New York State Independent Living Council (NYSILC)

New York State Independent Living Council (NYSILC)

Full Council Meeting

March 17, 2017

Troy Hilton Garden Inn, Sage Ballroom

9:00 AM to 3:30 PM

Members Present: Aileen Martin, Henry, Helen Fang, Crystal Rivera, Marc Rosen, Doug Usiak, Aaron Baier, Daniel Fuster, Sue Hoger, Robert Meek, Sue Ruff, Ann Scherff, Lindsay Miller, Luis Gutierrez, Cliff Perez

Present by Phone: Edith Prentiss, Roger Benn

Public Present: Erin Dwyer, Amy Wink, Holly Saupp

New members Aaron Baier, Daniel Fuster, Aileen Martin, and Crystal Rivera were welcomed to the council. The council members and NYSILC staff introduced themselves.

Open Forum: Sue Ruff began the open forum with news from Broome County of the increased incidents of young people dying while they are in the custody of the jail. It is not clear how many of these deaths are related to the use of opiate drugs. Brad shared news that three items that came from the rally were added to the budget. The Independent Living Visit-ability Bill and wage parity for CDPAS workers. Sue Hoger spoke about the large migrant population in her county, and that they are using the center for a sanctuary to avoid deportation. MSC issue with OPWDD is going to require the service coordinator agency to have 5,000 members to apply for the RFP. Lindsey spoke about the NYAIL conference which has now been scheduled.

The full council meeting minutes from November were reviewed and approved. Helen Fang made an amendment to the report she gave in November. Helen will provide a write up of the technical language to be sure that it is correct. Marc made a motion to approve the minutes, a second was given by Roger. The minutes were approved unanimously.

Executive Director’s Report, Brad Williams: Brad received consulting fees for presenting at the SILC Congress with Ann McDaniels from the West Virginia SILC. He also presented to the Maine SILC, giving them some information on not for profit planning. He has an upcoming presentation on recruitment in June with the California SILC.

Brad will be checking up on the capacity-building grants’ how-to manuals on a conference call in April.

Major goals and deliverables: SPIL development and approval was successfully completed. The consumer satisfaction survey is continuing, along with the database project, and the Leadership Development and Civic Engagement Program. There were no questions related to the executive director’s report.

NYSILC staff Amy Wink and Erin Dwyer both gave updates on their work progress over the past quarter.

NYSILC quarterly contract report is in the packet, with all contracts related to the state plan. There were no questions regarding this report.

The NYSILC full council meetings for 2017 were set last November. The next meeting is Friday, June 9 in the Sage Ballroom. The following meeting is Thursday, September 14, in the hotel library. This is in order to coordinate with the ACCES-VR SRC meeting. There may need to be some accessibility issues addressed for this room. The next is on November 9th in the Ferris Ballroom. Everyone needs to be aware of the date changes which are also posted on the NYSILC website. There were no questions.

Zach Garafalo was the Region 2 SILC representative for the SILC Congress, and next year the rep will be Cliff Perez.

Treasurer’s Report, Roger Benn: Revenue is down about 8%, and was expected to be down by 4%, and this is not far off target. There is a loss down for $1500. This is because we paid $4100 for the LDCEP website, which was funded through the savings account. The loss occurs because it comes from unrestricted donations which was $2100. The net loss comes from subtracting the $4100 from the $2100. The finance committee report is also in the packet, the audit was accepted, and is available upon request. The 990 is posted on the NYSILC website, which includes a copy of the audited financial statement. Brad will send out the audited financial statement to whoever would like to see it. The committee voted to accept the quarterly report.

The updated fiscal policy was briefly discussed. The goals and deliverables for 2017 include revising bylaws and policies and procedures beginning this summer that reflect new IL regulation and the new standards and indicators. This requires the approval of the full council. The fiscal policy regarding unbudgeted amounts over $5,000 requiring a double signature, it needs to be changed to all checks over $5,000. Roger made a motion to accept this change, and the motion was seconded by Aileen. The change was approved unanimously.

Executive Committee Report, Sue Ruff:NYSILC has a three-year contract, and any time there is a new contract it has to have a more rigorous review process. This process was even more rigorous because it is a single source, non-competitive contract. This delayed the process of receiving the contract funds. This also delayed our advance for the contract.

