CFILC Executive Committee Meeting

CFILC Executive Committee Meeting

March 18, 2015

Members Present: Ana Acton, Sheri Burns, Jessie Lorenz, Nayana Shah, Larry Grable, Louis Frick, Susan Rotchy

CFILC Staff Present: Teresa Favuzzi, Samantha Garcia

Welcome

Review and Approval of Minutes

Motion: Louis moves to approve January minutes

Second: Larry seconds

Discussion: none

Ayes: Ana, Sheri, Jessie, Nayana, Larry, Louis

Nays: none

Abstentions: none

Motion Carries

Motion: Jessie moves to approve February minutes with change of those who are noted as having voted "Nay" to "Abstentions," as they were not present at the previous meeting and abstained, but did not vote against the motion.

Second: Sheri seconds

Discussion: none

Ayes: Ana, Sheri, Jessie, Nayana, Larry

Nays: none

Abstentions: Louis was not present for the February meeting

Motion Carries

Finance Update

·  The Finance Committee is meeting today – Nayana will report back next month. There are no significant changes in budget at this time.

·  U.S. Bank is reorganizing who has a business account, so CFILC was shifted to another section. Phil and Teresa are making appointments with local banks: Wells Fargo (Jessie was told that, with Kathy Martinez on board now, they are looking to market and create new products specifically for the disability community), SAFE Credit Union, Golden 1 (do not hold business accounts), and other community banks.

Policy Update

WIOA

·  The sub-committee has been focused on finalizing the list of recommendations to ACL on certification review standards and on transition services.

·  They are now working on a definition of diversion services, looking at NCIL’s Rehab Act Committee versions and adding a list of ILC services. At the next meeting, they will finalize the agreed-upon version and submit to ACL.

·  The sub-committee will meet monthly instead of bi-weekly until regulations come out in draft form to comment on.

·  Louis is not available for the April Public Policy Committee meeting – Sheri and Ana will lead the meeting.

·  Diversion definition – the group identified three classes of people: people who meet nursing facilities' level of care and have been assessed, those who are likely to meet the level of care requirement but have not been assessed, and those in hospitals who are facing difficulties returning home and are at risk of staying there. The third area of people at-risk may need to be updated to adequately address other populations, such as the homeless population. Jessie and Sheri will discuss further. The sub-committee also recommends adding a paragraph about how people need and utilize services ILCs have, such as PAS, IL skills training, assistive technology, housing counseling, advocacy, etc.

·  Sheri will be submitting all recommendations to ACL in early April, so additional thoughts or questions should go to Sheri before then.

DCL

·  After the discussion at Statewide, the DCL sub-committee will shift their focus, keeping an eye on what is happening but working to raise awareness of ILCs through the creation of an ILC brief, a comprehensive look at our impact (the Sharon Bishop report raised some important questions we might want to answer in our brief – what do we do best? Where is the greatest gap in services? etc.) and who we are.

·  The next meeting with be April 6th.

DOR Budget

Meeting with DOR

·  Ana, Teresa, Henry and Sharon Bishop (contractor) met with DOR leadership on Friday: Jay, Joe, Juney, Irene, Teresa and Connie. They brought our concerns: their budget change proposal and $3 million for WIPs.

·  There was frustration on DOR's end that we are holding up their proposal. They said they didn't think of our funding as being at risk because they have to have their budget renewed each year – we believe this is not enough of a safeguard and want to make sure we have $12 million secured legislatively, rather than $9 million.

·  DOR expressed that they do not have the extra money and everything is based on expected revenue. However, they went over the S.S. reimbursements over the last few years - there were some years below $12.5, even in the last several years but they are expecting more than $13 million this year and $15 in 2015-2016. Reimbursements began jumping back up in 2013, before the WIP pilot.

·  Reminder: RSA audited DOR and said they could not use carryover.

·  DOR leadership has had pressure to use reimbursements for something other than ILCs because their staff generates the funds and sees it as their money. This is the first attempt to try to do so; we need to keep an eye on this. We also need to think about how – if the program is successful – there will be more dollars and we will need to be ready to negotiate those dollars going to IL, TBI, etc.

·  We need to sell our perspective to budget and other legislative staff members and to the administration.

·  Sharon Bishop (a budget expert, created the funding history of ILCs in our past, knows a lot of people at Dept. of Finance and in the legislature we would not normally have access to) will be contracted to work with us on this issue.

·  Our long-term goal will be to look at DOR's budget every session and advocating for our budget every session. We chose to start with a request for restoration of AT funds because it is an easy ask and is hard to ignore. We need time to work up to asking for additional funding but will need to work on how to talk about what ILCs do.

·  They should use this funding to fix their problems. They did not respond as though they were willing to work with us to fix the situations and Joe said he was not in a decision-making position and is unable to negotiate. In this situation, we may need to consider going above Joe to have a conversation with Diana Dooley. Teresa is still thinking about this. She wants to have our ask very clear before a discussion with Dooley. Those Teresa has asked about the protocol for something like this have responded 50/50 on meeting with Dooley. Most on the call would like Teresa to speak with her.

·  No HHS leaders were invited to the meeting, as has been done in the past, which indicates they may be trying to deal with us on their own before it gets bigger, as Joe was just confirmed and may not want to cause any ripples. This is also a department not know for working on legislative issues or even putting forth budget change proposals. It is in their best interest for us to advocate for them to receive general fund dollars.

