(A) The director of aging shall establish a golden buckeye card program and provide a golden buckeye card to any resident of this state who applies to the director for a card and is sixty years of age or older or is a person with a disability and is eighteen years of age or older. The director shall devise programs to provide benefits of any kind to card holders, and encourage support and participation in them by all persons, including governmental organizations. Card holders shall be entitled to any benefits granted to them by private persons or organizations, the laws of this state, or ordinances or resolutions of political subdivisions. This section does not require any person or organization to provide benefits to any card holder. The department of aging shall bear all costs of the program.

(B) Before issuing a golden buckeye card to any person, the director shall establish the identity of any person who applies for a card and shall ascertain that such person is sixty years of age or older or is a person with a disability and is eighteen years of age or older. The director shall adopt rules under Chapter 119. of the Revised Code to prevent the issuance of cards to persons not qualified to have them. Cards shall contain the signature of the card holder and any other information the director considers necessary to carry out the purposes of the golden buckeye card program under this section. Any card that the director issues shall be held in perpetuity by the original card holder and shall not be transferable to any other person. A person who loses the person's card may obtain another card from the director upon providing the same information to the director as was required for the issuance of the original card.

(C) No person shall use a golden buckeye card except to obtain a benefit for the holder of the card to which the holder is entitled under the conditions of the offer.

(D) As used in this section, "person with a disability" means a person who has some impairment of body or mind and has been certified as permanently and totally disabled by an agency of this state or the United States having the function of so classifying persons.

Effective Date: 09-26-2003; 07-01-2007.