Program for older workers abruptly nixed  

Nonprofits and workers in the U.S. Department of Labor’s Senior Community Service Employment Program received word today that the federal program is canceled and operations must cease before the end of the day. 

Drew Lewis Foundation Inc. Operations Manager Jeremy Dean, also a member of the Missouri House of Representatives, alerted Springfield Business Journal to the abrupt cancelation of the program, which provides job training for low-income people ages 55 and older to allow them to gain skills to reenter the workforce. 

The program is part of the 1965 Older Americans Act.  

Kay Gibson, an office worker for the American Indian Center of Springfield, confirmed the news in a phone call today. She said she received a phone call this morning from the AARP Foundation’s Springfield SCSEP office, and she was told she would have to turn in her final time sheet by noon today. 

Area agencies and workers were informed by the AARP Foundation in letters dated June 17 that the program’s funding was not assured and that if funds were not released, the SCSEP program would cease operations on June 30. Gibson said funding for her own role previously was set to keep her in the position through April 2026. 

The letter to workers said, “Due to this administrative delay, there’s a possibility we may need to temporarily suspend your training assignment beginning July 1, 2025. If this occurs, both your training activities and your stipend payments would be paused until we receive the necessary approvals to resume operations.” 

SBJ reached a representative of the AARP Foundation’s Springfield SCSEP office today. That worker said he was not permitted to comment about the matter. A subsequent SBJ query directed to the program’s Arkansas-based regional director was forwarded by that agency to the national office, which emailed to say it did not have enough information to provide a comment. 

Gibson said the person she talked to said the program was canceled and today is her last day. 

“I said, ‘Well, do you know when it will restart?’ and they said they had no idea,” she said. “I said, ‘Do you know if it will restart?’ and they said they had no idea.” 

The news was hard to take, Gibson said. 

“I almost cried,” she said. “I did not have a car payment when I started the program, and I do now. It’s going to be difficult, to say the least.” 

Gibson said there wasn’t time for the center to write a grant to cover office help, so she doesn’t know what the center will do. Asked if she would continue to work as a volunteer, she replied, “I might.” 

The National Council on Aging reported on June 5 that SCSEP was proposed for termination as part of a proposed 65% cut to Department of Labor funding. The Trump administration has proposed replacing the program within a Make America Skilled Again block grant to states. 

SCSEP serves 50,000 older adults nationally, but local participation levels in the federal program administered by the AARP Foundation are not available from that office. The SCSEP federal program, administered by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, employed 45 Greene County residents, a DHSS representative told SBJ this week. 

Another federal program for older adults that was proposed for elimination is the AmeriCorps Foster Grandparent program, administered locally by the Ozark Area Community Action Corp. and providing 30 people to serve locally in preschools and elementaries.  

Christopher Bell, OACAC’s program director for Foster Grandparents, said that program has been given a three-month extension to operate on available funds that were already provided. That will allow the programs that have some unused funds to wind down their operations by Sept. 30 and the program to cease on Oct. 1.