Idaho Commission for the Blind & Visually Impaired
Regular Board Meeting Minutes

November 30, 2017

Commissioners in Attendance: Britt Raubenheimer; Mike Gibson; Al Schneider and Sue Walker

ICBVI Staff in Attendance: Beth Cunningham; Raelene Thomas; Nancy Wise; Mike Walsh, Trina Ayres; Corey Bresina; Greg Metsker; Rocio Gil; Jeff Weeks; Kevin Jernigan and Larry Henrie

Guests in Attendance: Cheryl Foster (DOL); Dana Ard; Daniel Solis; Howard Barton; Tony Bridges; Kevin Servatius; Teresia Hout; Travis Beck and Jan Gawith.

MOTION – to approve the agenda as written, made by Commissioner Walker and seconded by Commissioner Schneider, all were in favor.

MOTION – to approve the minutes of August 15, 2017 ICBVI Board Meeting, made by Commissioner Schneider and seconded by Commissioner Walker, all were in favor.

Administrator’s Report – Beth Cunningham:

There has been a lot going on and we have been quite busy since the last board meeting. In September, Corey and Beth attended the Blast Vendor training in Tennessee, which he will report more on.

In September we held an all staff In service in Boise. Staff attended for a day and a half in which we had training by Dr. Hansen, a team building activity and then training on internal controls. Kathe Matrone also presented her report from our comprehensive state wide needs assessment. We had some clients provide some personal successes and then each team was able to meet to work on their own program goals.

On the evening of first day of in service we had a 50th anniversary celebration. This was well attended as we had approximately 80 people there. We had food and a giant cake. A representative from the Idaho Senate, Fred Martin, was among those in attendance. The week following the celebration, Beth received some feedback regarding how loud it was and that it was difficult to hear people who wanted to say a few words about the Commission. We have scheduled another event for any who are able to stay after the meeting today which will be a more quiet event and easier to share memories or remarks about ICBVI. We will have coffee and breads from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Also, in September we had a phone meeting with the Governmental Affairs Office. Idaho was one of 3 states that they surveyed and with which they had a one hour telephone interview on the impact of Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). Beth read a couple of the survey questions, which were completed in October. In November at Council of State Administrators for Vocational Rehabilitation (CSAVR), GAO held round table discussions to get more input from additional states. Beth attended the pre-employment transition services (pre-ets) round table and much of the other states comments echoed what we had mentioned. She did walk away feeling like GAO understood the issues and challenges. They said they would write a report by April with recommendations regarding the study they have done on WIOA and the impact and the guidance we have received.

In November Beth attended CSAVR in South Carolina. There we learned that 37 states are on an order of selection. Beth attended training on the process to move from the required to the authorized service provision (Mike will speak more on this). Overall, it was an informative and worthwhile trip.

Most pressing information is regarding the proposed tax bill. The Senate tax reform bill could go for a floor vote by the end of this week. The current bill would result in tax cuts for some and at this point the bill does not address how the cost of those cuts will be fully paid. To cover such contingencies, Congress in 2011 passed the Pay As You Go (PAYGO) Act. Under this Actwhen new legislation is enacted, its estimated costs or savings in each of the next 10 years are entered on a scorecard. When subsequent legislation is enacted, its costs or savings are added to the scorecard.At the end of each year, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) adds together all the cost and savings entries for that year. If the net total for that year is negative—in other words, if it is deficit-increasing—then the OMB is required to implement an across-the-board sequester, or spending cut, of certain mandatory programs to make up for that cost.VR is potentially impacted because it is a mandatorily funded program.

As stated above, this past week The Center for American Progress released a report stating that the funding for certain named programs including VR could be eliminated to pay for the potential debt noted above. The article is presentingthe worst case scenario where the costs of the tax legislation would trigger a sequestration level that is so high that it would wipe out funding for mandatory programs subject to sequestration. In our research and after checking with RSA and a Congressional Office, we understand that the potential loss for VR could be 6 to 8% of the 110 funds or approximately $228,000.00 to $276,240.00.

Since 2013OMB has released a Sequester Report (not the formal title) that OMB is required to submit to Congress each year. The report is released in the summer and identifies the sequester rate for mandatory programs covered under the Budget Control Act for the next fiscal year -- in this case, FY 2018. It is not clear to us at this point how OMB calculates the rate and the percent reduction has varied each year and has ranged from 5.1% to 7.3%. In FY 2018 the reduction listed in the report is 6.6%. Fortunately for VR, some of the impact of the sequester reduction is offset by the CPIU adjustment which is applied to the prior year’s mandatory amount, rather than the post-sequester amount. Thus the impact on available VR funds is a function of the percent reduction due to the sequester and the percent increase in the CPIU adjustment.. Also, if the tax legislation becomes law and the sequester level increases to the point where massive reductions in mandatory spending would be required, Congress has the option to amend the Budget Control Act or other legislation to reduce the impact.

Beth acknowledged that Britt and Dana and probably many more have already contacted our representatives here in Idaho and she wants to thank you for that.


In November, we began meeting with IDVR and will do this monthly to discuss where we are regarding our pre-ets spending and services etc.


Beth did not have much update regarding some of the potential changes happening regarding Independent Living services. NCIL has submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for copies of all records pertaining to ACL’s Independent Living allotment determinations since 2015. In terms of merging agencies and overall Part B funding – we don’t know anything new. We are now (beginning October 1) submitting our invoices to IDVR, which is the designated state unit for payment rather than the way it was in the past when we each received our grant directly.


