The California Commission on Aging (CCoA) is the state’s primary advocate for senior citizens. The 25-member advisory board monitors implementation of the department's state plan on aging, advises the governor and state Legislature on matters involving older Californians, sponsors public forums, holds meetings throughout the state, and publishes reports designed to promote senior citizen services and benefits. The commission is in the Health and Human Services Agency.

California Commission on Aging

Law Creating the Commission (California Code, Section 9200)

The CCoA in many ways shares a common history with the state’s Department of Aging. Governor Earl Warren’s administration first examined the impact on the state of aging in 1948, with an exploratory body called the Interdepartmental Coordinating Committee on Aging. The committee served as an advisory board to the governor and Legislature. In 1955, after the first Governor's Conference on Aging, a Citizens’ Advisory Committee on Aging was authorized by the state Legislature with Assembly Bill B1682. The next year, members of the Legislature were added to the committee.

The committee had four objectives: studying the problems of aging and recommending necessary action to the governor; giving local communities guidance and consultation in helping develop programs for senior citizens; acting as an information clearinghouse for issues concerning aging; and consulting and cooperating with the state’s departments and agencies in developing programs for the elderly.

In 1965, Congress passed the Older Americans Act (OAA) as part of the Johnson administration’s Great Society program. Upon signing the bill, President Lyndon Johnson said: “Under this program every state and every community can now move toward a coordinated program of services and opportunities for our older citizens.” The new law created the Administration on Aging (AOA), establishing a series of benefits for the older population in the United States. The law mandated a minimum series of benefits to be administered by the states, and funded and monitored by the federal government.

The Citizens' Advisory Committee on Aging became California’s administrative agency for distributing the federal grants. The name was changed to the California Commission on Aging in 1966, within the Health and Welfare Agency. The commission was charged with advising the governor’s office and coordinating efforts and consulting with local governments and agencies, senior organizations, as well as business, industry and labor groups. In 1973, the Burton Act established the Office on Aging as a department within the Health and Welfare Agency, which took over the operational responsibility for the state’s programs for senior citizens. A newly chartered Commission on Aging replaced the old one, serving as an advisory body, while the new Office on Aging became the Department of Aging. The commission’s mandate was confirmed in the original Older Californians Act of 1980 and its duties reconfirmed in the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act of 1996.

In 1980, the Legislature passed a resolution sponsored by state Senator Henry Mello that required the CCoA to call the first session of the California Silver-Haired Legislature, which later became the California Senior Legislature (CSL). Another resolution written by Mello and passed by the state Legislature in 1982 asked the commission to sponsor the annual sessions of the CSL with private funds. A line-item check-off on state tax returns, called the California Fund for Senior Citizens, was later enacted at the urging of the commission and the senior group.

The CSL formally separated from the commission in 2006.

The History of California Commission on Aging (CCoA website)

The commission holds a series of meetings throughout the state to gather the views of older Americans and to influence programs designed for them, to monitor the implementation of the Department of Aging’s State Plan on Aging, and to assist in developing an Alzheimer’s Disease Plan. The commission also monitors legislative action at the state, local and federal levels in areas that may affect senior citizens, and testifies before the state Legislature and other governing bodies on those matters.

The topics addressed at the meetings held around the state include adult day health care centers, elder abuse, estates and trusts, and long-term health care facilities.  Periodically, the CCoA publishes reports on its statewide meetings and on hearing it conducts. Recent publications include the 2009 Health Access Report, and the 2009 Rural Health Access Report, which examined the factors that contribute to the availability of health care to seniors.

The commission also publishes the newsletter Age Watch and provides administrative support to the Triple-A Council of California, an advocacy group made up of the chairpersons of the 33 local Areas Agency on Aging, which are attached to the Department of Aging.

The governor appoints 19 of the commission members, while the speaker of the Assembly and the Senate Rules committee each appoint three commissioners. Members may serve a maximum of two non-consecutive three year terms. A majority of the commission members must be 60 or older.

Operational Plan 2010-11 (CCoA website) (pdf)

Meetings Schedule

2009 Rural Health Access Report (pdf)

2009 Health Access White Paper (pdf)

California Commission on Aging Advocacy and Policy Committee Agenda (pdf)

Triple-A Council of California

The Commission on Aging does not provide funding for any programs, or issue grants to any groups or individuals. Its small budget of $488,000 is used to pay the salary and benefits of its staff ($295,000) and to cover operating expenses ($193,000).  A major portion of that is used to pay expenses associated with holding public hearings throughout the state.

