Creating Policy and System Change
for Independent Living
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State Plan for Independent Living (SPIL) Meeting
January 30, 2017
DRAFT Minutes
Tasks for January 30, 2017 Meeting:
 Add discussion of non-profit creation in a way that is open and transparent to
the Independent Living Network to the next Executive Committee Agenda.
 Invite Ms. Blye to the March SILC meeting to discuss the successes and
challenges of her fund development work for the Independent Living Network
in Texas.
 Ms. Pazdral will put together a draft SPIL progress report and distribute it for
review and comments.
 A fund development and non-profit creation workgroup will be created, and
will report to the SPIL committee as a standing agenda item.
 Ms. Pazdral will take the discussed items and create a draft of the Committee
Work Plan Rubric for review of the committee.
 The next SPIL meeting will be held at 10:00 AM on Friday, February 24, 2017.
Ms. Hess will send out calendar reminders to all committee members.
1. Call to Order
2. Introductions
Jacqueline Jackson – SPIL Chair
Linda Schaedle – SILC Chair
Betsey Foote – SPIL Member
Jimmie Soto – SPIL Member
Fiona Hinze – SPIL Member
Norma Vescovo – Executive Director, Independent Living Center of Southern
California (ILCSC)
Liz Pazdral – SILC Staff
Danielle Hess – SILC Staff
3. Public Comment
None
4. Review and approve minutes from the November and December Committee
meetings.
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DRAFT Minutes
Page 2
Ms. Hinze motioned to approve the November minutes as presented, Ms. Foote
seconded. The motion passed with two abstentions.
Ms. Hinze motioned to approve the December minutes as presented, Ms. Foote
seconded. The motion passed with one abstention.
5. 2014-2016 SPIL = 704 Report work.
Ms. Pazdral reported that the 704 report has been completed an signed by Ms.
Schaedle. This has been sent to the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR), and is
going through their internal approval processes. This report includes information
on how the independent living network spent the Social Security Program
Income funds that were provided by DOR. The system has not been set up to
submit the report to the Administration on Community Living (ACL) yet, but this
will happen shortly. It is currently Ms. Pazdral’s understanding that DOR will
enter all of the report information, but she will follow up with them to verify that
that is still the plan.
6. 2017-2019 SPIL
a. Inviting speakers to present about the partnerships that are possible between
ILCs and Regional Center.
Ms. Pazdral reported that on the last SPIL call, Rudy Contreras was invited to
speak at the March SILC meeting about the partnership he has worked on
with his local Regional Center. Ms. Vescovo reported on some of the
difficulties her center has with getting vendorized and working with their local
Regional Center. Ms. Jackson reported that vendorization had been very
lucrative in San Diego, and that the presentation is a way to present the
centers with another possible option.
b. Update on Request Letter to DOR.
i. Detail on use of Title VII B funds by ILATS.
This letter has not been written yet, but Ms. Pazdral does have some
information on the use of VIIB funds.
c. Any new information on the Request for Application?
The Request for Application (RFA) for the System’s Change Grant has been
developed and was released on January 19, 2017. The notice to award is
expected to go out in March 1, with a start date of April 1. Ms. Pazdral is
advocating for a SILC member to be on the panel to evaluate the applications,
with the SILC paying all of their travel costs.
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DRAFT Minutes
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DOR is continuing work on drafting the Youth Project RFA. This is more
involved, because there is not a template of a past period’s RFA to work from.
This is going to have a lot of detail, and they want to make sure to do a good
job. DOR is deciding how long is appropriate to work to get feedback on the
RFA draft.
d. Deinstitutional transition fund use.
Mr. Duron of DOR wrote some notes. As of January 12, 2017, $93,752 have
been encumbered by 4 centers. $7,389.03 in transition funds have been paid
out, with 31 transitions being initiated and 4 having been successfully
completed.
7. Ways the SILC can bring funding and tools into the Independent Living network.
a. Research on the creation of a Non-Profit to be associated with the SILC.
Ms. Pazdral reported that the SILC has purchased the NOLO Press book on
how to form a non-profit in California. This purchase included access to all of
the needed forms. Policy Consultant Bob Hand has agreed to work on this
project, and Ms. Pazdral has spoken with the Commission on Aging, which has
started their own non-profit.
The SILC has one again been denied the ability to separate accounting
functions from DGS. A parallel non-profit would be helpful in administering
fund that do not come from the VIIB grant. Mr. Soto asked if there are other
SILCs who do this. Ms. Pazdral responded that there are many different ways
that SILCs around the country are structured. About half are non-profits, the
others are some kind of government body. The Rehabilitation Act states that
a SILC can’t be part of another agency, and the Workforce Innovation and
Opportunities Act (WIOA) has changed the guidelines enough that some
SILCs are needing to restructure. The California SILC is the only one she
knows of that is an independent state agency. Right now, the discussion is
around setting up a parallel non-profit, and not separating entirely from state
government. Mr. Hand has asked for people to volunteer to work with him on
this, and Ms. Jackson agreed to assist.
Ms. Vescovo brought up the concern about perception, and that it is very
important to communicate with the ILCs about this. The SILC will need to
consider what the responsibility of the non-profit is in relation to the centers,
and who the centers could go to if they are having problems with the nonprofit. Centers will likely be concerned about competing with the SILC nonprofit for limited funding sources. It is important to work all of these problems
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out in advance and get the input of the centers, so it can be a very clean and
transparent process.
