00:00 - The following program is sponsored in part by

00:03 - customer's bank.

00:13 - We're joined today by Rebecca may call executive director of the Pennsylvania

00:17 - association of area agencies on aging

00:20 - on June fourth the Pittsburgh tribune review published an op-ed you wrote about how

00:25 - you felt older Pennsylvania funds were being

00:27 - quote short changed

00:28 - why do you feel this way.

00:31 - Well

00:32 - we have something that many of you are probably aware of which is called.

00:37 - Skill games that are in many of the gas stations

00:41 - and other places around the commonwealth

00:44 - and unfortunately.

00:47 - Those skill games

00:49 - the

00:49 - the.

00:51 - They have been cutting into the

00:53 - revenue source for the lottery fund

00:56 - now the lottery fund for those who don't know in Pennsylvania we're actually very

01:00 - fortunate or the only state in the country

01:03 - who dedicates all of the proceeds of the lottery fund to

01:07 - support older adults and.

01:10 - If you think about why where these.

01:14 - Devices the skill games machines are

01:16 - they're often right next to the lottery kind of machines or kiosks or

01:21 - whatever you wanna call them

01:23 - and what we've found is that once or what we've learned is that once the skill games

01:28 - have been put into those locations that

01:30 - there's a dramatic decree nice in the amount of funding

01:33 - you know people buying lottery tickets

01:35 - to the tune of about one hundred seventy million dollars a year

01:40 - as of twenty twenty three which is the last data that I've been aware of

01:44 - and that's only

01:45 - increased i'm sure since then so by shortchange meaning

01:49 - at least one hundred seventy million dollars or coming.

01:53 - Not going into the lottery fund which again

01:55 - supports services for older pennsylvanians

01:58 - how much money does the lottery funding usually give to older pennsylvanians

02:04 - now that you mentioned that they are

02:05 - behind in that couple of million dollars.

02:10 - There's a right around.

02:14 - Three hundred million or so that goes

02:17 - into

02:18 - what's called the pen care

02:20 - what i do

02:21 - it's called in the in the state budget.

02:23 - That goes to support directly the services that

02:26 - are provided through the area agencies on aging

02:31 - and how our

02:32 - area agency on aging doing financially currently in Pennsylvania.

02:37 - They're really struggling

02:38 - and

02:39 - if you

02:40 - think about it the.

02:43 - The inflation that's incur

02:45 - occurred especially since twenty twenty and when coven hit

02:49 - and then.

02:50 - We are very fortunate in Pennsylvania that we have a very vibrant enlarge.

02:56 - Portion of our career charities.

02:58 - Are made up of older adults in twenty thirty one in three

03:03 - individuals in Pennsylvania will be an older adult when

03:06 - i say older adult i mean individuals aged sixty and over

03:11 - and

03:11 - so we've had a dramatic increase in the number of

03:15 - older adults and it's much more expensive to serve them

03:19 - and unfortunately the funding has not been able to keep pace

03:22 - and

03:24 - the fact that these dollars are not going into the lottery

03:27 - fund because they're going you know toward the skill deans

03:30 - has really put a strain on the lottery fund and you know

03:35 - made it much more difficult to get that that fun

03:37 - adding to the area agency on aging to be able to serve

03:40 - older

03:41 - older folks in our communities

03:43 - now on June fifteenth the Pennsylvania supreme court

03:45 - ruled that skill games are considered slot machines

03:48 - how does this affect your funding proposal.

03:52 - And

03:52 - hopefully it means that there will be.

03:56 - More activity quicker activity

03:58 - to.

04:00 - Remedy the situation because of the fact that

04:02 - the supreme court came down with this decision

04:05 - the legislature needs to decide how it will

04:08 - respond because

04:10 - skill games now would need to have an

04:14 - oversight that doesn't exist right now and so those rules

04:17 - need to be put in place by the legislature to enable

04:20 - that oversight to occur

04:23 - and so by having that oversight

04:26 - that also includes an implementation of a tax on the funding or on the

04:31 - run ave

04:32 - that the skill games receive

04:34 - and

04:35 - that means that those taxes that will be.

