Statewide Independent Living Council meeting
Thursday January 17, 2008
The meeting was called to order at 9 AM. A break was called while we waited for a quorum to hold the meeting.
The minutes were changed to reflect that Kristie Braaten seconded the motion to accept the website bid from CPWD (p.18). On page 20 the minutes were changed to show that Kristie Braaten made the motion to approve the Training and Technical Assistance Program and Amy Allred seconded the motion. Bill Aceves moved to accept the November minutes as corrected and Kristie Braaten seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.
Faith requested some standing agenda items No formal report Judy began her report by mentioning that the per diem rate for Colorado Springs was $44 and that the State’s mileage reimbursement rate is now 46 cents a mile for two wheel drive vehicles and 48 cents for four wheel drive vehicles. She then reported that she had very recently received notice that the Human Services Board would take any changes to the IL Rules at their March meeting. She is cleaning up pieces of the rules, eliminating references to programs that no longer exist, and she hopes to make the Colorado Independent Living Core Services (CILCS) reimbursements reflect all core services. The current “head count” invoicing is not consistent with the ACCIL’s billing agreement, and does not take into account systems advocacy or group services.
She indicated that she would be sending out the proposed changes to SILC and ACCIL members for review before submitting to the Human Services Board. Patricia asked about the process for future changes and Judy indicated that we can do it anytime, but the Human Service Board only reviewed changes every six months.
Judy announced that she will be working with the CIL directors in February to schedule Center reviews for certification that are left to do. Six Centers are to be reviewed for recertification this year. She asked for any SILC members who are interested in participating to call or email her. The reviews typically involve an overnight. DVR will pay for travel and per diem costs for one member to participate. Faith has participated in the last three but the experience really gives one an understanding of the work of CILs so other members are invited to get involved.
Because the SILC is charged with overseeing the IL network and working to ensure that IL services are being provided statewide, Judy informed the members that one CIL has been asked to provide a plan of corrective action. The Center is out of compliance with the requirement that a majority of staff and board must be people with disabilities. The center director has been opposed to asking her board members whether they have a disability, citing the stigma of disability.
There have been a number of email communications that were disappointing and not responsive to Judy’s attempt to resolve the issue without requiring a formal corrective action. Judy indicated that she did have a positive discussion with the board chair and was hopeful that the plan would be forthcoming. The deadline is February 8th. She discussed the consequences of not submitting a plan which included withdrawal of funding and decertification for non-compliance with state and federal law. A discussion ensued about how that community would be served if the center was decertified. The options of creating a satellite of an existing CIL or sending out a Request for Proposal to fund a new center lead to a conversation about formalizing the criteria necessary to create a new CIL,. This subject had been raised in an earlier discussion between DVR and RSA.
There was quite a bit of discussion and members asked who the Center was. That was disclosed in the meeting. Members expressed dismay at the position that seemed to be taken by the director but were reminded that this is a board issue and must be resolved by both the board and the director. Judy indicated that the quarterly 704 report detailing IL services across the state was on the table for distribution. The question was raised to the CIL directors at the meeting concerning reporting IL services broken out by Center. The quarterly snapshot did not provide a good picture of the work that Centers were doing.
It was recommended that a meeting of SILC members, DVR and ACCIL be scheduled to talk about this in more detail. The purpose is not to criticize the Centers but to see where there are gaps in services. Kristie thanked Judy for putting together a budget format that seemed to work for everyone. The December 2007 Financial Report was distributed to everyone. For each line item in the SILC budget, there was the budgeted amount, December’s expense, the Year to Date expense, the balance left over and the percentage spent. Given that we know that 50% of the year has passed, it made it easy to see where we were on each line item. A good discussion on how to spend potentially left over funds was held. The SILC Day Recruitment project was presented here and the council approved the project by moving funds to support it.
Kristie moved that $1000 be moved from professional services to travel for a SILC member to go to any CIL’s SILC Day activity, In addition, a new sub line item would be created under Operating for SILC Recruitment Advertising and $550 from the Operating line item would be dedicated to that activity. Georgeanna Chapman seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. Committee Reports No report –does not meet until mid February Kristie indicated that it had not met while she was transitioning from Denver to Grand Junction. She and Patricia had made a list of bylaw issues to address later in the meeting. Membership This item took quite a bit of time on the agenda.
Each member was asked to “name names” of individuals and agencies that they had contacted regarding SILC membership recruitment. A number of people had declined due to other commitments. Faith mentioned that Nancy Smith, DVR director had sent out an email to all the VR offices per our request and using our letter. Judy reported that RSA indicated that since people with disabilities were more likely to be living in populated areas, it was ok to have an over representation from the cities. Patricia reported that she had met with ACCIL by telephone to ask for their assistance and to explain the proposed SILC Day recruitment effort.
