TOTAL STATE ALLOCATIONS AND AUTHORIZED PARTICIPANT LEVELS, TITLE V COMMUNITY SERVICE EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM-1981-82 PROGRAM YEAR-Continued

PROGRAM ENROLLMENT JOB INVENTORY-JULY 1, 1980 TO JUNE 30, 1981

Jobs

Percent

Total.

56,515

100.0

Source: Senior community service employment program, quarterly status report, June 30, 1981. Unpublished Department of Labor data.

TITLE VI-GRANTS FOR INDIAN TRIBES

Older Indians generally have not received services and benefits equivalent to those provided other older persons under the title III program of grants for State and community programs. With the passage of the 1975 amendments to the Act, the Commissioner on Aging was authorized to allow Indian tribes to "bypass" the traditional title III State and area agency on aging funding mechanism and apply directly to the Commissioner for funds necessary to establish a social services progam. In order to award such grants, the Commissioner first had to make a determination that older Indians of a particular tribal organization would be better served by means of direct grants, and then could reserve funds from the States' title III allotment for funding the tribal organization. That authority, however, had never been exercised. In its report on the 1978 amendments the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee indicated that this was due to the "cumbersome determination process" which required complicated grant applications and judgments by many levels of government before the Commissioner could issue a decision and that this process failed to recognize "tribal sovereign status."

The 1978 amendments, therefore, revised the 1975 law to provide a separate title and funding authority for social and nutritional services for federally recognized tribal organizations. The law made Indians aged 60 years and over eligible. The 1981 amendments eliminated the requirement that Indians be 60 years and over in order to participate under the program and refers simply to "older" Indians. This change was made to provide flexibility to tribal organizations and was based on statistics presented to the House Committee on Education and Labor indicating that the life span of Indians is considerably shorter than that of other Americans.2 The amendments also eliminated the prior law requirement that a State's allotment under title III be reduced by the amount attributable to Indians being served under title VI in the State.

Other provisions allowing for more flexibility in the administration of the program added by the 1981 amendments include: making legal and ombudsman services to older Indians an allowable rather than a required service; allowing funds that would otherwise be expended for nutritional services under title VI to be used for social services when the need for nutritional services is being met from other sources; and removing a prior law provision requiring that tribal organizations select only nonprofit private or

1 U.S. Congress. Senate. Labor and Human Resources Committee. Older Americans Act of 1978. Rept. 95-855, 95th Congress, 2d session, May 15, 1978. p. 16.

2 U.S. Congress. Committee on Education and Labor. Older Americans Act Amendments of 1981. House Rept. 97-70, 97th Congress., 1st session. Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981. p. 14.