National Council on Disability (NCD)
Quarterly Meeting
March 30 - Apri 1, 2009
Washington, DC
Monday, March 30, 2009
Council Members present: John Vaughn, Chairman; Chad Colley, vice chairperson; Pat Pound, vice chairperson; Linda Wetters; Lisa Mattheiss; Marylyn Howe; Kathy Martinez; Anne Rader; Victoria Carlson; Lonnie Moore; Heather McCallum; Katherine McCary
Staff present: Mike Collins, Executive Director; Joan Durocher, Attorney Advisor; Lisa Grubb, Special Assistant, Coordinator of Administration; Julie Carroll, Attorney Advisor; Anne Sommers, Legislative Affairs Specialist; Martin Gould, Director of Research; Carla Nelson, Secretary;
Call to Order and Welcome - John Vaughn, Chairperson
Chairperson Vaughn called the meeting to order at 8:30 a.m.
He welcomed the guests and noted that NCD hold quarterly meetings in various parts of the country. “We try to have one meeting a year here in Washington to meet our stakeholders. We have a broad charter, which includes getting out around the country to meet and hear from stakeholders and people with disabilities.” He noted that “over the next three days NCD would be conducting our business, hearing from the public and our stakeholders including representatives from the administration, executive branch and the legislative branch.
NCD will also be releasing two reports tomorrow that this agency has recently completed.
This afternoon, we will begin hearing our committee reports. We have six committees that look at civil rights, homeland security, international, employment, emerging trends and healthcare. These reports will include some presentations by outside speakers. The purpose of the presentations is to provide the Council with background and perspective on various issues. Tomorrow we will hear from the President's special assistant on domestic policy and we will hear from some folks on the Hill to talk about what's going on legislatively, and on Wednesday, the council will be deliberating on which new research projects to fund, and today and tomorrow, we will open up our phone lines and receive public comment from around the country as well as hear from you, our guests.”
Acceptance of Agenda (Action Item)
Motion: Chairman Vaughn noted that members had received the quarterly meeting agenda prior to the meeting and unless there were any changes members wished to add, that a motion to accept the agenda was in order. Victoria Carlson then moved that the agenda as presented be adopted and Pat Pound seconded the motion, which was adopted unanimously.
Introduction of Council Members, NCD staff and guests
Chairman Vaughn asked the Council to introduce themselves and where they are from, followed by staff introductions.
Approval of minutes of January 12 -14, 2009 quarterly meeting in Scottsdale, AZ Motion: Linda Wetters moved to approve the January 12-14, 2008 Quarterly meeting minutes. Victoria Carlson seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously with the inclusion of the technical corrections that were sent to members on Friday, March 27 in addition to removing former member Cynthia Wainscott from the list of Council members attending.
Action item: The chairperson noted that the minutes are the official record of our meetings and an important marketing piece as they are posted on our web site after they are approved. Preparation of the minutes is a time-consuming process as there are 200 pages of transcript to review. Members were requested to submit their report in writing to Lisa Grubb after the transcript is provided to them. In addition, staff will continue to prepare a summary of presentations and staff and committee co-chairs will prepare their committee report for the minutes. The goal will be to disseminate draft minutes to Council members within a few weeks of the meeting so the minutes can be reviewed while events are fresh in our minds.
Council Member Reports
John Vaughn - Our members come from all around the country. We are people with disabilities or people who have family members with disabilities. We are professionals who have been in the disability arena during our career. So the fabric of the Council is very interesting. We all travel in different circles, and when we get together at our meetings like this, and more importantly, the Council meets through its committees, we have a good nine committee meetings a month from the various committees and most of our members are on two or three committees, bringing their expertise to the things that we're doing, the issues that we're looking at. So this is the part of the meeting where our members share for a few minutes what things they have been doing since we last met.
Chad Colley - One of the significant involvements I have outside NCD is with the disabled veterans’ winter sports clinic. I have been involved with that probably 80% of its existence. My involvement has been about 20 years. This is the first time I have ever had a conflict. Normally it is the first thing that goes on my calendar and I had to bump it up. It started Saturday. Betty and I, I talked earlier about this couples seminar that we do, a continuing education unit. That will actually be on Wednesday. So I am leaving Thursday or Tuesday night to sprint to Colorado so we can conduct that, so I will not be with you. That is about all I have got going on. Our other involvement with the Commission on the Future of American Veterans has been put on hold until the new administration has its deck cleared to such a degree that they'll have an ear for what we've got to say. Thank you.
