Florence Larmore is 72 years old, and she can’t stand.

“I love to cook. I love to work in the yard,” the Salisbury woman said over the phone. “So those two things I had to give up — I hated it.”

Living alone with her cat, Larmore came to the realization five years ago that she could no longer provide for herself in the kitchen — a fact her resilient personality found particularly frustrating.

“I can't cook,” Larmore said with a trailing laugh. “What do I do for meals?"

Ruth Larmore also lives in Salisbury. At 77 years old, she's just shy of completely blind due to a hereditary eye disease.

And after her husband died, it became clear she would need more help than just her pitbull, Princess, to live alone.

Ruth and Florence are two of hundreds of seniors on the lower Eastern Shore enrolled in MAC Senior Nutrition Services, having Meals on Wheels deliver to their homes multiple times a week.

"I could never explain to you how big of a help they've been," said Ruth, a senior in the program for about two years.

The nonprofit agency, Maintaining Active Citizens, provides services for seniors in Wicomico, Somerset, Worcester and Dorchester counties, aiming to keep seniors aging in their own homes. But that comes with a price tag.

This May, MAC reported state funding cuts of just more than $113,000 — about 46% of its pending 2020 budget for nutrition services from the state, or about 15,000 meals — all to take effect July 1.

The official budget for 2020 has yet to be published, according to the Maryland Department of Aging.

“We have essentially one month to try to modify our program so that the impact is minimal… So that these cuts don't have as huge of an impact as we're anticipating,” MAC Executive Director Pattie Tingle said. “Getting it in the eleventh-hour makes it a challenge.”

With the exact forecast unknown, Tingle said meal volume could be reduced, the number of seniors serviced could be limited and she might need to look into cutting hours for employees — if not jobs entirely.

Tingle said the last thing she wants to do is deny any seniors currently receiving food, as her office begins to digest the “late notice” deductions.

But not everyone would say these cuts are sudden.

Rona Kramer, secretary of the Maryland Department of Aging, said the budget cutbacks in the state’s nutrition programs can be traced back as far as four years.

“Four years ago, a very equitable formula was put into place based on population of older adults in a jurisdiction, poverty and a number of other factors,” Kramer said. “And I met with the jurisdictions to explain to them, four years ago, that their funding might be changing in some parts of the state.”

Prior to those talks surrounding the budget for 2016, Kramer said there had been no formula when it came to this funding. She said such an absence was “very unfair” for certain growing areas in Maryland.

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“Nobody is happy to be losing funding. Nobody's happy to hear that,” Kramer said of the meetings years ago. “They understood it.”

However, the formula didn’t take effect back then.

The cuts

The incoming formula had state Sen. Adelaide Eckardt, R-37-Dorchester, and other legislators worried about the Eastern Shore, as the cuts were then-slated to come down immediately.

“The delegation wrote a letter saying, ‘Let's hold off on that,’ ” Eckardt said. “So that the agency has time to look at and make that adjustment. And we could determine whether or not that funding formula was fair and adequate.”

Kramer said at that time Gov. Larry Hogan held harmless certain jurisdictions that may have needed more time to adjust to such stiff budget shifts — since then totaling about $400,000 in additional funding received by MAC that was not guaranteed by the set formula.

“We announced the formula, and I thought we could put it in place then,” Kramer said. “And the governor said, 'No, I would really like to give these jurisdictions plenty of time to prepare.’

“They should have expected it every year, to be frank,” she said.

The area where fog seems to have settled is the communication of exactly when agencies like MAC would cease to be “held harmless” and be required to join the majority of the state under the thumb of the determined formula.

To Tingle and her team, these funds didn’t come with a detailed expiration date.

“The time table was not outlined,” said Tingle, who took office in May 2016, after the initial formula conversations. “The communication was not clear as to when the reductions were coming.”

Tingle said being officially notified in early May of the cuts’ impending landing came with “an immediate shock.”

And MAC isn't alone.

Gary Gunther, heading Upper Shore Aging of Caroline, Kent and Talbot counties, is gearing up for cuts of roughly 42% to his nutrition programs funding from the state. The executive director recounted the talks from years back; however, the news of the cuts last month came as a surprise to his office as well.

"I didn't know they were coming with the FY2020 budget," Gunther said. "I'm always trying to offset any reductions."

Tension in the bottom line

Regardless of either side and their differing views on expectations at the moment — the cuts are coming. And seniors are hungry.

Although Kramer doesn’t see much wiggle room in terms of the statewide formula, MAC says it will be assessing all options, from meeting with local legislators and community engagement to starting and expanding wait lists before service.

“Over the past few years, we have been looking very hard at our production efficiencies, and we have been fine-tuning those down as tightly as possible,” Tingle said. “That's probably the second thing that went through my mind, you know? We have cut back and carved out and economized to the best of our ability. So now we're looking at what other options (we have).”

Eckardt also plans to continue the conversation.

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She said redistribution like this always has “winners and losers,” but she and other legislators like state Delegate Carl Anderton, R-38B-Wicomico, will be looking to offset the major reduction.

One idea expressed was having deep pockets of poverty in certain areas trigger an increase in the funding allocated, even if the population may not be as dense.

"Cautiously optimistic" describes Gunther's team on the Upper Shore — as he plans to turn to boosting fundraising in local communities to offset the coming cuts.

But with the window already starting to close, time before the cuts make an impact on the Shore only continues to shrink, and many additional conversations are in the works between state and local legislators as well as different agency representatives.

In the meantime, Florence Larmore’s only complaint from the ground seems to be an unvaried menu.

The Salisbury senior, worried about a possible hip replacement on the horizon, has become close to many MAC employees and volunteers — with no intention of looking into nursing homes.

“I’m an eternal optimist,” Tingle said. “We are looking at this more strategically moving forward, to minimize the impact to our seniors.”