Executive Directors Report Tony Anderson Executive

Organizational & Professional Development (page 2) I met with Mary Sheehan our Clinical Director etc, and others as part of our ongoing transition planning for when Mary retires. This was a very productive meeting.
I attended the DDS audit review meeting with our fiscal team to close out the most recent audit for 2016. It was an excellent review and the findings while minor have been resolved to a satisfactory level. The new audit will start soon.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 1) Monitored the Governor’s release of the 2018-2019 State Budget on Jan 10th. Conducted research and analysis on the governor budget specific to departments with programs supporting people with developmental disabilities. Completed the first draft of the budget report for the board’s Legislative Committee.

Met with regional representatives from the school districts and the district offices of the Department of Rehabilitation to work on the Local Partnership Agreement as required by the California Blueprint for Employment of People with Developmental Disabilities.

I toured 7 group homes in San Joaquin County and observed activities of consumers from 4 pm to 6:30 pm on a weekday.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 2) Regular meeting with the leadership of CLASP to plan for the vendor advisory meeting and make adjustments to the CLASP Blueprint for Professional Development. In February we agreed to organize the training event, “Creating a Culture of Competency: A Management Day with The National Alliance for DSPs” as our first major training offering by CLASP.

Throughout the month of January I participated in the Self-Determination Stakeholder committee to review the status of California’s waiver application to the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services. CMS will begin the 90 day review process to consider the California SDP Proposal.

We had a meeting with the University of the Pacific School of Pharmacy and discussed the university’s project with VMRC to assist people who have Part D Medicare benefits choose the most cost effective prescription drug plans.

We hosted the SCDD North Valley Hills Office Regional Advisory Committee meeting in our Modesto office.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 3) I attended the Developmental Services Task Force meeting, among several topics:
Review of DS Task Force Guiding Principles,
DS Task Force Subject Areas Discussion, sustainability of Intermediate Care Facilities,
The adequacy of rates,
importance of focusing attention on needs within the Early Start program,
IHSS overlap with SLS,
the need to infuse person-centered planning and sensitivity to diverse communities,
importance of addressing workforce issues,
Including rising minimum wages and minimum staff qualifications.
Attended the quarterly meeting between VMRC and Kaiser Permanente with our psychologist Barbara Johnson and Melissa Claypool, Autism Coordinator to review the MOU related to behavioral health services provided to our consumers by Kaiser.
We met with the new Director of San Joaquin County Behavioral Health Services, Tony Vartan and Kara Dunn in a productive meeting focused on the future working relationship between the county and VMRC for people served by both systems.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 4) We met with Disability Rights California to review the MOU between our two agencies for services related to the office of clients rights.

Continued participation on the statewide stakeholders group for Self-Determination. The federal waiver to allow the new program to be implemented is now returned to CMS for futher review following satisfactorily meeting the concerns. The feds have 90 days to reply.

Met with the directors of the National Association of Direct Support Professionals to arrange for a training for CLASP as part of their Blue Print for professional development. We discuss providing our community training on the national ethics and core competencies for supporting people with developmental disabilities. I called for date sometime in September or October but since they were planning to be in California in March we agreed to make arrangement for March 13, 2018. The leadership of CLASP reviewed the proposal and agreed to move swiftly to partner with VMRC to host this event.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 5) I had a meeting with one of our consumers, Jay, and his family and we discussed how while today the supports Jay receives are adequate significant changes will need to occur in the next few years that don’t seem readily available in our region. In the end we agreed there would be great value to hosting a forum with families and people with disabilities to explore how their needs for housing and related supportive services have and are changing from decades past.

Our psychologist, Barbara Johnson, and I had a couple follow-up meetings in February with DDS to discuss logistics questions we had to implement our upcoming Mental Health Services Act grant that we were awarded to improve our working relationships with county mental health professionals throughout our region and better understand and serve the unique needs of people with co-occuring disabilities.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 6) Participated in the Community Assessment Response and Engagement (CARE) meeting which is a weekly meeting in Stanislaus County headed by the Modesto City Manager’s office and the Stanislaus County CEO’s office. The goal is to plan, coordinate and implement a more productive response to meeting the needs of hard to serve repeat users of safety services in the region. Barbara Johnson and Shelli Margarite from Modesto office also represent VMRC on this and other subgroups.