Pat Pound - discussed her service on the Continental Airlines Customers with Disabilities Advisory Board. She indicated they have several disabilities represented and are actively involving various segments of their company and their contractors. She also indicated that she presented on behalf of NCD to the American Network of Community Options and Networks regarding our "Keeping Track" report and current research projects.
Lonnie Moore - Since last meeting, I've been very busy working with the army warrior transition units with our organization inspection program where we've gone out to the warrior transition units that provide care and services for our wounded, injured, and ill to ensure standardization with policy across the army at each of the 36 warrior transition units and 9 community-based warrior transition units with services more tailored toward the Army reservists and Army National Guard. They have taken up a significant amount of my time. I would like to say, this going into end of March, early April, it is a celebration of new. My wife and I celebrate our second anniversary on the 31st. She is very understanding because I will be here. My son has its first birthday on April 9th. And April 6th is the anniversary of the eventful day in Iraq that made my life wonderful in the end. So it is a very exciting time in my life. Thank you.
Anne Rader –In my professional career, I work for a company called Booz Allen Hamilton. We do a lot of work with emergency preparedness, which is the division I work in. Since our last meeting ‑‑ I am also the head of what they call the disability forum. It is an employee‑based forum of employees who have an interest in or have a disability. We have an annual meeting every year. This year we had two local speakers known in the national disability platform. One is Judy Heumann who came and spoke about what it is like for people with disabilities to find employment during tough economic times. That is pretty much the highlight of what I have been doing.
Lisa Mattheiss –Since the last time we met, much has happened in our life. The very week of our last meeting, we learned that the Daniels injunction that kept a group of those on Medicaid in Tennessee had been lifted, and we were sitting on pins and needles waiting to see what would happen. So far, we have not found a family who has lost their healthcare because of this particular injunction. We have learned the appeals process and are educating families on what to do if/when they receive notice.
About a week after I got home, LifeLine went through some changes as well. Some of you are aware that we founded an organization serving families with disabilities. That organization will be six years old in April. We began based in a church but it grew way beyond anything we ever dreamed possible, and we officially got our 501(c) (3) in January. Within a week, we had a board meeting, made the decision to step out on faith and move the organization out of the church. We are sort of in limbo right now; writing grants furiously and really praying for some funding that will give us an accessible location that we can move to. We are also hoping it would give LifeLine some employees as well. Discussion of the Tennessee NCD meeting for the fall prompted conversations with the airport about accessibility. We will be helping them do some accessibility reviews of the airport when we return. Local fire departments and hospitals have really started looking at the emergency preparedness plans for the Chattanooga region, which is about six counties, and have asked us to give them some information. Thanks to those on the Council, especially Pat, who sent me information. We will be compiling those and giving resources on where to go and what planning can be put in place hopefully before anything major happens in Chattanooga. It has been a busy month.
Katherine McCary – Good morning. I have to say for the first time that I have not been very busy. You may have noticed that I do not have any crutches. I went to the Cleveland Clinic last month and had an experimental procedure that has given me back 85% without pain. So I am just excited as I can be to now start getting busy again. This is my first trip. I was not able to travel for six weeks. So I am six weeks out. I will not be dancing, but I am feeling great. However, I have done a few things by phone. One of the things I am involved in is the USBLN. You know I am a board member of that organization. Now the past chair because the new chair was elected in January. MARYLYN HOWE: What does that mean? KATHERINE McCray: U.S. Business Leadership Network. Sorry.
But I am serving as the conference chair, which is being held in the National Harbor in DC in September. It will partly involve our global summit. We will be hosting organizations that support the employment of people with disabilities who are global organizations. The U.S. Business Leadership Network represents obviously the U.S. but there are many other organizations across the world that we'll be inviting to come sit down with us and see if we can work together to improve our organization.
