FIRST 5 LA
SUMMARY MEETING NOTES
Special Meeting of the Executive Committee
April 7, 2016
Approved 04/28/2016
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
SUMMARY MEETING NOTES – April 7, 2016– PAGE 1
COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT:
Judy Abdo (Chair)
Nancy Au (Vice Chair)
Duane Dennis
Christopher Thompson
RECORDING SECRETARY:
Linda Vo, Executive Assistant
LEGAL COUNSEL:
Craig Steele
STAFF PRESENT:
Peter Barth, Director
Policy and Intergovernmental Affairs
Kim Belshé, Executive Director
Stacy Lee, Director
Director of Strategic Planning and Integration
John Wagner, Chief Operating Officer
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
SUMMARY MEETING NOTES – April 7, 2016– PAGE 1
1. Call to Order/Roll Call
The meeting was called to order by Committee Chair Abdo at 10:03 am. Committee Chair Abdo welcomed everyone in attendance. Roll call was completed.
2. Review of Executive Committee Meeting Notes – March 3, 2016
The notes were received and filed with no deletions, additions, and/or changes.
3. Standing Updates
1. Review of Annual Operating Budget
2. Annual Audit
3. Review of Annual Report to the State Commission
4. Fiscal
5. Contract Compliance
6. Quality Assurance
7. Evaluation
8. Policy and Advocacy – Alternative Revenues
9. Personnel and Compensation
Mr. Wagner briefly informed the Committee that there will be a few policies around the budget that will be coming forth before the Committee for their review and approval. One of them will be on approving an annual budget instead of a biennial budget.
Commissioner Dennis wanted to make sure that the Commission is reminded of the action that was taken two years ago so that they can have the proper context of the item that will be brought forth for action at a future Commission meeting. In addition, Commissioner Dennis suggested providing Commissioners with a timeline of when these policies will be brought forth so that Commissioners can fully understand the process that is being taken on these policies.
Mr. Wagner said that staff will provide the Commission with this timeline and offer on an as needed basis briefings on why we are proposing going from a biennial budget to an annual budget.
3.8 Policy and Advocacy – Alternative Revenues
Mr. Barth reminded the Committee that staff had a meeting with Margaret Brodkin who was the lead in creating a local dedicated Children’s fund.
He also reminded the Committee of some of the important activities that need to be identified before proceeding forward with creating a dedicated local children’s fund. These included the following:
1. Do you know what services are needed in your community?
2. What services are currently being provided?
3. What gaps there are in services?
4. Do we know where the money is coming from to fund these services and where more money is needed?
Commissioner Au wanted to know how staff plans to identify how we will proceed with these efforts.
Ms. Belshé said there are two pieces: Mapping the work and ensuring that we reflect what has been done with previous efforts of the Children’s planning council.
Commissioner Dennis said he currently is a consultant with the Office of Child Care, who is the local planning council. One of the things that they are mandated to do is a needs assessment. However, they don’t have the resources to do this assessment: i.e. Number of head starts, etc. Commissioner Dennis said that there may be some opportunity for First 5 LA to partner with the Office of Child Care to conduct this needs assessment. He would like staff to connect with them to see what is possible.
Commissioner Dennis said that a Political Asset map is also important.
Ms. Belshé said that it is important for First 5 LA to demonstrate what we can bring to the table before meeting with Legislators in order to have more impact with what we are trying to do. For instance, First 5 Orange County determined that a large portion of their money was going to physicians and because they had a board member who is also a part of the medical society, they deployed the Orange County medical society leadership who had relationships with legislators in Orange County to help advance their efforts. So it’s not only about working with those organizations that support children’s issues but also about engaging others who are connected to us in some way who also have strong relationships with Legislators. It is an opportunity for us to be more strategic in building relationships with others so that we can leverage them in moving our goals.
Commissioner Dennis also said that staff needs to be more specific with the data that it presents to Legislators around children’s issues that impact that particular person’s area. By Congressional district, Senatorial district, etc. Know the political boundaries and how many dollars go into each district that shows the gaps in services.
Ms. Belshé said that’s exactly the work that the Advancement Project does as they get down to the zip code in presenting data.
Commissioner Au said that it is important to follow the mental health initiative that was passed and spearheaded by Darrell Steinberg and used as an example on how we should proceed forward. She reminds the Committee that it passed because it was in partnership with a Legislative person as well as with advocates on the ground so there wasn’t as much push back from the other legislators as a result of this partnership.
Commissioner Abdo wanted to know who would have the depth of understanding of all of the broad work that this would involve.
Mr. Barth indicated that this is why it is important to hire the right staff person who would be able to dedicate him/herself to this very area. Ultimately, this person would work in alignment with others to help pull this all together.
Commissioner Abdo was concerned with the data analysis. She indicated that there has to be a special group that can crunch the data in different ways that would be useful to different groups. She gives an example of a survey that was conducted in Santa Monica. The right questions were not asked so the right data was not retrieved from this survey.
Ms. Belshé said this is why Advancement Project is great for something like this. Their data is very granular and they have the ability to move work forward with elected officials. All in all, they are the right organization for this type of data analysis.
Commissioner Dennis recommended that staff working with Jacquelyn McCroskey from Children’s Data Network since she is already working on something that could be useful to First 5 LA.
Mr. Wagner commented that there could be some alignment with the work of the Office of Child Protection, as they have approached the Advancement Project on working with data as well that could inform their work.
4. Governance Guidelines: Implementation of Sustainability and Leveraging
Ms. Belshé said that one of the primary reasons of why staff is bringing this item before the Executive Committee is because First 5 LA acknowledges that there have been some grappling with what exactly is the definition of leveraging. By bringing it before the Committee today, staff hopes to get some direction and guidance on how to proceed forward with implementing sustainability and leveraging as it applies to grantmaking.
