A version of this story first appeared in The Investigator, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA featuring the best investigative and accountability journalism from across Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here.
HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Department of Aging has taken the unprecedented step of temporarily decommissioning one of the state’s 52 county agencies that protect older adults from abuse and neglect after uncovering “serious performance issues” there.
For the next 180 days, Potter County’s older adults will be served by a neighboring aging agency as the state determines how to proceed. Options include putting the agency on an improvement plan or shuttering it permanently.
Though state officials did not provide details on the problems they discovered, they said they were taking the action “to protect the health, safety, welfare, and continuity of services for older adults” in that area.
The move is unprecedented, according to former department employees, who said they could not recall any instance in the past two decades in which the state blocked a county aging agency from providing services.
Aging department spokesperson Karen Gray did not answer questions about what specific problems had been discovered in Potter County. Nor would she say whether any older adults had been left at risk. She did note that county officials had asked the department to temporarily “re-designate” the aging agency after being briefed on the problems, and that the department’s action was not “punitive.”
In a statement, Potter County’s commissioners also did not describe the problems discovered during the monitoring. But the decision to request the department’s intervention, they wrote, “was not taken lightly,” and was “ultimately made to ensure the safety and well-being of older adults in Potter County.” The county is small and rural, with just under 16,000 residents. Nearly 30% of them are aged 65 or older, according to census data estimates.
Potter County’s Area Agency on Aging is also one of the smaller agencies in the state, with only a handful of employees. Some of those employees are currently assisting the neighboring aging agency, which serves Cameron, Elk, and McKean Counties, state officials said. Potter County officials said that other employees are interviewing for other positions within local government.
In an interview, Potter County Commissioner Paul Heimel said the county will soon hold a public hearing to gather input on whether to permanently shift older adult services to the neighboring aging agency, which currently serves Cameron, Elk, and McKean Counties.
“My personal forecast is that it probably will, but I have an open mind about it,” he said.
Data the state department posts on its website provide some clues about the issues the local agency was facing. Findings show that when Potter County was monitored earlier this year by the department on the quality of older adult protective services it provides, the agency scored disturbingly low in nearly every category.
In one of the most important categories, called Risk Mitigation and Safety, it scored just over 42% — well below the 75% threshold the department deems a passing grade. That category measures how well an aging agency fared in providing services that kept older adults safe from harm or reduced their risk of further injury.
Under new contracts with county aging agencies, if agencies fail to score 75% or higher during a monitoring, state officials have options. These range from less severe penalties, such as requiring the agency to implement a performance review plan, to harsher ones, such as revoking funding or temporarily suspending (or even ending) an agency’s contract to provide older adult services.
Over the past two years, Spotlight PA has investigated failures inside Pennsylvania’s network of agencies that protect older adults from abuse or neglect. The reporting has revealed serious flaws in how counties investigate abuse and neglect allegations, including taking too long to conduct inquiries — potentially leaving older adults at risk — and flatly declining to look further into certain possible cases.
Aging Secretary Jason Kavulich, appointed by Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2023, has stopped short of acknowledging widespread problems in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting older adults, many of whom have no family or other safety net to rely on. In an interview last year, he said he does not believe there is a crisis that needs to be addressed — even though there has been an alarming increase over the past decade in the number of older Pennsylvanians who die while their abuse and neglect cases are being investigated.
Taking an aging agency offline, even temporarily, seems to belie that belief — though the department made a point to emphasize that it was Potter County officials, rather than state aging staff, that asked for it. Since last year, when the department introduced a new monitoring system for evaluating counties, 30 local aging agencies have been assessed. Of those, 16 have fallen below the 75% threshold in the risk and mitigation category, according to department data.
Some of the counties that chronically fell short during prior monitoring, such as Philadelphia, have not yet been evaluated under the new system.
The move to decommission Potter County’s aging agency also challenges the department’s assertion that the new monitoring system has led to significant improvements in how well they are serving older adults.
For the past few weeks, Kavulich has embarked on a statewide tour to promote the new system, formally called the Comprehensive Aging Performance Evaluation, or CAPE, and his media staff has issued a barrage of news releases touting it.
Critics of Kavulich’s administration, including former protective or aging services staffers at the department, believe the new system has relaxed tougher oversight standards and in fact made it easier for county aging agencies to receive higher scores. The department has repeatedly rejected the criticism.
What is undisputed: The department under Kavulich is making far more information public about how well the state believes counties are faring in providing quality protective services.
In addition to posting results when agencies are monitored under CAPE, the department also provides information on its website on a requirement in state rules that mandates caseworkers meet face-to-face with an older adult within strict timeframes after receiving reports of suspected abuse or neglect. The agency also posts data on another requirement in state rules mandating that abuse and neglect investigations be completed within 20 days, and that services are provided when abuse and neglect allegations are substantiated.