Older Americans Amendments of 1996

Older Americans Amendments of 1996 - Revises the Older American Community Service Employment Act (OACSE) and the Older Americans Act of 1965 (OAA) (of which it is a part) to reauthorize and extend the former OACSE program (renamed the Senior Community Service Employment Program), as modified by this Act, through FY 1996, with, among other changes, revisions in the funding allotment formulae for making grants to eligible States and tribal organizations for authorized program projects employing older individuals. Authorizes appropriations.

(Sec. 4) Reauthorizes and extends certain current OAA programs through FY 2001, including the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman program, the Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Services program, and supportive services programs providing legal, counseling, outreach, and other assistance to the aged, as well as nutrition services programs which are combined into a single congregate and home nutrition services program. Modifies such latter two programs, among other things, to: (1) authorize States to transfer funds, as appropriate, between supportive services and nutrition programs; and (2) eliminate the funding process between home-delivered and congregate meals programs. Eliminates other specified federally structured OAA programs, such as the school-based meals for volunteer older individuals and multigenerational programs and the in-home services program for frail older individuals, in many cases allowing the States to design their own programs to provide such services. Authorizes appropriations.

Reauthorizes and extends the Administration on Aging (AOA), as modified, through FY 2001. Authorizes appropriations.

Includes within the modifications made to OAA and its programs, as well as to AOA, by this Act: (1) restructuring OAA into four main titles on Federal functions, State and local responsibilities, and Native American programs on aging (thus eliminating current titles on training, research, and discretionary projects and programs, and on vulnerable elder rights protection activities, while relocating many of their key components elsewhere within OAA, such as those for training and demonstration projects and the prevention of elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation); (2) eliminating various special offices within AOA and giving the Assistant Secretary for Aging responsibility for administering all OAA programs; (3) revising State and local government authority regarding the design and operation of their own programs and projects for the aged (such as those for in-home services for frail older individuals) through, for example, grants or contracts with charitable, religious, or private organizations; (4) abolishing the Federal Council on the Aging and the National Aging Information Center, and repealing the mandate for, but authorizing operation of, the National Center on Elder Abuse; (5) defining "low-income individual" (for the first time under OAA) to mean a member of a family whose income is not more than 150 percent of the Federal poverty line (except as used under OACSE, in which case it means an individual who is a member of a family that has an income not more than 125 percent of the Federal poverty line); (6) permitting States to institute cost-sharing under the State's OAA plan while providing that no older individual will be denied a service under the plan because of inability to pay; and (7) making additional funds available for nutrition services for the aged provided through the Department of Agriculture. Authorizes appropriations.

(Sec. 9) Provides for the transfer to the Department of Health and Human Services of all functions that the Secretary of Labor exercised before this Act was effective that relate to the former OACSE program and are minimally necessary to carry out such program.