The Arkansas Department of Human Services has backed off a plan to cut funding for the state’s eight Area Agencies on Aging, the local nonprofits that connect Arkansas seniors with services such as meals and transportation.

CareLink, the Area Agency on Aging that includes Pulaski County, received a letter from DHS on May 29 informing the nonprofit of “a significant change affecting your organization’s contract or grant with the Arkansas Department of Human Services.”

The letter, signed by Jay Hill, the director of DHS’ Division of Aging and Adult Services, said the change was “part of an agency-wide effort to ensure that our committed expenditures in the next fiscal year are fully covered within our available budget.”

CareLink’s Executive Director Luke Mattingly said the proposed cuts to his agency would have totaled $120,000.

By Wednesday, DHS announced it was reversing course, saying the local nonprofits would be funded at the originally projected amounts. The cuts, and the reversal, were first reported by the Arkansas Times.

DHS spokesman Gavin Lesnick said Thursday that “there were reductions under consideration” for two funds that support the Area Agencies on Aging — one that supports home and community services and another that supports job and career training for older workers.

“Upon review, there will not be a reduction in funding to the (Area Agencies on Aging) and we are communicating that information to these providers,” Lesnick said. He said DHS was “budgeting in support of essential operational needs while ensuring that we are being good stewards of the taxpayer funding available to us.”

Lesnick said that in addition to DHS funding, a restricted reserve fund controlled by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has provided $4 million over the last two years in support of meal programs.

Mattingly said his agency depends on three state funds, all of which “have pretty much remained flat for 20 years” despite rising costs.

“Inflation has really cut into the amounts of money that are available,” he said.

Mattingly said CareLink received notice from DHS three weeks ago that included the expected amount of funding for the coming fiscal year. CareLink staff “built a budget around that, had our board approve that budget as we were moving into the next fiscal year,” he said.

Then, he said, about a week and a half ago, CareLink received an attachment from DHS with updated budget numbers that did not match those they had received earlier. Mattingly said there was, “No communication really from the DHS” as to why.

Mattingly reached out to legislators and said most were surprised. “They also weren’t aware that the cuts were being made,” he said.

Jarrod Stroud, director of purchased services at the East Arkansas Area Agency on Aging, said the proposed cuts “would have definitely affected our senior center services, and would have had an impact on our home-delivered meal service as well.

“It would just put a little more strain on our current employees, and we either would have had to cut hours … or we would have had to have cut some employees,” Stroud said.

Lesnick said the proposed cuts wouldn’t have affected the budget for the Meals on Wheels program, which delivers food to seniors.

But Michelle Gilbert, vice president of development for CareLink, said cuts that required cutbacks to staff would still make it harder for seniors to access services like Meals on Wheels, even if the cuts weren’t directly to that program.

“We take 10,000 calls a year to assist those people with aging issues and help them navigate the maze of long-term services,” she said.

These calls range from helping people fill out applications for services to helping them understand what services they are eligible for, Gilbert said.

“Connections to those local resources, to Meals on Wheels, in-home care, just a little bit of support … can really be a game changer in somebody being able to remain in their own space, healthy, independent, safely,” Gilbert said.

Mattingly said the share of the elderly population in Arkansas is only increasing, as will the need for services.

“One in four Arkansans are going to be over the age of 60 by 2030, that’s four years from now, so 25% of our population,” Mattingly said. “And (that’s) at a time when funds that serve those people have not been increased in decades.”