BPRO PD1/ PD2 Quarterly Meeting- September 21, 2016- O’Charley’s Bristol

Attendance:

BlandJessica Meadows, Darlene Conley

Bristol CityLori Worley, Sharon Doherty, Colleen Buchanan, Janet Shepherd, Catherine Shaack, Michelle Reynolds, Carrie Stallard

BuchananRebecca Vance, Angela Owens, Shirley Elswick

LeeSally Sexton, Dottie Blanken, Sandy Murphy, Christina Cook, Lisa Young

NortonSherry Smith

PulaskiMichele Adkins

WytheAnita Carpenter, Nola Hillenberg

Guest Ruth Ann Belcher, Sandy Blevins

Speakers(Western Region Consultants)

Meeting was called to order by President Sally Sexton.

Minutes were reviewed by members.Sherry Smith made motion to accept, seconded by Christina Cook, motion was passed by members.

Treasurer’s report waspresented. Shirley Elswick made motion to accept, seconded by Lisa Young. Motion passed.

Old Business:

Sally Sexton reviewed minutes from last state board meeting held at the conference in October. She discussed information exchanged at the conference from presenters including QC evaluations and Adult Day Care becoming part of the EDCD waiver program. Currently there are 770 BPRO members with over 2,000 eligibility workers state wide, she encouraged everyone to discuss BPRO in their localities and membership benefits. She also encouraged promotion of the BPRO Facebook page. The next board meeting will be held in February. The spring 2017 conference will be the 25th year of the conference and the location is still being discussed, with possible options being Roanoke and Virginia Beach areas. If anyone has suggestions for topics of presentation at the spring conference, please email those suggestions to Sally, she is chair of the conference planning committee.

New Business:

Members will soon be receiving their ballots for the election of PD officers, Sally encouraged everyone to vote and return the ballots to the nomination committee as soon as possible when they receive these.

Motion was made by Dottie Blanken to hold our next meeting on March 22, 2017, at 11am at the Peppermill Restaurant in Abingdon and to attempt to find a guest speaker to discuss VRS programs. Motion seconded by Angela Owens. Motion carried.

Guest Speaker:

Guest speakers for this meeting were Ruth Ann Belcher, regional SNAP consultant, and Sandy Blevins, regional Medicaid consultant.

Sandy Blevins informed members she is hoping a broadcast will come out soon concerning the COLA automatic adjustment in VaCMS and personal needs allowances for LTC clients. She said many questions she is receiving she is unable to answer currently because she is also waiting for information from DMAS. She said they are still working out issues with inaccurate numbers due to evaluating for COLA increase. Sandy reported that mass changes were not ran on certain MI (QMB, SLMB, QI-1) cases, so these need to be evaluated for income changes. Also, with the conversion of SNAP cases, the disability screen information needs to be carefully monitored for accuracy. She encouraged everyone when reviewing cases in VaCMS to visit all screens to correct and update information due to system errors changing data on required fields. Sandy stated considering all the changes and overwhelming workloads, the Western Region statistics continue to look good. She reminded workers to be vigilant checking renewal and new application lists for time limits.

Ruth Ann Belcher congratulated workers for their ability to work through a difficult time with so many changes taking place in the benefit programs and stated it had been a struggle for all workers and highly commended all the hard work in the local agencies. She also announced she is waiting on a broadcast to be sent out explaining COLA errors in the SNAP cases, many incomes were not calculated correctly. A new conversion date for SNAP hasn’t been released yet, it is possible it could be as late as March. Discussions are being held at the state level to extend the contract with Deloitte until the conversion takes place. She reminded workers new ABAWD clocks affected many cases in our region effective October 2016 and to pay close attention to clocks and to confirm accuracy in all data field in VaCMS for converted SNAP cases. She said timeliness of processing application statistics is looking good for the Western Region. She informed everyone the state office has assembled a support room for problems that arise to improve response time. If workers have cases with tickets submitted and they are being excessively delayed, please notify Ruth Ann about these cases because it may affect our compliance times.

The drawing for the half and half raffle fundraiser winner was Sharon Doherty of Bristol City DSS.

Motion made by Sandy Murphy to adjourn meeting, seconded by Rebecca Vance. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully Submitted- Dottie Blanken