OKLAHOMA CITY — By the end of the week, Lola Edwards expects she’ll have to lay off 12 employees who work for her home health agency.

Letters, meanwhile, will be going out to more than 100 parents whose children attend Leteria Battle’s Oklahoma City child care facility warning that access to licensed care soon could be in jeopardy.

And thousands of the state’s poorest senior citizens now face going hungry.

Across Oklahoma, social service providers are reeling after Department of Human Services officials announced nearly $30 million in legislative budget cuts means the agency no longer can afford to pay for a host of programs that serve some of the state’s most vulnerable citizens.

“There are winners, but they aren’t people in need,” said Don Hudman, executive director of the Areawide Aging Agency, whose agency serves thousands of meals each week to Oklahomans 60 and older in Cleveland, Canadian, Logan and Oklahoma counties.

“The winners are corporate and moneyed interests who get tax breaks, and yet the Legislature has deemed that’s the way they want to go,” he said.

In a release, the Department of Human Services says it has had to:

• Place a six-month freeze on new applications for child care subsidies, provided to poor Oklahoma families to ensure children can access licensed child care while their parents work;

• Eliminate up to five hours a week in patient access to the Medicaid ADvantage program, which helps keep disabled and elderly residents in their homes;

• Cut about $1.7 million in funding to senior nutrition programs, which will mean about 277,000 fewer meals will be served to seniors, and 30 sites could close;

• And slash reimbursement rates to foster families and those who have adopted foster children by about $1 a day.

“These rate reductions and service cuts will undoubtedly be difficult for many,” said DHS Director Ed Lake in a statement. “Because we spread the cuts across all of the populations we serve, we were able to avoid total elimination of any one program and preserve fragile home and community-based service systems for seniors and people with disabilities.”

But advocates say the cuts will be extremely painful.

“I think it’s an abomination. Taking food out of people’s mouths and most of those are low income,” Hudman said.

For 10 years now, Hudman said lawmakers have been cutting funding to social programs his agency provides.

In his region alone, the latest round of cuts will cost his program more than $325,000, which will translate to about 75,000 fewer meals a year, he said.

His food program is one of 11 in the state. Other regional programs may feel the cuts even more acutely, he predicted.

“This is the last of the money that the state has provided,” Hudman said. “So now Oklahoma is truly a state that does the least amount humanly possible for our older adults.”

Child care providers, meanwhile, are worried about the impact on the youngest Oklahomans.

Department of Human Services provides child care subsidies to thousands of Oklahoma families to help parents afford access so they can work. On average, the state said it authorizes nearly 850 applications each month, which impact more than 1,000 children.

“Anytime there are children in unlicensed programs due to subsidy freezes, it’s just not good for children,” said Battles, who co-owns and works as assistant director at Quality Care Child Development Center in Oklahoma City. She also serves as president of Oklahoma Child Care Association, which serves about 360 members.

“The parents are going to be the ones who have to suffer without getting child care so, of course, they’re not going to be able to go to work,” she said.

Battles said the freeze will mark the second time in as many years lawmakers have frozen access.

Last year, there was an uptick in children enrolled in unlicensed day cares, and some parents couldn’t access after-school care, she said.

Nearly two-thirds of the 142 children enrolled in Battles’ facility receive subsidies.

And in some regions, nearly every child receives state aid. The freeze could endanger the survival of those providers, she said.

“Six months is a large impact even for a large company. Just imagine how it is for a small company,” she said. “We’re going to pray about it, and hopefully God answers our prayers, and hopefully it doesn’t have a huge impact on our business.”

Lola Edwards’ employees, though, already are braced for impact.

Edwards, who is president of Tulsa-based Complete Home Health, said she faces the task of laying off 12 employees because of cuts to the Medicaid ADvantage Waiver Program. Personal care aides also have been told to expect fewer hours each week.

The ADvantage program serves an estimated 20,000 disabled or elderly Oklahomans, who could qualify for nursing home placement but choose to live at home thanks to the federal-state partnership. The partnership offers free care to lower-income residents who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

Edwards, who also serves as president of Home and Community Based Services Council, said employers statewide expect to cut about 100 jobs — most of those involve employees tasked with managing client cases.

“You work hard, and you get good people, and (then) you get these cuts,” Edwards said. “It’s not good. There will be changes and layoffs that have to happen. I still think most people will get the services they need to be able to stay at home.”

Hudman said pleas to lawmakers to find money to preserve social programs have fallen on deaf ears.

Advocates now are considering encouraging the elderly to contact their lawmakers at home — at dinnertime — to remind them that not everyone will get to eat, he said.

“They leave the poor regardless of their age in the dust,” Hudman said. “That’s quite an ugly legacy left in the last decade by our elected officials.”

Janelle Stecklein covers the Oklahoma Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jstecklein@cnhi.com.