OREGON COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND
535 SE 12th Ave. (Portland office)
ELECTED COMMITTEE (regular meeting)
Thursday, February 27, 2014 3:30 PM
Conference call: (712) 432-1500
Participant code: 312353#
AGENDA
- CALLED TO ORDER- Chairman Young
- Roll call- Lewanda Miranda
- Disposition of minutes (Feb. 6, 2014)- Chairman Young
- FINANCIAL REPORT- Director Morris
- TRAINING & EDUCATION
- Sagebrush update- Tessa Brown/Director Morris
- BEI training for elected committee- Ken Gerlitz
- Spring In-service- Ken Gerlitz
- Future plans for training- Ken Gerlitz
- Committee reports- Art Stevenson/Lewanda Miranda
- NEW BUSINESS
- Governors food drive- Chairman Young
- Partial relocations of buildings- Chairman Young
- Other
- OLD BUSINESS
- White City update
- Edith Green Bldg. update
- Top 3 pending issues- Director Morris
- Other
- OPEN DISCUSSION
- DIRECTOR’S COMMENTS
- NEXT MEETING
- ADJOURNMENT
VERBATIM:
[started 7-15]
Young: I’ll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Lewanda, would you like…
Miranda: At 3:33pm.
Young: Thank you, Lewanda. Would you like to take roll call?
Miranda: Sure. Okay, we’ll start with the Board. Chairman Hauth?
Stevenson, Art: Ooop! You did it again!
Miranda: Oh, Chairman Young!
Young: I’m here.
Miranda: Art Stevenson.
Stevenson, Art: I’m here, Lewanda.
Miranda: Tessa Brown? No Tessa yet. Cathy Dominique?
Colley-Dominique: I’m here.
Miranda: Ms. Char Mckinzie?
Mckinzie: Here.
Miranda: Lewanda Miranda’s here. Or halfway, not all the mind. Okay, membership. Jerry Bird? Derrick Stevenson? I know that he’s going to be here, but he’s not here yet. Gordon Smith?
Smith: Yes.
Miranda: Ken Gerlitz?
Gerlitz: Here.
Miranda: Lin Jaynes? Steve Gordon?
Jaynes: Present.
Smith: Hi Lin, this is Gordo.
Jaynes: Hey!
Colley-Dominique: Hey, Lin.
Miranda: Steve Gordon? Randy Hauth?
Hauth: Present and accounted for.
Smith: Hi Randy. Gordo.
Miranda: Sal Barraza? Steve Gordon? Ann Wright?
Wright: Here.
Colley-Dominique: Hi Ann!
Miranda: Hi Ann.
Smith: Hi Ann, Gordo.
Wright: Hey.
Miranda: And from the Agency staff?
Morris: It’s just Eric today.
Miranda: Just Eric. Any visitors? Okay, Chairman Young. We’ll need minutes for February 6 meeting.
Young: Okay. I would like to make a motion that we adopt the meetings as recorded for February 6, 2014. Do I have a second?
Stevenson, Art: Seconded.
Young: Art Stevenson seconds it. Is there any changes that need to be made to those minutes?
Miranda: No.
Young: All right. Everybody in favor signify by saying Aye.
Voices: Aye.
Young: Any opposed? All right, the minutes are passed. All righty, Lewanda, what else do we have on that agenda?
Miranda: Financial report, Director Morris.
Morris: That’s me, I’m up!
Miranda: You’re up!