04:39 - Collected

04:40 - then of course the state will be deciding what to do with them so the fact that the

04:44 - supreme court came out with this decision

04:46 - they have until i believe October to.

04:50 - Put in place all of the rules that are required

04:53 - and absent that decision

04:56 - i

04:57 - it could have taken a lot longer because there was

04:59 - no real deadline that the legislature had to have

05:02 - we've been pushing for

05:04 - this regulation and taxation to occur before now

05:08 - but this decision really has kind of put the

05:11 - they started the

05:12 - lock the time clock on on getting this.

05:15 - These rules and this.

05:17 - Yeah i guess the rules and policies that need to happen implemented.

05:21 - Now different legislators have proposed a different tax percentage on skill games

05:25 - what do you think would be the ideal

05:27 - percentage to help benefit these age

05:30 - area agency on aging.

05:33 - We really have not come up with our own

05:36 - determination of a percentage that's something that

05:40 - the legislature really has more expertise than we do

05:44 - our focus has really been whatever that percentage is

05:48 - we believe that

05:50 - a significant portion of those job this

05:52 - collected should be going into the lottery fund

05:55 - at the very least to replace

05:58 - that

05:59 - minimum about one hundred seventy million

06:00 - dollars a year that is being lost currently.

06:04 - It

06:05 - should be replaced and so you know we're kind of leaving the decision of of what the

06:09 - percentage needs to be to the legislature and to the administration to work through

06:14 - our biggest concern is that we make sure that the funding.

06:18 - Goes into the lottery fund to be able to support

06:20 - the kinds of services that triplets are providing

06:23 - have you heard from legislate nature's

06:25 - legislators about this purpose or what have they said about putting the scale games

06:28 - towards the area agency on aging.

06:31 - We have heard

06:33 - definitely support of this concept i think the struggle right now is.

06:40 - Everything costs more every year as we all know

06:43 - and that includes the costs to run state government and so there are some who

06:49 - would i think prefer to see all of the dollars from

06:52 - taxing the school games go into the general fund

06:55 - and that's kind of like the main checkbook for the entire state

06:59 - the lottery fund is sort of like an on the

07:01 - side checkbook that's only for certain things.

07:04 - Which you know i can understand wanting to be able to use it flexibly but again at

07:09 - the same time you know older adult it's

07:12 - built our communities are a vibrant part of our communities and

07:16 - i feel

07:17 - we owe them a debt of gratitude we also owe them

07:21 - the support that they need as they grow older and

07:25 - if you think about it

07:27 - we are all aging

07:28 - every one of us is aging

07:30 - and at some point in the future sure if we're fortunate

07:33 - enough to get their me too will be older adults

07:36 - and so we also want to make sure that we're setting up.

07:40 - A framework and a system that can support

07:43 - all of us as we age

07:45 - and so that's why i believe that

07:48 - taking those dollars and putting them in the lottery fund really enables

07:52 - us to be able to support these individuals who

07:56 - supported us

07:57 - as we

07:58 - were growing

07:59 - up and

08:00 - to be able to even help ourselves as we

08:03 - get older

08:04 - again we are so fortunate to live in Pennsylvania

08:06 - we have an opportunity that no other state has.

08:09 - Having our lottery

08:11 - and so do

08:12 - we really need to support those older adults and take advantage of

08:16 - the fact that the legislature saw fit to

08:18 - dedicate the lottery to supporting older adults.

08:22 - We've been speaking with Rebecca may call executive director of the Pennsylvania

08:25 - association of area agencies on aging thank you so much for joining us.

08:30 - Thank you.

08:34 - Hmm.

08:40 - Hm.

08:44 - Hm

08:48 - hm.