We have met with HP a couple of times and are in the process of getting a meeting at the building that houses Social Security regarding new BEP location sites.


We have an all Staff meeting planned for January and we will have Dr. Reynolds speaking on RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa) which is a group of rare, genetic disorders that involve a breakdown and loss of cells in the retina. Commissioner Schneider commented that he would like to attend the all staff meeting.


Lastly, Beth has entered back into the ATC for training and so far she is working on Orientation and Mobility, Braille, computers, and has done a little in shop. She lead a group discussion in ATC back in August on person first language and the importance of language. She was recently invited to attend and provide an agency overview at one of the support groups, which was great to attend and she enjoyed meeting the people there including a lady who is in her 90’s.

Department of Labor – Cheryl Foster:
Cheryl was able to join the Board meeting and explain the relationship between ICBVI and Department of Labor (DOL) with the WIOA implementation. One of the first items she was involved in was the collaboration with key state agency partners in the creation of the State Plan. The second part of WIOA is the One Stop System, which Department of Labor has two locations in Idaho, one is in Idaho Falls and the other is in Lewiston. Department of Labor receives funding from WIOA according to state population and the amount of unemployment.

Cross training at the local areas will happen with the intent to have the public access Live Better Idaho website where they are shown eligibility of the programs for customer ease. Melinda Smizer is the new Department of Labor Director. The new Workforce Development Council Executive Director is Wendy Sechrist.

The Boise DOL office has an ADA accessible workstation and it takes about 30 minutes to train on it. The Able to Work website is also getting revamped.

Discussion on Conflict of Interest Policy – ICBVI Board:

Adam Warr from the Attorney General’s office was able to join in on this conversation to give us an example of what might be a conflict of interest for the ICBVI Board. The internal policy discussed for the ICBVI Board members is interpreted as a personal relationship that would influence the ICBVI for that person’s personal gain. An Example: Mike Gibson is 2nd Vice President for the State National Federation of the Blind and an ICBVI Commissioner. When he comes to the ICBVI he wears his commissioner hat and not his NFB hat.

MOTION: To approve the ICBVI conflict of interest policy for the agency. Made by Commissioner Schneider, seconded by Commissioner Walker, all in favor.
The benefit of the conflict of interest policy to be an internal policy is that we would not go through the State Administrative Rules program or Statute process at this time. Adam will check to see if this is necessary to put these into Statute or Rule. The Board will post this conflict of interest policy on their page of the ICBVI public website.

Staff and BEP Survey – ICBVI Board:

The ICBVI Board would like to do a staff survey at this time. The questions will be put together in December and then it will be sent to staff in January. It was discussed to give staff a month to return the survey to the Board. The survey could be put on survey monkey or sent out via email. Another option will be to put the completed survey in Beth or Raelene’s mailbox.

*Please add to next agenda the subject to discuss long term goals for the agency.

Beth would like to add a question to the survey “Have you seen needs with clients that we are not providing?” Board agreed to no more than 10 questions for the survey.

The Idaho Blind Merchants Council (IBMC) has asked the ICBVI Board to delay the Business Enterprise Program survey until at least the spring of 2018. They would like to update some of the questions to reflect the goals listed in the Strategic Plan. The questions will be reviewed by the ICBVI Board before being sent out to the vendors. Beth will let the ICBVI Board know when the survey goes out to the vendors.

ICBVI Program Reports:

Assessment & Training Center – Greg Metsker:

The end of the fall term in the ATC is drawing near, the last day is December 15th. We had 14 clients on the roster at the beginning of the fall term, but one client had to back out just before the term started and another had to go home after a few weeks for personal reasons, so we had 12 students for most of the term. On activity days, before the students go out and do the activities, we always review the personal goals that each student sets for themselves. On November 17th, before the students went to Wahooz for the day to bowl and do laser tag, we reviewed everyone’s goals and there has been a lot of progress and learning occurring this term. We were able to check most of the goals off the lists after only two thirds of the term had gone by. Some examples of individual goals the students came up with are: “To be able to get to the Flying M coffee shop independently by the end of the term.” “To be done with all of the dot 5 contractions in Braille by the end of the term.” “To complete my cutting board in shop by the end of the term.” “To be proficient in creating new folders and sub-folders in Outlook. To be proficient at sorting emails by size, attachments, sender, date and so forth.” “To learn how to make a raspberry cheesecake.” “I want to be able to independently complete a route to the bank at 4th and Idaho by the end of the term.” Those are just a small sampling of the sorts of goals the students set for themselves. If they don’t meet a particular goal they can definitely carry that over to the next term if they wish. When they do meet a goal, we celebrate that as a group and make sure they know how great it is that they are accomplishing what they set out to do.

The winter term in the ATC begins on Wednesday January 3rd, and to date we have 14 clients on the roster. Ten of the 14 students will be staying in the dorms, so once again the building will be jumping in the evenings. While our numbers have been pretty good this year in terms of how many students we have had in the ATC at any given time, the total number of clients who attended the ATC in fiscal year 2017 was 33. That is about average for us, maybe a little below. The discrepancy between high numbers in the center for any given term, and the somewhat low overall total seems to be a result of having students this past year who have attended the ATC for 3 or 4 terms. One student has been here for 7 terms even. Greg likes the trend towards longer stays in the ATC though, as it helps to ensure that the skills we teach are mastered and therefore become truly viable options for clients.