Changes to Meals on Wheels spark vendor search

KINGSTON >> Changes to Ulster County Office For the Aging’s home-delivery meal service has caused confusion and concern for many of the roughly 350 senior citizens who depend on the nutrition — and human contact — the meals delivered, according to county officials.

Now, the county is looking for a new vendor to run the county Meals On Wheels program.

For the past 11 years, the county has contracted with Prestige Services Inc., of Clifton Park, to prepare and deliver the daily meals to seniors enrolled in the program.

In late December, however, the company announced, that beginning Jan. 1, it would not renew the contract with the county for daily delivery. Instead, the company said, it would deliver the meals on a weekly basis.

The last-minute pronouncement left the county in a lurch, said Kelly McMullen, director of the Ulster County Office For the Aging.

“We were taken aback,” she said. “It came out of nowhere, and we were put in a situation where we had to secure the food for seniors.

“While we didn’t want the weekly delivery, we just didn’t have the time to find a new vendor,” McMullen said.

Even as the county scrambled to help seniors understand the changing delivery schedule, the company delivered a second blow to the program, laying off all the drivers who had been bringing the meals to the doors of the elderly.

“It caused a lot of confusion,” said McMullen. In addition to confusion over when the deliveries would be made, the new drivers often were unfamiliar with the specific needs of individual seniors, resulting in some seniors not getting their meals. “It’s been bumpy,” she said. A telephone call to Prestige Services Inc. on Friday was not returned.

Ulster County Deputy Executive Ken Crannell said that, immediately upon learning of the changing terms, the county began looking for a new vendor willing to prepare the meals and provide seniors with daily delivery.

“A big piece of this programming is the daily contact with the senior, to make sure the senior is OK, that their circumstances aren’t changing,” Crannell said. “It’s important to us that we have that daily contact.”