3-Year Budget (pdf)

Statewide Budget Cuts

A primary responsibility of the Commission on Aging is acting as the state advocate for senior citizens before the Legislature and in the governor’s office. That was a tough job in 2011, as California wrestled with a huge budget deficit and a troubled economy.

The 2011-12 budget makes deep cuts in programs that affect senior citizens.

Adult Day Health Care, a program helping 35,000 people struggling to avoid nursing home placement, lost its inclusion as a Medi-Cal option. A lawsuit was filed contesting its elimination.

New cuts and restrictions were imposed on In-Home Supportive Services that help 438,000 individuals, on average, each month. It is expected that the caseload will decline significantly, providing an annual saving to the state of $83.2 million.

The Multipurpose Senior Services Program—which helps with nursing home placement, meal services, transportation, chore assistance and adult day care—served 13,600 in 2008-09 but lost $2.5 million of its funding.

A host of Medi-Cal changes will result in higher medical co-pays, limits on care, cuts in prescription coverage, higher nursing rate charges and restrictions on nutritional supplements. The higher co-pays were passed pending approval by the federal government.

Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Payment (SSI/SSP) —cash grants to low-income aged, blind, disabled people beyond what the federal government provides—were reduced to the federal minimum at a savings to the state of $178.4 million. 

Summary of the California 2011-12 Enacted Budget: Impact on Older Adults and People with Disabilities (The Scan Foundation) (pdf)

Senior Citizens Centers

There is no infrastructure on the state level to fund services for California’s 800 senior centers; 60% are municipal endeavors.

But, according to a 2010 report by the Commission on Aging, senior centers are often the first contact that aging Californians have with government services as they transition to a new lifestyle. And increasing reliance on that resource is happening at a time when localities are feeling the budget pinch at least as much as the state, if not more.

The commission conducted a survey of more than 750 senior centers and found that working families are dropping off relatives with dementia and similar illnesses at the regular senior centers after their adult day health care centers have been eliminated.

Many of the centers date back to 1984 when state voters approved the Senior Center Bond Act and they are showing their age. Forty-three percent of the centers surveyed by the commission reported that expenses were outpacing funding. Almost half had laid off workers and cut services. One-fourth were in danger of closure.

The 2010 report did not propose a silver bullet for improving the centers. It recommended the extension of services to accommodate an increasingly active older population, in an attempt to make the centers relevant. Its suggested reforms included additional volunteer opportunities, late-life job training, caregiver support and a second senior center infrastructure bond act.

But as the report’s conclusion noted, they began the two-year survey expecting to address the needs of a diversified senior population and ended with the realization that “momentum of our two-year Initiative has been tempered due to the economic downturn.”

Senior Center Initiative Final Report (CCoA)

At California Senior Centers, Resources Dwindle (by Helen Afrasiabi, HealthCal.org)

They're Too Young to be Called Old (by Kim Hone-McMahan, Akron Beacon Journal)

Senior Centers Are Evolving, Adding Programs to Serve Baby Boomers (by Anita Creamer, Sacramento Bee)

Calls for Elimination

The commission has often faced calls for its elimination by both private citizens and state reports, under the banner of governmental reform. The California Performance Review released in August of 2004 during the term of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was one such proposal. In an attempt to narrow a growing budget deficit, the Review recommended the proposed consolidation of 11 agencies and 79 departments into 11 major departments, at the same time eliminating 12,000 state jobs. The Review said 117 of the 339 boards and commissions it examined should be eliminated to save $34 million and 1,153 jobs, many of which paid more than $100,000 a year. Among the targeted cuts was the Commission on Aging.

The report said “While the task of ensuring that policy decisions give proper consideration to the impacts they will have on older individuals is valuable, a formal commission with gubernatorial and legislative appointments is not. These functions would be more effectively and efficiently handled within the Department of Health and Human Services. Furthermore, individual Secretaries will be empowered to appoint advisory panels as the need arises.”

The plan was vociferously opposed by the commission and senior advocates, and as a result the recommendation was removed from the revised version of the report.

While the Performance Review’s proposal may have died, the sentiment that the commission is redundant remains in some quarters.

A 2011 report on long-term care by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office pointed out that no less than seven different departments within the Health and Human Services Agency, including the commission, dealt with the issue. “From the client’s perspective, the collection of programs appears as a confusing maze, not a coordinated, integrated system.”

California Performance Review (pdf)

Carla Hett Smith, 2004 (Acting)

Ray Mastalish, 2000 – 2004

John Kehoe, 1995 – 2000

John Riggle, 1983 – 1992