Participated in the Calaveras County Oral Health Task Force meeting. The county has been approved to hire an oral health policy coordinator and will begin recruitment soon. We reviewed the VMRC proposal to DDS and received several support and collaboration commitment from the participants. Tricia Simmons from VMRC is a regular participant, with Mary Sheehan and I serve as occasional participants.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 7) Mary Sheehan and I participated in the San Joaquin Oral Health initiative called, TEETH (Treatment and Education for Everyone on Teeth and Health). To prevent and treat oral diseases, increase awareness of the importance of oral health to overall health, and reduce disparities in access to dental services. We discussed a variety of updates related to the Oral Health Strategic Plan and participated in a brainstorming session on marketing the available resources and the initiative.

Spoke at the Sunday outreach meeting in Tracy that included over 60 family members from the Hispanic community to talk about how they can better understand the systems of services their families may need and to support each other so they are stronger and more confident to speak up for their needs and their family’s needs.<br>

Activities with community partners (page 8) Carmen Calder and I met with a representative from CapGrow to learn more about their services in helping to stabilize the housing portion of services provided by residential care programs. They are expanding their presence in California and plan to connect with our region’s local providers in the near future.

I attended the CHOICES planning meeting at SCDD NVH office and have agreed to facilitate the public policy portion of the event including moderating the introductions of the legislators and their staff in our region.<br>

31 Regularly Scheduled Meetings (average of 22 working days per month):
 
Weekly
Check in with Jan Maloney to address the needs of the board of directors and it’s committees
2 hour Tuesday morning meeting with the Department Heads to address all management and leadership issues currently or p[potentially impact VMRC.

Monthly
Supervision and check-in meetings with Claudia Reed, Chief Financial Officer
Supervision and check-in meetings with the Cindy Mix, Director of Consumer Services
Supervision and check-in meetings with Anthony Hill, Legal Affairs Advisor
Board Meeting Preparation, Organizational Updates, board management, etc. with Tom Bowe, President
Board of Directors Meeting, Tom Bowe, President and Chair
Finance Committee Meeting, Ivan Johnson, Chair
Executive Committee meeting, Tom Bowe, Chair.
Legislative Committee meeting, Candice Bright, Chair
Bylaws Committee meeting, Katherine Torres, Chair
Consumer Services Committee, Claire Lazaro, Chair
Vendor Advisory (CLASP Leadership) meeting, Marisol Moreno, Chair
CLASP meeting, Marisol Moreno, Chair
Self-Advocates Advisory (SAC6 Leadership) meeting, Lisa Utsey, Chairperson (developing)
Association of Regional Center Agencies (ARCA) Directors meeting
San Joaquin County Behavioral Health Board meeting
Training and Development Workgroup (New)












Quarterly/Ad Hoc
 
All Staff and/or Management Meeting
SAC6 Meeting
ARCA Legislative Committee
Nominating Committee (by weekly during the final quarter of the fiscal year)
Frontline Initiative Journal Editors
Local Self-Determination Advisory Committee
Department of Developmental Services Self-Determination Stakeholder Committee meeting
Northern California Regional Center Directors  meeting
VMRC Strategic Planning Committee: Housing
VMRC Strategic Planning Committee: Employment
VMRC Strategic Planning Committee: Communications
VMRC Strategic Planning Committee: Organizational Development
Department of Developmental Services Interagency Coordinating Council – Early Start<br>

Board development (page 1) Several meetings with Tom Bowe, VMRC Board president, to discuss board business and transparency efforts and related issues.

The VMRC Board Legislative Committee met to review the first draft of the governor’s budget and impact on our community. The committee had a follow-up meeting to review the 2nd draft of the report which works to simplify document for boarder readership and accessibility.

Together with Jan Maloney we created new pages on the website for the board of directors to increase transparency to the public and improve the board experience for our board of directors. Archive pages were created for each committee, committee pages were updated, and the staff have been working on two projects to increase board knowledge on the contracts and the details for investigation of abuse and other quality assurance responsibilities.<br>

Board development (page 2) The board’s legislative committee is currently working on their next project, an analysis of the governor’s budget and how it impacts people with developmental disabilities. We are currently on our 3rd darft of the presentation and have identified presenters from the committee and a date for the presentation (while we are giving just one presentation we plan to create a webinar to broadcast our event).

Along with Dena Hernandez of the SCDD NVH office, I attended Tom Martin’s funeral at the San Joaquin Valley National Cemetery. Tom was a dedicated VMRC board member regularly traveling to events and visiting programs as an ambassador for VMRC. He was a veteran and spent his career as a physical therapist, he was appreciated by many and will be missed.<br>

Communication/Outreach (page 1) I was the keynote speaker for the CAPTAIN conference in San Joaquin County (California Autism Professional Training and Information Network).

