02/20/2008
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Staff photo by Jim Evansfrom the Kennebec Journal
PROPANE NO QUICK FIX
AUGUSTA Penny saved is a stamp forever Cost to mail regular letter rises 1 cent on Monday
CENTRAL MAINE Area residents' scrap metal rising to top of heap
Dunn celebrates 35 years as fire chief
Maranacook set for budget tests
FARMINGDALE NEVER FORGET
HIGH SCHOOL BASEBALL ROUNDUP: Rankin sparks Black Bears
Morang stymies Bulldogs in only 2nd varsity start
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
Auctioneer sues woman over $300,000 Internet purchase
Prison time awaits
Waterville writer wins this year's Young Lions Fiction Award
Rising prices for scrap metal attract sellers to local facility
Colby seniors celebrate end of classes
JUDGES CHOOSE YOUTH OF YEAR Gary Fearon a 17-year-old member of Penobscot Nation Boys & Girls Club, a satellite unit of Waterville Area Boys & Girls Club
Biathlon might skip out on Fort Kent
HUSKIES COLLECT 1ST WIN
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel
Bob Lorenz is a baby boomer who thinks people of his generation will expect more from government as they age.
They'll want to go to elder college.
They'll want universal health care.
And they are increasingly concerned about the environment, said Lorenz, who moved to Sidney more than a year ago after retiring from IBM in New York.
"Realistically, I'm in a good situation because I was able to save and retire early," said the 56-year-old.
But he knows not everyone in his generation -- baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964 -- will be as lucky.
"Unfortunately, we were the 'me generation' and not looking toward others, but looking to maximize our own picture," he said.
And if boomers continue looking out for themselves, it could change policy decisions made from the local level on up, said Laurie Lachance, president of the Maine Development Foundation and a former state economist.
"The question I've been asking people is, are we ready for this?" she said. "This is going to occur. Whatever happens as baby boomers transition is going to hit Maine first and hit us hardest."
That's because Maine is already the oldest state in the nation by one measure, with a median age of 41. By 2025, one in five Mainers will be over 65.
"We have this period of time between now and 2025 that we can prepare," she said. "We know that this demographic is going to drive public policy."
Money from the state budget that supports K-12 education may need to be shifted to pay for housing and transportation needs. State jobs that were once full-time may need to become part-time to keep boomers in the workforce.
Commissioner Rebecca Wyke, who leads the state Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said a mass exodus of experienced and knowledgeable state workers could soon hit the state hard.
"We are ill-equipped in all of state government to handle that kind of brain drain," she said.
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Lachance often mentions baby boomers in speeches she gives about the Maine economy.
"At some point, as baby boomers age, that is going to shift budget priorities, because these very same people aren't going to have kids in the K-12 education system anymore," she said. "It used to be their priority. At some point, that's going to shift to making sure they have health-care services, the appropriate housing offered to them, the appropriate transportation system."
Others don't predict major changes, at least not negative ones.
Lenard Kaye, director of the Center on Aging at the University of Maine, said baby boomers "represent a great opportunity" for state and local governments, not an added burden.
"They don't represent imminent disaster in terms of federal and state budgets," he said.
He said boomers, unlike previous generations of retirees, will be healthier for longer, more active, more mobile and more engaged. They will have professional experience and time to lend to their town council, historical society or other group.
Cities and towns should welcome them with open arms, he said.
"For them the word retirement will have little meaning," he said. "They are not rocking-chair-on-the-porch personalities."
For Maggie Ricker, a 59-year-old who lives in Chelsea, there's one thing government should be looking to provide to boomers.
"Health care, health care, health care," she said. "That's critical and it's in such serious disarray, it's very frightening for me."
Ricker, who works as an administrative assistant and database administrator for the Maine Health Access Foundation, said end-of-life care in particular is expensive and could hit the state hard. She believes it's not a matter of whether, but when, something big happens with health care.
"Since we're the pig in the python, we're going to kind of take control of things," she said. "There's more of us than there are other folks."
Changes in how government spends money won't just take place at the state level, Lachance said.
Local governments spend an average of 61 percent of their budgets on schools, a priority that will likely need to shift, she said.
Some of that money will need to pay for transportation needs, she said.
"Think about the increased opportunity for accidents as people age, anyway, and you combine that with roads that are narrower, bumpier, curvier, it's going to demand a higher level of attention than ever before," she said. "A very large chunk of our population is going to be older."
POLITICAL IMPACTS
Every candidate for governor in 2006 fit into the baby boomer age range, with the winner, Gov. John Baldacci, right in the middle. Baldacci, 53, said his generation was influenced by the lives and deaths of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.
Not to mention Vietnam.
"I think we've gone through a process where hopefully my generation is intent on rolling up its sleeves and making sure we do the heavy lifting for the next generation," Baldacci said. "I'd like to think we're willing to tackle those hard issues and get back to that kind of attitude."
For example, Baldacci said some sort of universal health care will be pushed through at the national level by boomers, Democrats and Republicans alike. And though Lachance thinks there might be a shift away from investments in education, Baldacci senses a renewed emphasis on it.
"I hope they play a significant part in education," he said. "That's the other area I like to think we're going to expand."
When it comes to politics, all boomers are not alike.
Robert Binstock, a professor of aging, health and society at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, said boomers don't vote as a cohesive bloc.
Need proof?
President George Bush is a boomer, and so is former President Bill Clinton.
The baby boom generation is significant because of its size, and it has changed institutions influenced by size, Binstock said. More children, more schools. More workers, more jobs.
Otherwise, boomers are as unique as the rest of us.
Binstock, who wrote a book with James H. Schulz called "Aging Nation: The Economics and Politics of Growing Older in America," also argues that boomers won't vote in their own financial self interests to protect benefit programs -- Social Security and Medicare -- to the detriment of younger generations.
"The modern history of old-age politics is far more complex, and the future will not be as scary as some predict," they wrote.
STATE JOBS
Nowhere in state government will the impact of retiring baby boomers be felt more severely than at the state Department of Health and Human Services.
This year, 307 of the 4,000 workers are eligible to retire.
Five years from now, 808 will hit retirement age.
"If they all chose to do so at the same time, that would be pretty significant," said DHHS Commissioner Brenda Harvey.
Over the next few months, the department is working on a strategic plan that will include succession planning, she said. One thing the department has going for it is the constant stream of new workers coming in, which Harvey pegged at 30 per month.
Harvey and Wyke said the state needs to consider being more flexible with workers in an effort to keep baby boomers in the workforce or to attract those looking for second, probably part-time, careers.
"I think the time is now to have this conversation, to put it in our planning," Harvey said.
Wyke said the state will need to find ways to entice retirees to come back to work, perhaps in different or less demanding positions.
To fill the void created by baby boomers' retirements, the state will have make sure educational programs are in place for displaced factory workers, immigrants, and the 18 to 24-year-olds who haven't chosen career paths.
The state will need to do a better job recruiting people with disabilities and be willing to be more flexible with hours and vacation time for boomers returning to the workforce, she said.
Harvey said there's no one size fits all solution for a state government not used to being quick on its feet. Workers of different generations come with different expectations, she said.
"We might find ourselves for a while doing things two ways at the same time to accommodate those cultural groups," Harvey said.
Susan Cover -- 623-1056
scover@centralmaine.com
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