Senate Appropriation Subcommittee Meeting March 16

Pegg Thomas, from our Alpena office, will be testifying before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in Lansing on Wednesday, March 16th. She will be appealing to the Senators for reinstatement of funding for the Greater Michigan Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

All state funding was cut in 2009. But today is a new day! Our new governor wants "value for dollar" spending and that's what we plan to demonstrate to the Senators on Wednesday. Here is a snippet from Pegg's testmony:

According to data release this year, in Michigan there are 180,000 people with dementia. If even 1% of them per year, 1,800 people, are able to live an extra 3 months at home due to our services, it will save the State of Michigan $8,497,764 in nursing home Medicaid payments alone. The state could reinstate our past support of $600,000 yearly and still save $7,897,764 per year.

You can help by contacting your local Senator and asking that he look at the facts and make the determination to support the Greater Michigan Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association.

District 35 - Darwin Booher
District 36 - John Moolenaar
District 37 - Howard Walker

We currently have no state or federal funding. Our offices survive on the generosity of the people of Northern Michigan, some grants and our fundraising events. Given the state of the economy here in Michigan, however, it hasn't been enough. We are facing a dire shortfall at the end of our fiscal year on June 30, 2011. Nobody wants to cut services, but we face that possibility without a change from Lansing. Please make that contact now.