Sue also discussed the letter to the NYS Board of Regents regarding young adult transition and IL. Brad has no contact with the Regents, so far there has been no real response. This has also been discussed in the Executive Committee. There has been a letter regarding Employment First from John Allen. He has said that the governor remains committed, especially with the appeal to 100,000 vendors to employ at least one disabled person. Mark knows someone who might be able to pass on a message to someone at the Regent’s. Helen brought up the issue of the need to expand 55b/c hiring at the state. Right now the hiring requirements are very low. This would be one way to pursue increased employment for people with disabilities. Brad said that it was mentioned as one bullet in the letter from John Allen, and the letter doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Helen also mentioned that the 55b/c job opportunities can tend to be lower grade opportunities, and that should also be addressed.

There was also a ride-share letter that was signed by multiple parties, including New York Statewide Senior Action, NYAIL, and the Council. Brad discussed the council’s support for strategies to promote heath information sharing. New York currently has the automatically opt-out of sharing, and NYAPRS is looking to support more information sharing. The council also signed on to the consortium for citizens with disabilities letter of opposition to the ADA Education and Reform Act, HR-620. This would be detrimental because it would create obstacles to accommodations under Title 3 of the ADA. They must determine that violation of the law has occurred, and then must give the business notice, followed by a lengthy period of time to allow the business to comply. There was also a leadership alliance letter opposing the repeal of the ACA and Medicaid cuts.

The next item on the agenda is a discussion to review the NYSILC committees. The council discussed a need for increased activity and participation on all of the committees. There tends to be a few people who participate on many committees. It might also be possible to have committee meetings at a different time of day, allowing some people with work conflicts to participate. The Pat Figueroa scholarships will be taken over by the youth leadership subcommittee, and will no longer be the responsibility of the outreach committee, which will now be the monitoring and evaluation committee. There will be a specific committee assigned to evaluation at year end, and that will be the monitoring and evaluation committee. The council will also make an effort to look outside of the council for committee members, particularly for the development committee. Lindsey volunteered to join the recruitment committee. Aaron volunteered for the Public Policy committee. Sue Hoger volunteered for the personnel committee.

The finance committee could benefit from more members, because two of the members left in December. Aileen and Aaron both volunteered for the finance committee. The focus of the Development committee will be the IL Disability Hall of Fame event in the spring of 2018.

There was a discussion around the State Employee Federated Appeal, but Brad informed the council that as of right now, NYSILC has not been accepted into that system. Doug informed the council that the reason they are not being accepted is that the council is funded by a single source contract.

Helen Fang volunteered for the database workgroup, and Crystal Rivera volunteered for the youth leadership subcommittee.

Brad discussed Alan Krieger and his advice that the council always needs to be improving their participation. The possibility of holding conference calls at other than normal business hours was also discussed. Marc and Sue Hoger agreed that more flexibility may be necessary to encourage greater committee participation. It was reiterated that non-council members are usually welcome on the committees. Sue Ruff and Daniel also participated in the discussion of the logistics of the committees. Brad will work toward creating a calendar for each of the committees.

ACCES-VR SRC: Lindsay Miller: The focus of the SRC has been on WIOA implementation. Most of what Lindsay said was unintelligible because of a faulty microphone.

ACCES-VR, Brad Williams for Bob Gumson: Bob is currently on vacation, but he will give updates when he returns.

Doug asked if the elderly blind program that was under IL still part of IL services. Brad is in a group that is reviewing the new SPIL template, and they are covering that question. Lindsey reported that the SRC has been overwhelming supportive of the peer support program in independent living.

New York State Commission on the Blind, Cliff Perez: Cliff didn’t have any information specifically related to the commission on the blind, except that they are still working on pushing for a high school equivalency exam that is accessible to the blind. He also spoke of his role on an HIV advisory body, where they are working to help people understand that HIV is a disability, and to connect those people to the larger disability community. Sue Hoger suggested that Michael Prentiss from ARISE and ATI can help with connect the HIV community with the disability community. Zach shared that he works with the AIDS Institute, and could introduce Cliff to people who could help with that issue.

SPIL Committee Report, Brad Williams: The SPIL Committee minutes reflect the SPIL evaluation with Alan Krieger. Otherwise, it is not an active time in the SPIL cycle.

Consumer Satisfaction, Brad Williams: Brad gave an overview of the process and methodology of the consumer satisfaction survey. One center has already completed their survey obligation. The survey is due to be finished by the end of May. Aaron added that the addition of Survey Monkey has been a positive addition to the survey at ATI Cortland. Sue Hoger added that the process has also been smooth for her center. Aileen added that many families refused to communicate with the Department of Education because of difficulty they’ve had getting services for their children. Crystal Rivera and Marc agreed that this happens.