Ms. Lee went through a brief presentation First 5 LA is applying sustainability and leveraging to its work. She reminds the Committee that the Governance Guidelines were approved back in March 2014. Guideline #5: Sustainability and Guideline #6: Leveraging are related to implementation of the Strategic Plan have been used as guidelines for internal policies for all future grantmaking. She also reminds the Committee that the Governance Guidelines Internal Implementation Project was shared at the September 2015 Program and Planning Committee.
Ms. Lee went through how sustainability and leveraging are outlined in the Governance Guidelines:
Guideline #5:
All solicitations and Strategic Partnerships distributing grant funds and released as part of the Strategic Plan 2015-2020 will include a section detailing the outcomes and objectives that are expected as a result of First 5 LA funding.
Guideline #6:
All solicitations and Strategic Partnerships distributing grant funds and released as part of the Strategic Plan 2015-2020 will include a section detailing the existing funding landscape and leveraging range that could be expected throughout the funding period.
Ms. Lee said that there are exceptions to these definitions:
· Strategic Partnerships releasing funds for good or services for the primary benefit of First 5 LA (e.g., vendors, consultants, etc.)
· Strategic Partnerships releasing grant funds under $75,000, with approval from Executive Director.
Ms. Lee said that staff is already incorporating sustainability and leveraging in its memos and presentations that are being brought forth before the Commission so that the Commission can be reminded that First 5 LA is being intentional in applying the governance guidelines in our work.
Commissioner Dennis commented that the current definition of leveraging is very narrow. He would like to spend a little more time on the leveraging component of the governance Guidelines, given he is comfortable with the sustainability part of it. Commissioner Dennis said that if First 5 LA only focuses on the financial part of whether an organization can financially bring something to the table in order to get funding from First 5 LA, then we could be missing out on some important human capital.
Ms. Belshé said that the point of the leveraging component is to ensure that organizations do not look to First 5 LA to sustain their programs long term, which is what has been done in the past.
Commissioner Dennis doesn’t think that it is in First 5 LA’s interest to not look at human capital to be just as important as capital, especially since First 5 LA is so vested in placed based initiatives. However, he agrees that he doesn’t want organizations to think First 5 LA is the go to in order to sustain their programs.
Commissioner Abdo said that Commissioner Dennis’ point is important when thinking about younger organizations. These organizations may have some great ideas and connections yet not have the internal capacity to look that far into the future to move their work. However, this doesn’t mean that we should pass on funding an organization such as this.
Ms. Lee said that staff is really trying to get organizations to understand that it is not First 5 LA’s responsibility to sustain a program after the funding period has ended. It is not the intention of staff to leave out smaller organizations that have great human capital and ideas but to ensure that organizations take responsibility for carrying on their programs.
Commissioner Dennis said that he would like staff to reconsider changing the definition of leveraging so that it is not so narrow and instead also focus on the importance of human capital.
Commissioner Au said that leveraging has to be defined beyond the fiscal part since it is also social capital that plays an important role in sustaining programs.
It was agreed by the Committee that additional staff work needs to be done on defining leveraging so that it is not so narrow allow room for human capital to be considered to be just as important as the fiscal component of it.
There is no further discussion on this item.
5. Evaluation – Board Survey Regarding Information and Communications
Ms. Vo presented a draft of the findings that resulted from the Board Communication survey that was sent out on March 18. The objective of the survey is to ensure staff is communicating with the Commissioners in a manner that supports its role as our governing Board. As of April 7, a total of 15 (79%) Commissioners had completed the survey. She noted that two of the three Commissioners who did not complete the survey included one on maternity leave and another who had just retired about a week prior. It is also important to note that not all questions were answered by all respondents.
As a reminder to the Committee members, Ms. Vo informed the Committee that the survey contained 29 statements regarding Board communication. Commissioners were asked to answer each one and to indicate to what extent they agreed or disagreed, unless specified otherwise. For each statement, Commissioners also had the opportunity to comment and responses were recorded anonymously.
She covered the following key areas that Commissioners were queried on:
1. Board and Committee meetings materials
2. First 5 LA Website
3. Board and Committee meetings
4. Board Learning Development
5. New Board Orientation (For those Commissioners appointed after August 2013)
6. Method and frequency of Communication
7. Administration and Staff Support
Meeting materials
Over all, Commissioners agree that the current mechanisms around communication are very useful (e.g. memos, PowerPoints, Executive Director’s highlights). There were some comments that these items at times, were too lengthy.
First 5 LA Website
Almost three quarters of the Commission use the First 5 LA website to access Commission and Committee meeting materials. However, less than half of the Commissioners used the website to access other materials such as bylaws, commissioner info, and governance guidelines. A few Commissioners commented that the website is not as intuitive or easy to navigate, which could explain why 93% of Commissioners agreed that they would use a separate Commissioner portal if one were provided and easy to navigate.
Board and Committee meetings
About 78% of Commissioners agreed the length of meetings is sufficient to ensure effective governance. 86% of respondents also agreed that Committee meetings helped Commissioners prepare for discussion at a future Board Meeting. And if given the opportunity to attend other Committee meetings that Commissioners are not assigned to, only 42% agreed that they would attend.
Board Learning Development
93% of Commissioners agreed that it is important for First 5 LA to allocate time for Board learning and development that would strengthen and deepen Commissioners’ understanding of the early childhood development field and the work of First 5 LA. They prefer to these learning opportunities to be offered at Board meetings and on an as needed basis or quarterly. Commissioners also revealed that they would like to learn most about the following three topics: Policy and Advocacy; Health-Related Systems, and Early Care and Education Systems