And then part of the conference itself, we have many employer organizations that are global. So we have asked them to do a preconference on what it means to be local organization in today's world and hopefully share some best practices.
At SunTrust, that I am still hoping my retirement 401, 201, whatever it is today, keeps going in the positive. But at SunTrust, we have many activities around disability. And one of the things that we are planning in our Mid Atlantic headquarters in Richmond, we have invited Neil Romano to our reception on national disability mentoring day. Our goal is to get CEOs to talk about disability and direct their human resources and other areas to get involved around disability. We have also involved the governor, who has a strong interest in disability employment and veterans. And at the reception, we will be showcasing the documentary that Neil did through a grant from the Department of Education that is showcasing businesses and employees with disabilities and talking about the business case for hiring individuals or retaining or promoting individuals with disabilities. The film has a short and long version, I have not seen the long one but in the shorter version, I was able to see great things being done. We are kind of excited to showcase that to CEOs who will come to Richmond. We will be using this documentary, and thinking about actually showing it in our cafeterias so that the public can see good practices from around the US. Thank you.
Kathy Martinez – (no report submitted)
Marylyn Howe – People know that I'm here on the Council representing people who are deaf and hard of hearing, but I also have Crohn's disease, which is a chronic inflammatory intestinal disorder. So besides my strong affiliation with the Association of Late-Deafened Adults (ALDA), I also support the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.
Heather McCallum – I am Heather Whitestone McCallum from Georgia. I stay very busy with my little kids. I have three boys. I am a full‑time mom now. They are nine, seven, and twenty‑two months old. Three days ago, I called the preschool and checked if they could accept my youngest boy for 3 days a week on this coming fall because I wanted to work part time on the book draft. I am hoping to have my fifth book to be published in the near future. I live in a resort area, so I have experienced a lot of sadness and frustration because more people are losing their jobs. I keep my face in the bible more often in order to keep having hope and faith. I believe that good things will come out, just like good things have happened to us with our disabilities. So that is what has been going on in my life in the past three months.
Victoria Carlson – Hi, I am Victoria Carlson from Illinois. Since the last meeting, I attended the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services conference on "Money Follows the Person." Anne Rader was to attend the conference with me, however, she was snowbound in New York. Anyway, it was a 3-day conference for which I attended 2 and 1/2 days. It was a phenomenal conference and was very well attended. People came from every state regardless of the weather. The Conference on Money Follows the Person, for which I was unaware, was a demonstration program the government created where states would received funding to work with individuals that are institutionalized or in a group home type setting to help those people to live independently. The money, the process, taking all the steps; how they will live, the training, if they can work, how much money they have from Medicaid, how much they can put towards rent and how much assistive equipment is provided for them and whatever. It was absolutely amazing to hear some of the personal stories that came from it. I will just say one really quickly. There was a gentleman who, is a single parent of a boy I do not recall how old he is. But, the dad was a healthy young man and very active with baseball and other things. And, then, he had a stroke and ended up in a coma. He became disabled and was in the hospital for many months. Doctors said he would never be able to walk. Well, he awakened from the coma and rehabilitated. He walked due to a lot of therapy. He still has a minimum amount of mobility but, he forced himself to get out of an institution to be able to go back and take care of his son. That was his goal. Most places would not allow that, most institutions would tell him that he couldn’t do it on his own. However, Money Follows the Person was able to arrange for a home/apartment that is totally accessible where he could actually take care of himself and care for his son. There were many compelling stories such as this. I met so many people there that were quite an inspiration and also those that reminded me that there is so much more that we as a society can do to help those with disabilities.