Some of the Centers were sympathetic but were facing their own board member shortage. They preferred to concentrate on building their own boards, while recognizing that SILC membership was important too. Patricia suggested to the CILs that they consider a Leadership Opportunity day where information could be presented on both Center Board and SILC membership needs.
This is going to take a concentrated personal effort by everyone to find representatives from the North, Eastern Plains, South and Mountain areas of the state. We are looking for representation from the communities of mental health consumers, visually impaired, hearing impaired, and learning disabilities. Also we need representation from all communities of color and the Native American VR program. not established yet
No meeting Patricia reported that the first meeting in January did not have a quorum so another meeting was set up and held. The Executive Committee agreed to recommend the SILC website contract for approval to the SILC. Larry Williams presented the SILC Day activity as a way to recruit for new members and it was recommended for approval, pending Patricia’s writing of the proposal. Membership issues were discussed extensively. Kristie also presented the by laws items to be discussed with the SILC and the full SILC member agenda was approved.
Larry was unable to attend the last meeting. Linda reported that the ACCIL had met the day before the SILC meeting and among other things, discussed the training funds RFP. She indicated that a two day Systems Change training was being planned for the second week of May. ACCIL intended to apply for some of the SILC training dollars for that event and would be putting a request for bid out for trainers. She indicated that the Durango Center wanted $1000 to get Community Transition Services training for their staff and that 3-4 Centers who were using the same data base services software were planning to apply for training for their staff members collectively.
Linda also talked about an effort to define services so that all the Centers could count and report the same activities for better data. This is a project that the Centers would like to undertake. There was discussion about the failure of Rehabilitation Services Administration (RSA) to make any progress on definitions. This left the states in the position of defining things in 50 different ways. Involving SILC and DVR could be helpful and a good collaboration. The last item Linda reported on was the JBC request for funding that ACCIL was going to make. Members of the JBC have encouraged ACCIL to ask for an additional $100,000 or $10,000 per center. The SILC will be asked for a letter of support. Patricia indicated that she met with Julie Reiskin, Executive Director of the Colorado Cross-Disability Coalition last week to talk about recruiting new members. They also talked about the SILC Public Policy Committee’s role and purpose. Julie was very pleased to hear what the SILC was doing and agreed that we should work together. Patricia is sending her a recruitment letter and some brochures.
The rest of Patricia’s report would be given through items on the agenda.
During the break, pictures of the SILC members were taken and Patricia asked that those who preferred to use their own pictures to send them to her electronically as soon as possible. We also need a short bio on each person (Patricia will put out the template later this week). The pictures and bios will be put up on the SILC’s website. Hopefully, the site will be up sometime in March. Old Business Patricia has met with Tim Wheat and David Bolin about the SILC website. Tim has a prototype that he shared with Patricia and she was pleased with it. A number of features were discussed including giving SILC members a SILC email address that would be re-directed to their home/alternate email. The format would be firstname@coloradosilc.org.
Patricia has asked the ACCIL members for digital pictures to use on the website. Linda and Terrance agreed to send her the catchment areas for each CIL so that the Center contact page can tell people which Center serves them along with contact info for that center.
Patricia sent the SILC members a copy of the draft contract with CPWD that shall serve as our contract. It was reviewed. Pat made the motion that the contract be approved. Terrance seconded the motion and it passed unanimously. In Debbie Petersen’s absence, Patricia and Judy explained that they had had a meeting with the winning designer for the SILC logo. She is a sophomore in high school in Broomfield. Judy was pleased that she was able to listen to our feedback and generate more logos. Currently the student is putting together a proposal for designing the logo that will include a cost. Hopefully, after the back to school chaos quiets down we will have more meetings and drafts to look at. The best of these may come to the SILC electronically as the website is waiting for our colors and would like to have the logo before launching sometime in March.
Judy reported that the state would not reimburse for gift cards, so Debbie was stuck with paying for the $100.00 worth of gift cards that we used for the Logo competition. Faith asked that anyone who could contribute a few dollars to help defray the costs should see Patricia. (Note to minutes: $90 was raised from everyone who attended, which left $10 for Deb. A check was mailed to her 1/22/09.) New Business Faith announced that the SILC Congress had put out a survey asking about each SILC’s compliance with the SILC standards. She had asked Patricia to fill it out (electronically) for Colorado, which she did. Results will be reported at the upcoming conference.
