Aldermanic committee recommends folding Cashin Senior Center into Health Department
In addition to recommending the creation of a new department, the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen Committee Administration and Information Systems unanimously recommended merging two city departments in a special meeting on Monday night.
MANCHESTER, N.H. – In addition to recommending the creation of a new department, the Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen Committee Administration and Information Systems unanimously recommended merging two city departments in a special meeting on Monday night.
Their recommendation, which will be acted upon by the full board on Tuesday, supports folding the Senior Services Department as a new Healthy Aging Branch of the city’s Health Department.
The current Senior Services Department, which has been without a director since 2021, primarily is tasked with operating the Cashin Senior Center. Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig told the committee that there have been efforts since that time to fill that role without success.
under the proposed realignment, the three city employees currently running the senior center would not see any change in their duties and the vacant position would be tasked toward helping the city’s seniors who have difficulty leaving their home and that this person may also be tasked with outreach to other senior citizens in the city to let them know about services provided at the senior center.
Manchester Health Department Director Anna Thomas also directed a new half-time employee that would serve as a financial analyst to help organize the department’s budget now that it would also include the senior center’s budget, adding that 86 percent of the current Health Department budget comes from non-taxpayer funding and additional support is needed to organize that budget and seek continual grant funding.
Cashin Senior Center Manager Kim Drohan said that collaboration between the Health Department and the Senior Center is possible without a merger, also fearing that the Senior Center could transform from a refuge for the city’s elderly into a family clinic.
Members of the committee praised the Senior Center for its current efforts and did not wish to modify anything related to its current regular operation, with Ward 4 Alderman Christine Fajardo going so far as to promise that to Drohan in writing.
Fajardo added that adding the outreach resources of the Health Department would help the Senior Center with its mission of aiding the city’s elderly population.
Thomas agreed that the Health Department wants to supplement and promote the Senior Center rather than change it.