Public Policy, Brad Williams:The three-year public policy agenda was addressed and discussed. We will need to look at bill numbers and content. Reformatting the agenda was also discussed, and will be discussed further at the next committee meeting. The SSAN quarterly report for October – December is in the separate attached SPIL monitoring document.

Youth Leadership, Zach Garafalo: Zach talked about making sure that youth are represented across the NYSILC committees, and in the centers. They are also promoting active and informed citizenship. Zach attended the Democratic National Committee on Disability council meeting in Georgia. This was a valuable leadership development opportunity. The DNC Disability Community is not reflective of the greater disability community. Zach also discussed the recent “Day of Mourning” to recognize the problem of disabled people being killed by their caregivers. The NCIL conference is coming up in July, and the youth committee will be discussing who will attend and the fundraising to make attendance possible.

Emergency Preparedness, Sue Ruff: Sue explained that this is a good time to get involved with emergency preparedness, and many people are coming out to get involved. Monday March 20th there is a large emergency preparedness conference at STIC in Binghamton. It’s an opportunities for stakeholders to weigh-in on Dave Whalen’s materials. Sue recognized the work of Shirley Madewell of the Department of Health, and her great work with people with disabilities and disaster preparedness.

Development, Brad Williams: The staff has been working on the IL Disability Hall of Fame event. It will take place at the Troy Hilton Garden Inn. Availability and cost were big factors in why the committee chose this location. It will be May 3-4, 2018, with the full council meeting on May 4th. WE need to develop promotional materials and a subcommittee, on working on the event, and one working on the fundraising aspect. Edith objected to the choice of the Hilton Garden Inn on the basis of the lack of accessibility and the food choices available at the hotel. The council discussed these issues at some length.

Database Workgroup, Brad Williams: The workgroup has been working with Ken Dibble. Ken pulled together a side by side comparison for the ACCES-VR reporting requirements vs. the 21st Century Group data fields. The group decided on the 21st Century Data Group’s recommendations. Some of the items relate to each other, but some were more streamlined. Some of them gave enhanced information. Brad will relate this decision to ACCES-VR. Brad is making edits to the timeline milestones and cost for the two year project and making sure they fit within the necessary timeframe. He is still trying to work out the specifics of costs with the vendor. Brad will have to amend the NYSILC contract for the cost of this work, and that amendment will have to go to ACCES-VR for approval.

Recruitment, Brad Williams: In April or May we will have the first recruitment meeting with projected vacancies. There will be a notice of solicitation and we will do recruitment.

Outreach, Brad Williams: This is related to monitoring and evaluation. The outreach committee is being changed into monitoring and evaluation because of the WIOA changes to the disability laws. It also changed uniform grant guidance related to those laws. The Commission for the Blind is no longer a state plan partner, and ACCES-VR is playing an administrative role, which leaves monitoring to us in order to comply with uniform grant guidance.

Lunch

After lunch Cliff discussed looking into the new hotels that are springing up around the new casino in Schenectady possible locations for full council meetings or the Disability Hall of Fame event.

Leadership Development and Civic Engagement Program Update, Brad Williams: The content of the website is currently under construction, and help from council members is needed to build the site in several areas including life skills, economic self-sufficiency, and civic engagement. Brad gave a presentation that including a preview and tour of the new website, along with an explanation of the objective of the Leadership Development Civic Engagement Program.

The LDCEP, along with helping to increase civic engagement, local outreach, and access to information about opportunities to take action on important social issues, can also be an opportunity to highlight some of those peers who are doing important work. Members of the council requested access to the staging link for the website, on the condition that they understand that it is confidential and not to be shared with anyone else. This will give members time to look at the website more carefully.

Help is needed from the members of the council, and Brad requested they use their expertise on various topics such as boards, emergency preparedness, voting, economic self-sufficiency, life skills, self-care, and anything that can help get people more engaged in their communities. We are trying to get the resource pages done by the end of April. The website will utilize the Action Network for action alerts.

Because the website is under construction, it does not yet meet accessibility standards. That will be a priority once the content is set. The employment link and much of the work for those links from Helen was missing from the site today, but Brad will make sure it is put back on the site for council members to review.

The media group ADG is a new vendor working on the social media for the LDCEP. They have helped with the logo, redesigning and updating the NYSILC website, and developing social media for LDCEP. The redesign of the NYSILC website will be consistent with the new LDCEP website. Brad displayed the newly updated NYSILC website that is currently under construction.

Sue Ruff shared extensively some ideas and suggestions about people who could help and lend their expertise to the LDCEP website.

Meeting Adjourned.