Ms. Jackson agreed that it is important to approach this systematically and
clarify everything up front. For instance, there are several types of nonprofits, some of which can’t take money or apply for grants. The goal is for
this to benefit both the centers and the SILC, not compete with or replace the
centers in any way.
It was agreed that this matter should be brought up at the next Executive
committee meeting.
b. Invite representatives of SILCs from other states to present on their fund
development strategies.
Ms. Pazdral has received a few responses from other SILCs who have been
successful in increasing funding for the Independent Living Network in their
state. One is Regina Blye, who had been the Executive Director in Texas and
is now working at the ACL, who worked with redistributing grants. This
approach worked at first, but ended up not being sustainable long term.
Another is Patricia Yeager in the Colorado Independent Living network, who
organized an advocacy campaign to get state general funds for the ILCs. This
approach can be difficult in California, because the Governor has line item
veto powers over the budget. Two other successes were an increased SILC
budget in Arkansas, and increased IL network funding in Arkansas which was
cut in the most recent Legislative Session.
Ms. Jackson asked about the capability to make these sessions happen by
Skype rather than providing travel costs, and Ms. Pazdral answered that it
depends on the capability of the conference center. Ms. Jackson
recommended that Ms. Blye be invited, because it is helpful to learn about
programs that ended up having less success, and she now has the
perspective from inside the ACL. The Committee reached consensus that Ms.
Blye should be invited to the March SILC meeting in Anaheim to present on
the successes and challenges of her fund development work.
c. Advocacy for separation from DGS for the accounting functions.
Ms. Pazdral had reported that the SILC has been denied permission to
separate accounting functions from the Department of General Service’s
Contracted Fiscal Services (DGS CFS) section. Ms. Schaedle asked about the
possibility of aligning our accounting for the state agency and the non-profit
under the non-profit, once it is created. Ms. Pazdral answered that as long as
the SILC is a state agency, it will need to receive accounting services from
another state agency. This year, the Department of Finance (DOF) is not
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letting any agencies leave DGS CFS. The SILC may be allowed to separate
from DGS in the next FY if there is another agency that is willing to take on
the accounting duties. Ms. Pazdral has communicated with the Department of
Social Services (DSS) and DOR, neither of which feel like they have the
capacity to take on the SILC’s accounting.
Mr. Soto asked about the cost of DGS CFS accounting to the SILC. Ms.
Pazdral reported that the contract amount this year is $92,000, ad next year
will increase to $116,000. This does not include any late or rush fees that the
SILC is required to pay because of their work. This number also does not
include the cost of staff time the SILC has to spend following up with them
and duplicating their work.
Ms. Vescovo suggested that for all-inclusive accounting services, this amount
may be comparable to the proportion of the budget that any agency would
spend on accounting services. She agreed to look into the proportion of the
budget that her center spends on all accounting functions.
Ms. Pazdral felt like the answer she has received form the DOF was very final
for this year. If it is the desire of the SILC to escalate this, it would definitely
have to move to a higher level. DOR submitted a letter of support with this
application which didn’t seem to change anything, but another possibility is
approaching ACL about supporting these efforts. The quarterly accounting
status meeting with DOR is scheduled on March 21, and the SILC could ask
for their feelings and suggestions, or any relationships they have with other
agencies which might be available to provide accounting services.
This item will be added to the quarterly meeting agenda, and Ms. Pazdral will
follow up with DOR for their suggestions at the March 21 meeting.
8. Committee work plan/Rubric (distributed with agenda)
Ms. Pazdral reviewed the recommended SPIL timeline provided by the SILC-NET,
and at the point in the cycle it is recommended that SILCs are working on a
consumer satisfaction survey, evaluating the performance of the last SPIL, and
monitoring performance of the current SPIL.
Ms. Jackson suggested that monitoring of the current SPIL should be the top
priority of the SPIL committee. Ms. Pazdral asked what this should look like, and
it was agreed that this should come in the form of verbal reports by DOR at the
monthly SPIL committee calls, and quarterly written reports to be included in the
materials book for the quarterly SILC meetings. Ms. Pazdral agreed to put
together draft report to see if it includes all of the information people are looking
for, and it can be worked on from there.
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Ms. Pazdral reviewed the purpose and history of the Consumer Satisfaction
Surveys. They are supposed to measure how people who are receiving
Independent Living services now feel about those services. The law states that
each center is supposed to complete these consumer satisfaction surveys. Ms.
Pazdral’s Predecessor attempted to standardize the reports that the centers use,
but this was rejected because the centers prefer to work with something that is
better customized for their center. These should be reported to the SILC, but not
many centers remember to do so. One option would be to ask all the centers for
their consumer satisfaction reports, and work with someone to create a
summary document.
There has been discussion about the creation of another SILC committee to take
on fund development and non-profit creation. Ms. Jackson believes that it should
be a sub-group, which would allow for a dedicated time for the work to be
completed. It was agreed that a workgroup will be created, and it will report
back to the SPIL committee every month as a standing agenda item. If there is
work that needs to be done moving forward to create a non-profit, it can be
changed to a full committee.
Ms. Pazdral agreed to take these discussed items and fill out a draft of the rubric
for committee review.
9. Summary of activities requiring follow-up at next meeting
a. Next meeting - Monday, February 20, 2017 is a holiday.
Ms. Pazdral recommends that the meeting is not moved up much sooner, to
allow for time to prepare the documents and send out required notifications.
It was agreed that the meeting would be changed to 10:00 AM on Friday,
February 24, 2017. Ms. Hess will create and send out the calendar invite.
10. Adjourn
11:40