Actions Needed To Improve the Nutrition Program for the Elderly

Through provisions of title VII of the Older Americans Act, inexpensive, nutritionally sound meals, supportive services, and opportunities for socialization and recreation are provided to the Nation's elderly. To fulfill its oversight responsibilities, the Administration on Aging (AOA) has an information system which requires States to submit quarterly program performance reports and financial status reports.

The information system was not designed to support program management, and its usefulness is limited because of low priorities placed on reporting procedures, system changes, inconsistent data, and unreliable feedback to State agencies. Better data on program performance would help the States in managing the program and the AOA in identifying problems. Other problems noted were: inadequate controls over contributions received, a need for improvements in protecting confidentiality of recipients, income from meal contributions was not used in some instances, audits were not always performed and did not always include reviews of meal contributions, some States provided incorrect information on the number of meals served to the Department of Agriculture for its use in making commodity allocations, commodities in excess of needs were provided by the States to some projects, some caterers experienced difficulty in using commodities, and in some instances the quality and form of packaging limited commodity usage.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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