challenges that we’ve seen, we’ve been advocating for many years now about the way that the MI Choice program has been funded. And I think we’ve seen some positive results, at least at The Senior Alliance. We’ve seen some positive results from that in which we’ve been able to turn around into our vendor network and do some rate increases to really meet the inflationary costs that have been hitting us for the past several years. So I’m taking what happened on MI Choice last year is a win as well because we’ve been talking about those things for a long time and 4AM’s been a big player in that too.
Dave LaLumia (07:21):
I would agree with that. And I think the advocacy around the MI Choice Program, the importance of MI Choice to beneficiaries and to the Aging Network is something that was really our highest priority last year. And you know, in terms of outreach and contact with legislators, I think we had more individual meetings with legislators, there was more information presented, there was more discussion around the impact of the rate structure, even some movement on improving rates a little bit during the course of the year. So I felt like the Aging Network and the AAAs were really on the same page in terms of promoting and educating about the important role of MI Choice throughout the year.
Jason Maciejewski (08:04):
I will absolutely agree with that. I think there are a number of people across the AAA network that play big roles. I’ll shout out our own Emma Case who was leading our advocacy efforts there and working with you and Lansing with the state representatives and state senators from our area. I think it was a very well coordinated effort this past year and we’re going to grow from this point forward. And so when we look ahead, Dave, what do you see as Michigan’s biggest challenges when it comes to delivering aging services?
Dave LaLumia (08:32):
You know, I think MI Choice is still going to be a high priority, and we did make a little progress on rates, but I think we need to talk about the impact of MI Choice rates on the ability of the network to deliver better rates mean that we can be more competitive in the employment market. Better rates mean that we can be more aggressive on enrolling people in MI Choice. So we want to continue to stress the importance of MI Choice and the need for rates, which address some of the challenges that we have. The other area that I think is important is that we still have waiting lists in some areas of our state for certain services. You know, while MI Choice serves Medicaid beneficiaries, we have many older adults and people with disabilities who are not eligible for Medicaid, but who still are having struggles with maintaining their community living and their waiting list for home and community-based services for the non-Medicaid beneficiaries and the Silver Key Coalition, which is a group of organizations that come together every year to advocate for improved older adult services.
Dave LaLumia (09:41):
They are recommending an $8 million general fund, state general fund appropriation to provide for non-Medicaid home and community-based services. And there’s also waiting lists for certain nutrition programs, home delivered and congregate meals. And the estimate for funding for these waiting lists for nutrition is around $2 million. So those are going to be areas that we want to focus on as well. We want Michigan to go back to thinking about being a no wait state and addressing those areas that we know we have people waiting. The third area that I would mention is caregiver support. We’ve had some additional funding for caregiving services and supports at the AAA level, not this past year, but the year before. We have had some grant funding to establish a statewide website focused on identifying and supporting caregivers. And now I think it’s time to add some additional funding to the AAA network to allow people to enhance their caregiver support.
Jason Maciejewski (10:44):
Yeah, all things that we are working on here during the current budget process and those Silver Key Coalition items are, you know, something we continually hit on year after year and really aiming to catch up and get rid of those wait lists, but they keep growing and we will keep advocating on those issues. But when it comes to advocates and stakeholders, the vendor network, older adults themselves and their caregivers, what should we be paying attention to this spring and summer when it comes to legislation? And we’ve talked about budget stuff, but are there any policy bills out there that you’re really paying attention to?
Dave LaLumia (11:15):
There’s been a package of bills to reform the guardianship and conservatorship laws in Michigan. Our Michigan Senior Advocates Council has been very vocal in their support of the guardianship package. The 4AM Board of Directors has supported the bills, but some of them are being reintroduced or amended, and bills have been introduced in the House and the Senate on Guardianship, and we’re in the middle of sorting all of that out to make sure that we support the bills that are going to have the greatest impact. So I think guardianship is one. There’s also a package of bills that address elder justice issues and I know we’re going to be watching those closely. One of the things that we do at 4AM is we review every bill that’s introduced in both the House and the Senate, and we flag those bills that we think may have an impact on the Aging Network and we keep an eye on those and track them throughout the year.
Jason Maciejewski (12:14):
I would encourage everyone to, if you are interested in tracking those, make sure you’re subscribed to our monthly advocacy newsletter. We keep it relatively brief and to the point. It’s called Colloquy. And you can go to thesenioralliance.org and sign up for that. And if you’re outside of our service area, certainly you’re welcome to subscribe to ours, but look up your own AAAs information as well as many of them put out advocacy information to and monthly newsletters. But Dave, outside of advocacy, what is 4AM focused on as a group? Certainly advocacy’s a big part of it, but we do other things too.
Dave LaLumia (12:49):
We have regular contact and meetings with our state officials, with the Department of Health and Human Services. The Administration for Community Living supports. Regular meetings with those to identify the rules and regulations that affect the Aging Network and to try and make them more user friendly and to have an impact on our rules that will facilitate service delivery and make the administration of our programs much easier. We participate in a number of coalitions of other organizations. We’ve been a part of the Direct Care Worker Advisory Council. We’ve been a part of a statewide caregiver group. You know, we meet on a regular basis with our colleagues in behavioral health and assisted living to understand what their issues are and to try and help them be familiar with the issues that are most important to us.
Jason Maciejewski (13:44):
I also think one of the benefits of our association and the 16 AAAs coming together is I get to hear about what other AAAs are doing. And a lot of best practice sharing we can jointly apply for opportunities that come up, whether they’re grants or things like that. So it really is a great opportunity for us to get together from across the state every month and learn from each other and collectively do things in the aging space and appreciate your leadership there. Let’s get back to how people can get involved. And for listeners who want to be engaged in, whether it’s advocacy or some of the other things we’re doing, what are meaningful ways that people can get involved in supporting the work that we do?
Dave LaLumia (14:24):
I think that the most important thing that people can do is to know who their state representative and senator are and to become familiar with them. You can go to the Michigan Legislature’s website and there are links to both the House and the Senate website. You can look up your state representative, you can read their biography, you can see how their district is constructed. You can find out what committees they serve on. You can sign up for their newsletters. You can learn when their in-district coffee hours are taking place and where they’re taking place. And you can start to plug into what your elected officials are up to and what their areas of interest are. And you can find ways of bringing your interest around older adult services to their attention in a way that will help them be more familiar with the issues and to be more effective legislators.
Jason Maciejewski (15:21):
I’ll add that legislators really do want to hear from people. They want to hear the issues that are important and especially they want to hear the stories in the accounts. And so everybody should feel really welcome to offer their opinions on things. Legislators want to hear that, whether it’s by email or attending a coffee hour. It goes a long way. Dave, I want to thank you again for joining me. I think this is pretty much an annual event now with us. And thanks for taking the time to talk about what’s been going on in Lansing.
Dave LaLumia (15:48):
I’m happy to do it. Thank you, Jason.
Jason Maciejewski (15:50):
If you have any questions about services or programs The Senior Alliance offers, you can call us at (734) 722-2830 or email us at info@thesenioralliance.org. Information about our agency or the programs and services we offer can be found on our website at thesenioralliance.org. And finally, on Facebook, we can be located by searching for The Senior Alliance. I’m Jason Maciejewski. Thank you for listening to this episode of Inside The Senior Alliance.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Inside The Senior Alliance is a production of The Senior Alliance and Blazing Kiss Media.
