Without the state’s assistance, Janett Mizell doesn’t know how she could survive.

Because of numerous health problems, the 48-year-old Lawrence resident cannot work or engage in much physical activity.

“I wouldn’t know what to do” if state assistance were cut, she said last week.

Hundreds of Kansans are wondering how they would get along if a budget plan is passed that would make it more difficult to qualify for state aid.

But Kansas policy-makers, grappling with a record $700 million budget shortfall, are wondering how they’ll keep paying the bills for those in need  not just this crisis year, but in the years ahead.

“It’s the aging baby boomers. We are looking at an onslaught of people coming into the system. If our policy doesn’t change, there is no way we can support the system 10, 15 years out,” said Rep. Kenny Wilk, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

Wilk, a Lansing Republican, is author of a plan that, among other things, would bar services to hundreds of elderly and disabled Kansans by raising the eligibility requirements for state aid.

Wilk, with his committee’s endorsement, put together a list last week of proposed budget cuts after the House earlier failed to approve any tax increases to close the revenue gap. The full House is expected to debate the plan this week.

Plan sparks fears

The Wilk plan has sent tremors through the ranks of those receiving aid and those on the front lines caring for them.

“I may not be as old as Methuselah but I still need help,” Mizell said.

She suffers with asthma, diabetes, heart trouble, osteoporosis and arthritis. She has had several heart attacks.

Mizell receives 11 hours per week of aid from a home health worker who cleans her residence and ferries her to the grocery store and Laundromat.

It doesn’t sound like much, Mizell said, but without the assistance she couldn’t get along. She has no family in Kansas to lend a hand.

Liane Rosencrants, Mizell’s home health aide, said making it more difficult for people to receive home care will mean more people will get sicker more quickly and go into more expensive nursing homes. In most instances, the government bears most of the cost of caring for poor people in nursing homes.

Rosencrants, Lawrence, said the people she helps were like family. Without her assistance, she said, “They would have nobody.”

Mizell said she depended on Rosencrants and vice versa. “She needs the work and I need the help,” Mizell said. Mizell is one of about 9,000 Kansans receiving aid under the programs targeted by Wilk’s proposal.

Funding crunch

In 1997, Kansas spent, in both state and federal funds, about $106 million on community-based programs for the disabled and $13.7 million for the elderly. Now, it spends about $250 million per year on programs for the disabled and $60 million on the elderly.

Wilk said Kansas, like most states, is having a difficult time funding the rapid increase in costs for the disabled and elderly.

The state’s budget problems are behind the plan to raise eligibility levels, he said, but regardless of the shortfall policy-makers need to examine the programs. Wilk’s plan would resolve the budget crisis through a series of cuts aimed at schools, social services and other state functions. It also includes provisions for furloughing state employees several days.

As for the frail and elderly, Wilk’s plan would raise the so-called Level of Care score, the ranking system that determines in-home eligibility, to 50 from the current required score of 26.

Raising the Level of Care score to 50 would save the state $11.2 million in the coming budget year, according to state officials.

Mizell, whose score is below 50, would not be kicked out of the program. But, according to Wilk’s plan, no one else needing help would be allowed into the program unless he met the 50-point threshold. The points are scored by welfare officials based on a person’s level of need and debility. Officials say if the Wilk cuts were retroactive, about half of current recipients would be forced from the aid list.

Wilk said he wasn’t entirely persuaded that the 50 score his plan endorses should be the one used to decide eligibility. But he is convinced, he said, that it must be a score higher than the current 26.

Lawmakers will grapple with those details in the days ahead.

Meanwhile, Mizell said, she is hoping that lawmakers will treat the programs as if their family members were those receiving the help and acknowledge the pangs of uncertainty recipients feel when changes are discussed.

Legislators “need to sign a thing that says (the aid) just can’t be knocked off,” she said.