Colley-Dominique: [inaudible]
Morris: I’m just trying to get it pulled up. I should have had it pulled up before I started talking, because I made it sound like I was ready to go, but… Um, okay, so I sent out a sum—basically a spreadsheet to the committee members last night about this. I’ll go over it kind of high level, and if there’s questions, you can definitely let me know. This report is for the fourth quarter of 2013, which encompasses October, November, and December. And I can see on the report that I didn’t label that right. I put October through November, but it is October through December. Total sales for that period were $681,000. $681,141. That’s all locations reporting. We’ve had a, you know, some hiccups in the past where, you know, we had some reports that didn’t include, weren’t inclusive because of late reporting, but that is a total for all locations. That’s a net total of $94,000. About a 14% average profitability percentage. Then there’s, I gave the bill, how much we billed out in set-aside, how much we spent in maintenance, how much is in unassigned income. Then trailing year to date, December 12, December of 2012 through December of 2013, that’s kind of a look-back similar to the RSA 15 report, which is kind of our report card each year, is done October through September, which is the federal fiscal year. So what I wanted to do is give you something to keep track of how we’re looking as we approach that figure. And the only way I could think to do it that made sense to me was to give you, as I do these reports, like the next report will be January, February, March, it’ll be March of ’13 through March of ’14. You’ll be able to see how much the total sales were, which is what’s included here, the net income, the average profitability percentage, which is just a calculation of those two, and then the average income. Now, in this one it’s based on 16 managers because in December, we have 16 managers. Now, the RSA, RSA 15 report is based on, when they figure the average is based on a number of what they call vendor, vendor years. I think that’s what it’s called. And it’s based on the number of months worked divided by 12. So, next year when we do the RSA 15, we’ll have 16 managers plus one extra month for, accounting for Joe in October of last year. So, the average right now is 32-7 [$32,700]. If you break it down into minute detail with a complex series of equations, it’s about 30 grand [$30,000], but based on 16 managers, it’s 32-7, $32,000, $32,756 average. And as we get closer to October, that’ll be a truer, closer, super accurate figure based on what would be reported out to RSA. And then I also listed in there the managers above the average, which based on this report, is five managers were above the average. And then, throughout this report there’s a budget to actuals report, which is a break out of what DAS is sending us for financials, which as I talked to a couple of the committee members, is not exactly the most easy, warm and friendly document to work with. Because I was trying to work with it when I was building it yesterday. You know, we don’t have a current financial person here at the Agency that was kind of recreating some of those documents in an easier format to look at. But the information’s there. It’s just, it’s just not a good warm and fuzzy format. We are over budget through the end of the year, about 18-19%, about 140 some odd thousand dollars [$140,000], so… Set-aside, currently as of the end of December we had about $83,000 in set-aside, which is included in this report. Past due balance for set-aside, I didn’t get a chance to get that updated, so I’ll have that updated soon and have that figure out to you guys. Then there’s a whole list of profitability for each facility broken down by that time period of October through November listed in one of those tabs. And then I also included all the maintenance we spent during that time period. So that’s, that’s the, that’s the report. It, you know, we are trending in an upward trend for sales, and I didn’t look at the, the trend for net. But I know that average is creeping up slowly but surely. So, I’d, I’d entertain, entertain questions, if anybody has any.
Gerlitz: I didn’t hear that report, could you do it again, please?
[laughter]
Morris: Ohh, yeah, okay. Let me take a deep breath. It’ll, it’ll probably sound vaguely similar the second time around.
Gerlitz: Right.
Morris: But it…
Stevenson, Art: Mr. Chairman?
Young: Yes, Art.
Stevenson, Art: First I’d like to say, yeah, thanks for sending that, Eric. And then, I would like to make a recommendation. I don’t think it would be any harder to do, and that’s why I want to make this recommendation. I would recommend that Eric go ahead and send out this report to all the blind licensed managers so that, that way if they have any questions they can get a hold of us before the meeting and we can, you know… If they’re not able to attend, etc., etc.
Young: I think that’s a good request. Do you have any problem with that, Eric, just shooting an email to everybody with that information?
Morris: No, I just need to update my little cheat sheet of how I, how I build the report to remind myself to do that. Because I’m building it, like, once every three months, so yeah… No, that’s not a big deal.
Young: Then, then also, I was kind of curious. I know in that email you sent out that we were 100% current with the managers now, as far as reporting?
Morris: Yeah. As, as of the end of December.
Stevenson, Art: Eric, this is Art.
Morris: Yeah.
Stevenson, Art: You said we were $18,000 over budget?
Morris: 18, 19%.
Colley-Dominique: $140,000…
Stevenson, Art: 19%. And, you know, I’ll get used to this thing, and, but maybe you can answer the question. Is there any particular area that most of that, or is it kind of distributed over all the areas.