Tony Williams – Good morning. After our Scottsdale meeting, I met with people at the public transit agency for the Puget Sound region. Because I have been so taken with the transportation issues that are brought up at each of our meetings, I wanted to know what my local transit agency is doing for people with disabilities. They have a number of positive programs for people with disabilities, and I am excited to report that a new light rail system will be opening in July that will further help people with disabilities get from place to place. I also want to share some news with you about the meeting that Chairman Vaughn, Mike Collins and I had at the Pentagon in mid-March. We met with the top healthcare staff at the United States Marine Corps and discussed their programs for Marines with disabled family members. The meeting was set up because of a dinner that a client of mine had with the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The Commandant and his wife have made disability issues a top issue for them personally and for the Marine Corps leadership. In some ways, these issues are still very new to the Marine Corps, but they are making great progress in helping Marine families with disabled children. As you can imagine, given the prime mission of the Marine Corps, these issues are not a natural point of expertise for them, so I am hopeful that NCD can be helpful to them. They are trying to do better for their families with disabled children, and they really want to get to know us, so maybe there will be opportunities where we can help them. We do not know quite yet exactly where we can help them, but we are going to try to see if we can do that. Another thing I wanted to report on are some conversations I had with Trent Hamblin from the transportation company. As you will recall, Trent spoke at our Scottsdale meeting, about his ideas for improving how FEMA manages evacuations for people with disabilities. Trent and I discussed the very large amount of money that the government owed his company for work he did during a number of recent natural disasters. Chad Holley connected us together, and I offered my pro bono assistance to him and his company if they ran into further trouble getting their bills paid by the federal government. Last time he and I talked, it appeared that his issues were close to being resolved, and since I have not heard from him, I am hopeful that the federal government has finally paid his company for the work they have done to help disabled people during a number of disasters.
Linda Wetters – It is my perception that the disability community in Ohio continues to be concerned about the impact of stimulus money on disability programs. I share this concern and have been involved in the dialogue about how to get some of this money directed to disability programs. We also want to assure that persons with disabilities are involved in decisions on how the general dollars are spent. Ohio has a 12% unemployment rate, and in some areas, like northeastern Ohio where steel manufacturing and the automobile industry are located, the unemployment rate is higher. Ohio VR expects to get $25 million from the stimulus bill, and that's "non-matched" money. So that means most of it can be spent on programming - unlike some of the federal dollars where there is not state match available. I will be speaking later this month at a conference sponsored by the ADA Office at The Ohio State University. The request for topical presentations this year focused on public policy, including the United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities. I relied on my professional relationship and personal friendship with Kathy Martinez, sought John Vaughn’s approval, and submitted a proposal on NCD's behalf. The proposal was accepted and at the end of April, Kathy and I will be doing a presentation on some of the public policy issues that NCD has addressed over the last year and specifically our work on the United Nations convention.
Chairperson’s Report - John Vaughn
Review and Approval of Executive/Finance Committee meeting minutes
Motion: The chairperson noted that the joint executive/finance committee minutes for the December 9, 2008 and February 3, 2009 meetings were in the meeting packet and distributed to members for their review prior to this meeting. Mr. Vaughn asked for a motion to accept these minutes of the executive committee and ratify the actions taken by the executive committee at those meetings. Pat Pound moved to ratify the actions and accept the minutes, and Anne Rader seconded the motion, which was adopted unanimously.
Mr. Vaughn noted that another executive/finance meeting occurred on March 17, 2009. This meeting dealt with finalizing this quarterly meeting and the 2010 National Disability Policy Summit. The minutes of this meeting will be presented at the next quarterly meeting after they are approved by the executive committee.
Action item: Mr. Vaughn noted that he has created a small steering committee to oversee the 2010 National Disability Policy Summit that can meet quickly when decisions need to be made. This steering committee consists of Linda Wetters, Marylyn Howe, Pat Pound, Katherine McCary and the Chairperson. Activities of this steering committee would be under the auspices of the Executive Committee and will report to the full Council at quarterly meetings.
Mr. Vaughn noted that he was in the NCD office on February 2 and 3 for his monthly meeting with the executive director. He also conducted the executive committee meeting on February 3 and a teleconference meeting with a representative of the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities on homeland security issues.
He was also in Washington on March 16 and 17 to meet with Kareem Dale, the President’s new special assistant on disability policy and representatives of the USMC Commandant’s Office to discuss a possible NCD research project. This project will be discussed on Wednesday. He also held the March 17 executive committee meeting.
Mr. Vaughn discussed the handout on meetings held over the last few years and noted that the Council needs to set the April 2010 meeting. He suggested either Denver Colorado or either Detroit or Pittsburgh. The matter will be discussed on Wednesday.