I participated in several meetings to work on improving the VMRC website. This is an extensive effort that includes cleaning up parts of the site and making it more user friendly.

I was the keynote at the 25th Annual SAC6 Self-Advocacy meeting in San Joaquin County.

The Finance and Personnel committee met to review three contracts over $250,000 in February (see the F&P report this month) and the Executive Committee took action to approve the recommendations because the board did not meet and the contracts were due in February.

Together with Eric Zigler, Executive Director of Golden Gate Regional Center, we were the panelist for the topics related to DD service trends and policy for the California Disability Services Association, the a state’s largest provide association for day programs and work related services for people with developmental disabilities, at their annual policy conference.<br>

Communication/Outreach (page 2) Our social media committee, a subcommittee of the VMRC communications committee, met to further plan out our strategy for the different platforms we intend to use to improve our communications with our community. We plan to delineate the platform purposes in the following ways:

Facebook: General communications of news worthy events, activities, positive stories, etc.
Twitter: Public Policy oriented communications bills, budget, and policy issues. Our legislative committee staff and members should be using this platform.
LinkedIn: We plan to post items related to career development and employment of people with developmental disabilities.
Instagram: We plan to target transition age consumers and their siblings. We hope to post photos and links on topics like anti-bullying, sibling support issues, family oriented activities and other teenage and young adult topics.
YouTube: We will use this platform as a repository of videos to be shared on all our other social media platforms.<br>

Communication/Outreach (page 3) VMRC in the News: I was interviewed and provided technical support for the:
Stockton Record (http://www.recordnet.com/news/20180215/disabled-adults-losing-place-to-call-their-own and http://www.recordnet.com/news/20180224/countys-costs-for-activity-center-soared-over-decade two stories),
CBS Television News (http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018/02/16/san-joaquin-activity-center-closure/), and
Fox 40 television news (http://fox40.com/2018/02/22/space-for-adults-with-special-needs-closing-in-stockton/) as they covered the story of the closure of one of our local providers San Joaquin Activity Center.
I was interviewed by the Modesto Bee (Wilma Murray provided technical support) for a story in Stanislaus county regarding the cancelling of the Modesto Area Express which came to Empire five times a week (http://www.modbee.com/news/article201424394.html).<br>

Department correspondence<br>

Community Resource Development Fund Welfare & Institutions Code section 4418.25 (2)(A), states, “In addition to the existing priorities to support the closure of the developmental centers and the development of services and supports to transition individuals from restrictive settings, including institutions for mental disease, the department also shall establish guidelines by which community placement plan funds appropriated through the budget process may be utilized for community resource development to address the needs for services and supports of consumers living in the community in accordance with Section 4679.”<br>

Assembly bill x2 1 increase forefeiture As stated in WIC section 4691.10(e), “Any provider that fails to report the information required by paragraph (4) of subdivision (b) to the Department by October 1, 2017, shall forfeit the increases described in subdivision (a).” Because subdivision (a) only references the direct services component, only this component of the rate increase should be reduced for applicable providers.<br>

CMS Initial approval of its Statewide Transition Plan (STP) “CMS is granting California initial approval of its Statewide Transition Plan (STP) to bring settings into compliance with the federal home and community based services (HCBS) regulations found at 42 CFR Section 441.301(c)(4)(5) and section 441.7109a)(1)(2). Approaval is granted because the state has completed its systemic assessment, included the outcomes of this assessment in the STP, clearly outlined remediation strategies to rectify issues that the systemic assessment uncovered, and is actively working on those remediation strategies. Additionally, the state distributed the STP dated November 2016 for a 30-day public comment period, made sure information regarding the public comment period was widely disseminated, and responded to and summarized the comments in the STP submitted to CMS.”<br>

MINIMUM WAGE RATE ADJUSTMENTS The Department’s December 1, 2017, letter to regional centers states that providers must submit wage and other required information for the period of July through September 2017, or an applicable period of up to three months. For clarification, any period of up to three months from January through December 2017 is applicable.<br>

2017 Board Composition Survey Based on our review, it appears your board's composition may not be in compliance with one or more requirements contained in WIC section 4622.

The board does not appear to include any members from Amador County. VMRC must take action to come into compliance with statute. (WIC section 4622(d) Geographic Representation)<br>

budget attachments<br>

Valley Mountain Regional Center Legislative Committee The Legislative Committee Budget Report First Draft (final version will be available in April 2018)
https://www.vmrc.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BudgetPresF_draft2.pptx<br>

Questions?<br>