Morris: Well, and I haven’t done an in-depth analysis of that. I was responding to some questions about that on email today. I believe it’s probably a combination of the Confluence Center and AG fees, because AG fees are drastically under budgeted in our, in our program’s budget component. And Confluence dollars, the, I know there was, as I was reading through emails, there’s questions about how that was being paid. And so, I need to go in and take a look at that and see what that’s coming out of and see where it’s coming from.
Hauth: Mr. Chairman.
Young: Yes, Randy.
Hauth: Yeah, hey, Eric. Hello everybody. You know, Linda and I, Linda Haseman and I looked over that budget to actual in that report. And I agree with Art. Those should go out to all the membership. I, I appreciate that, Mr. Stevenson. That’s a nice gesture. And as far as the overtures, expenditures, I believe looking through that there was $40,000 spent in October, September/October, I believe that was on the Agency and the arbitration related to Chemeketa Community College. There was $10,000 spent in August. I’m not sure what that was, related to the AG’s costs. Maybe you could help share that with us. And also on the Confluence Center, I believe I recall that Ms. Johnson indicated that money would not be coming out of our budget. And it would come out of Agency VR funds. So, do you have any update on that, Eric?
Morris: Not in the last hour and a half. But as I recall that conversation, the question was: was it coming out of set-aside? That’s how I recalled that question.
Hauth: Nah, that’s not how I recall it. But if you could, if you could check that out, I’d appreciate it. And the $10,000 that was spent on, in August on, through the AG, do you know what that was?
Morris: Hang on a second, let me look. In August of, looks like it was arbitration for Chemeketa.
Hauth: Okay, so like $50,000 approximately have been spent by the Agency on Chemeketa Community College arbitration I guess. Just going some quick math there. One other thing, and then I’ll, I’ll move on. You know, it’s nice to see the income raising, but it looks a little bit skewed, because it looks like you’re calculating 17 managers’ income over the previous year, but only attributing it to 16 managers. And I know Joe didn’t pass away ‘til October. And I understand what you’re saying related to the RSA. And I agree that the income’s starting to creep up. But it looks like that, those numbers aren’t necessarily accurate because you’re taking the income of 17 managers and dispersing it over 16.
Gerlitz: Eric?
Morris: Yeah.
Gerlitz: This is Ken. I have a question and you’ve mentioned this before. You say that the AG’s budget is always low, projected low.
Morris: Uh-huh.
Gerlitz: If that’s the case, why don’t they raise that projection?
Morris: That, that, that’s a great question. And I’ll tell you the answer, kind of the answer, not verbatim what I got was that, you know, we’d like it to be low. We’d like it to be less, you know, the Agency would. But I think, and don’t hold me to it, but I think the budget’s actually like $30,000 for the biennium. Which, if we’re doing things right, in about 15, in about 16% of what we spent so far year to date has been for what I would consider advocacy efforts. Which is, you know, going out and chasing down stuff, for the program not, you know, internal debates within the program. So, you know, the budget process, and that’s one thing is I get to be actively involved in setting the budgets this time around, is something that I will push for to have a more accurate trend of what we would realistically spend. Now, the next time we do it, you know, I, I don’t think $30,000’s right. I think it’s way too low, if we had no disputes or arbitrations or anything like that. But we do need to have some serious horsepower in the budget to be able to, you know, do the VA White City’s, do GSA arbitrations, and stuff like that. So by the time, by the time budget rolls around, like, next month or the month after where we’re really talking about it, my spreadsheet that I’ve been tracking so far, I’ll be able to have a much better idea of what we do need in a budget. Now, whether I can get that or not’s another thing. But I’ll be able to speak to it much better.
Gerlitz: How does it compare percentage wise with the VR budget for AG [inaudible]?
Morris: To be honest, I haven’t compared the two, Ken. That’s a good point. I, I haven’t looked at that. I think it’s probably minute, I mean, VR I don’t know if they, yeah, I’m not really plugged into their AG stuff. But I would just anticipate that it’s marginal, even compared, you know, compared to ours. Because, yeah…
Bird: Jerry Bird’s here, just [inaudible] here for the record.
Young: Thanks, Jerry. Anybody else [inaudible]?