·  Next steps: Sharon Bishop is developing a draft letter for us to review. Henry is working on trailer bill language for the statute for the budget staff to look at. We have said there is a problem and now we need specific language on what we can offer as a solution. Instead of tying the amount of funding to a particular budget act, we might want to tie it to something that moves more judiciously like the SPIL, which we have more influence over. This may or may not be a good strategy and may or may not be possible but we will need to think through our options.

·  Teresa will be meeting with Brenda Premo next week to get more information on how the reimbursements plan developed and what the plan was then.

Physician-Assisted Suicide Legislation

·  There is a hearing on March 25th. The Coalition of Californians against Assisted Suicide wants to have a showing of people with disabilities in the audience, as well as have people prepared to speak with the media before and after the hearing. CFILC cannot mobilize the DOnetwork for this because of the lobbying restrictions so this will be up to individual ILC leadership.

Access Legislation

·  Teresa spoke with Catherine Blakemore – DRC is working to reframe the arguments related to the series of bills out right now, using data available through California Commission on Disability Access to hit it hard. CFILC will be working collaboratively with them to help redefine the issue and own it more than we currently do.

·  Teresa is also meeting with Tony Goldsmith, representing CDR, an attorney who has worked on access issues for a long time. He has a number of proactive pieces around disability access we will speak with him about.

Program Updates

Ability Tools

·  Teresa presented on Reuse at the California Recycling Association Update Conference in Berkeley. This was a good opportunity to connect with the green network around the country. Many people were interested in the Reuse and Device Lending Library programs. Teresa connected, in particular, with Californians Against Waste and Urban Ore.

YO!

·  Youth went to the legislature and asked for an opportunity to conduct a hearing at DCAD around the future of ADA.

·  YO! has been collaborating with the ADA Legacy project and is sharing photos of the project on social media.

Digital Access Project

·  DAP staff made it through over 600 calls in response to the SMUD letter. Teresa expects the numbers to show about a 10% adoption rate from the SMUD outreach.

DOnetwork

·  Ted has been helping with the Disability Unity Festival. The DOnetwork Conference will take place the day before at UC Hastings.

·  Two grant proposals have been submitted for DOnetwork voting work, to UC Davis and the Women's Donor Network.

Freedom Tech

·  CFILC is still working on the underwriting process with National Cooperative Bank. Teresa is working with our legal counsel for an objective overview of the whole process, putting it on hold while we look at it one more time.

·  NCB wants us to put in $10,000 toward servicing documents (anything beyond that is split 50/50).

·  They are offering a line of credit, allowing us to provide more loans in the future, but that is contingent on them defining the first $600,000 in loans as good for collateral. They could decide a few years down the road that the loans are not good and not offer the line of credit. Is it worth it then? Some states do their own servicing.

Peer Insights

·  One application has been approved and peer reviewer availability just needs to be checked to approve two applications for peer review.

·  Not many applications have been submitted so Teresa will put out the information to Directors again.

Training

·  The contract has been signed to work with contractors on developing our business plan for training. They will be visiting ILCs to look at training needs and learn more about ILCs.

Director Report

Membership

·  All members from last year have made dues payments – there are 21 members.

·  Sheri received a membership email from California Nonprofits that she will share with Phil and Teresa to have cleared up.

Transitions

·  Chris Jones is looking to retire.

Development

·  California Public Utilities Commission: CFILC sent in a draft statement of work to CPUC and they are working on their part of that now. Teresa is working with Mathematica to do the evaluation part of that contract.

·  Women's Donor Network: CFILC submitted a grant proposal for "Candidates School" options. $30,000 to develop curriculum and would lead to phase 2 funding.

·  UC Davis: they asked CFILC to submit a proposal – doing research around what are barriers and motivations for people with disabilities to vote. Up to $250,000.

Policy Contract

·  CFILC will contract with Sharon Bishop for her work on budget issues, probably up to $10,000. This was not an anticipated budget area, but the CPUC funding will free up some overhead general fund dollars, and all agree this will be very useful work.

New Business

·  CFILC's realtor found out the landlord is not interested in doing building improvements during the lease renewal process because they are still hoping to sell the building. We may need to look at other buildings and will also discuss the potential for negotiation.

·  Contracting: there is not currently a process for contracting – usually there would be a bid for contractors but Sharon Bishop was the only best option, because she has a unique history and relationship with us and legislators. It is encouraged to look at these processes.

·  Staffing: a part-time DAP position will be available soon, though the temporary staff person is doing a great job. Shannon’s position will not be rehired until the AT contract is finalized because there may be some changes to positions. There will also need to be a staff person for the CPUC position but we are not sure what the timing will be on that.

·  AT funding: Teresa heard from DOR that they have stopped writing the AT RFP but they have not told us what they are doing instead. This might mean implementing entity work has been or will be done, but they have not given definitive answers around it.

Next Meeting

·  April 15th at 9:30 am

Adjourn

The above constitutes a summary of my understanding of the information discussed and conclusion reached relative to the CFILC Executive Committee. Concurrence is presumed unless the writer receives prompt notice of additions or corrections at the next meeting.

Minutes submitted by: Samantha Garcia, Office & Logistics Coordinator

Signature:

Jessie Lorenz, Board Secretary