Judy, Faith and Georgeanna leave next week to attend the SILC Congress in New Orleans. Each SILC has been asked to bring a state themed basket to be used for door prizes. Terrance made the motion to approve spending up to $110 for the basket and shipping. Pat seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. Faith received an email from someone on the East Coast who is coordinating a national event, Disability History Week. She is contacting various disability groups, including the SILC in every state. Her goal is to have as many states as possible set up a disability history week during the month of October (National Disability Awareness month). More information can be found at www.disabilityhistoryweek.org. If such a designation is made, schools and other groups can create events that highlight local and national disability history. This is a way to increase disability awareness locally. It will require a state legislative resolution or bill, probably in 2009. Pat mentioned that Denver International Airport has a wonderful exhibit space along concourse A that can be reserved for a disability history exhibit. Public comments The floor is open to anyone who wishes to address the SILC about IL issues whether they are on the agenda or not. Sign Language interpreter is available Public Comment Vicki Skoog, Executive Director for the Colorado Springs CIL welcomed everyone to Colorado Springs and reminded them of the tour at the center after the meeting adjourned. She also asked if there were ways that the Centers and the SILC could work together. Getting agendas and minutes would help. She wondered if the SILC would like to get the ACCIL minutes. Patricia mentioned that soon the agendas and minutes would be available on the SILC website but that sending out things could certainly be done.
Nancy Hunt, staff member from the Colorado Springs CIL spoke in favor of the disability history week as it would really help youth with disabilities to understand the movement. She also spoke to the need for a youth leadership committee. Nancy asked for training for CIL staff on working with mental health consumers as this population increasingly accesses CIL services.
Joyce Deering, also from the Springs CIL presented information on GASP, a coalition working to outlaw smoking in homes and apartments. She distributed literature. This provoked some discussion from members who felt this was an example of government reaching too far into the personal lives of citizens. The Council declined to take a position on the issue.
Patricia began by outlining her vision of the Public Policy committee. Since the SILC is located within DVR, within state government, it is appropriate for its advocacy to focus on Government policy makers from the inside. To that end, the SILC would probably do letters educating those policy makers about specific disability issues and speaking in public about its recommendations. She is looking for a chair for the Public Policy committee. It will meet once a month, unless something comes up and work with Patricia on identifying issues and writing letters. ACCIL has subscribed to a state bill tracking service which Beth Danielson, Connections for Independent Living in Greeley will have access. She has agreed to share it with Patricia and the SILC. Patricia indicated that she felt the SILC and ACCIL would work together on the issues, although we might not agree on some.
The bills that are up for consideration include a renters rights bill (which includes habitability standards for rentals), $100,000 increase in funding for the Centers as a whole, voting access, and a pay differential for personal care providers who work the 7 PM to 7AM shift as well as holidays. Faith mentioned that Julie Farr is working for SEIU around unionizing the Personal Care Assistants (PCAs) in Colorado (this is happening around the country and is controversial). Julie has for time on the SILC agenda-she will be presenting at our March meeting. An education issue was brought up from the floor. It was suggested that we send a letter to Governor Ritter to ask him to include holding students with disabilities accountable during statewide testing in schools and to emphasize the importance of accessible, appropriate education for students with disabilities who are often left behind. By-Laws discussion was postponed until March. Faith provided the members with a history of the voting machine access issue in Colorado over the past several years. In addition there are many issues with counties having accessible polling places. She indicated that they have yet to do any polling site surveys in El Paso county. Because of all of the security issues and a small group of people’s fearful of electronic machines, the Secretary of State re-examined those machines. He then decertified most of the machines in use in Colorado and has gone to the Legislature to ask for authority to re-test the machines after the vendors have fixed the issues. However, the timeline for getting ready for the Presidential election may be too short for this to occur, leaving the County Election Clerks without many choices on conducting that election.
The reason this is so important to voters with disabilities is that the electronic machines allowed many to vote independently and privately for the first time in their lives. Now those machines are being de-certified. The federal Help America Vote Act requires that all voting places have at least one accessible machine that allows individuals to read, vote and cast their ballot privately and independently. Paper ballots or mail in ballots do not meet that standard. There is some talk of using the Automark as an accessible ballot marking device and having everyone (whether they use the machine or not) hand their ballot to the election judge so that everyone casts their ballot in the same way. There is some concern about the safety of any electronic vote counting machine. The paper ballot folks would like to see paper ballots cast at local precincts and hand counted at the precincts. That would take a great deal of time and human counting has been proven to be unreliable after a certain number.
Faith asked that the SILC pay attention to this issue and come out to hearings when asked. This was an abbreviated presentation of Judy’s SILC Congress Presentation. Pat Going presented a handout on the ADA Restoration Act. The meeting adjourned at 3:00 so that SILC members could visit the Colorado Springs Center for Independence.