Office on Aging hopes for more funding

Office on Aging director Walter Manglona was the Rotary Club of Saipan’s guest speaker at its weekly meeting yesterday at the Hyatt Regency Saipan. (Mark Rabago)

The Office of Aging is not immune to inflation, with director Walter Manglona saying that higher prices have dented the agency’s $480,000 budget for fiscal year 2018.

Manglona hopes the administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and the Legislature would keep the man’amko, the islands’ elderly, in mind when it divvies up additional supplemental budget from the casino revenue tax.

“The administration right now is extremely supportive of the man’amko and they are able to provide us with enough funding to be able to continue our operations. However, what I find challenging right now is the fact that the indirect cost is…skyrocketing. So that took a lot of money that we could’ve been using for our services,” said Manglona in an interview following a presentation at yesterday’s Rotary Club of Saipan meeting at the Hyatt Regency Saipan.

While unwilling to give a ballpark figure of how much more funding the center needs, Manglona hinted that he did ask for a budget of $1 million last fiscal year but only got a little less than half of that.

“We didn’t get it this time, but I’m optimistic that the administration would not forget the man’amko,” he said alluding to the $24-million supplemental budget recently signed by Torres, half of which went to the Public School System.

Areas of operations Manglona wants beefed up are the transportation and nutrition programs of the Office on Aging.

“If we’re going to get money, more of [it] would be used for our nutrition and transportation services. For a while, we wanted to improve our transportation services. We wanted to have new vans. We’re still looking at acquiring new vans for Rota and Tinian and, of course, Saipan,” he said. “[We need] additional bus drivers as Tinian and Rota have no bus drivers and I want that included in my budget.”

He also needs more employees for his offices on Tinian and Rota for their nutritional programs.

“On Saipan, we have around 14 staff. I need and I’m OK with five more and two more for Tinian and Rota,” he said.

Manglona said Tinian Mayor Joey Patrick San Nicolas and Rota Mayor Efraim Atalig are supportive of the Office on Aging’s nutrition program.

He said Tinian and Rota mayor staff help with cooking the meals of the man’amko. Unlike Saipan where there are caterers, the Office on Aging still cooks the meals of their congregants on the two islands.

Manglona said whatever extra funding his office gets from future supplemental budgets is all right with him.

“Whatever we get, I’m still OK with it. I know the administration is always supportive of our man’amko. I don’t want to ask for more than I need. But if we can get more than we need, it just means more services for the people we provide it for.”

The Office on Aging currently serves 534 individuals in the CNMI, which includes the man’amko and their caregivers. On Saipan alone, the man’amko center is open to 90 congregants and serves some 200 homebound elderly.