(Note: On Wednesday, the council approved Detroit, Michigan as the location of the April 2010 quarterly meeting)
Action item: The consensus of the Council was to hold next January’s meeting in Houston on a Tuesday, Wednesday and until noon on Thursday, January 19 to 21 and to use the federal holiday on Monday, January 18 as the travel day. The meeting will adjourn in time to get homeward flights beginning at 1:30 p.m. on January 21, 2010.
Mr. Vaughn also noted that the Web site now contains information about the NCD members speaker’s bureau and that recently an organization had contacted NCD about a speaker from NCD to give the luncheon speech and that Anne Rader will be handling that task. So hopefully there would be other similar invitations for members to make presentations on behalf of the NCD in their particular regions.
Action item: The Chair advised the Council that he has asked Pat Pound to champion efforts to make our Web site fully accessible and easier to use and read. It was the consensus of the Council that, to the degree possible, all reports or documents on the web page would be in Word, HTML and PDF format.
Finance Committee Report - Chad Colley, Committee Chair and Michael Collins, Executive Director
CHAD COLLEY: Okay. Normally I begin with a narrative. It is in your materials. Most of what is in the narrative that I want to mention is specifically in the financial statement. It's tab 4, for those of you who want to try to follow the financial summary sheet. This is probably the closest ‑‑ I have more comfort in this financial statement than any published except the end of year. Comfort being a relative term. This reflects basically six months of our business. It is 12 of 26 payroll periods. A portion of our expenses like web services and rent reflects half year. There is another payroll that has been made that is not reflective as of this date. So keep that in mind. Second column from the left. The net appropriation that we had for fiscal year 2008 was the budget we operated on for the early part of this year until this bill was passed. We did not know that we would get anymore of that, so we made sure we stayed within that amount. But as you are aware, we did receive a favorable review in the omnibus bill. The amount we have to conduct our business is a windfall. Of course, you realize the FY 2008 budget we were operating on was redacted. So we know what it is like to go the other way too. A couple of things I would like for you to look at. If you will look in the third column where it says salaries full time and it shows the amount of money that we have approved to spend in our '09 budget that reflects salaries for 12 full‑time employees. If you look immediately to the right of that, in the fourth column, the one that is the lightest in that printout, you will see the amount of money that we have actually paid at this point for our employees. We only have 10 full‑time employees even though we are being funded for 12. That is significant in that some of that money is being used because of the increased activity on the part of the board. There will be, when you get your next financial statement, a new column that is being added just to the right of the obligation column, and it shows a percentage of our obligations to what we really project we are going to spend. For example, the amount of money we spend on our employees at this point is 43% of our annual budget. This is significant because that reflects a slight savings from what we really would be paying if we were funding all those 12 positions. Also, if you look in the fourth column at the amount of money that we have spent thus far for board salaries, that if you will look just to the left of it, you will see we only budgeted for $200,000 for the whole year. We have actually spent at this point 53%. That is not an insurmountable problem because if you look down now to the total ‑‑ subtotal for the salaries, if you look in the fourth column, you will see that thus far, the amount spent on both our employees and our board members is $644,900. That is actually 44% of what we think we are going to spend the entire year. So what I'm saying is, we're right on target even though we're spending a little more for the board and a little less with the two positions that are not filled and don't anticipate being filled any time soon.
VICTORIA CARLSON: Chad, I am sorry to interrupt. I kind of lost you there in the summary of the salaries but that is not my question. The salaries, you have the salaries for 12. We are allotted money for the 12. Where is the money for the employees that we do not have? Where is that going? And what can be done with that? Usually, do not they ‑‑ I do not know with personnel, but usually when we are allotted money, it is supposed to go to a specific area.
CHAD COLLEY: Yes. And eventually, this will come back to haunt us. However, when we go to OMB and we show them what we're doing, the fact that we reduced from 14 to 12, however the amount of work we're putting out is the same, at this point they have not been quite as concerned about how many employees we have when they look at the workload we've taken on and how we're using the money.
VICTORIA CARLSON: Okay. So we are banking on our good work. Which is good.
JOHN VAUGHN: That and salaries is made up of three components. Our salary as members, the salary of staff, and the benefits, which is FICA and other benefits we have to pay. When we went to OMB back in '06 when they had cut us by 10% after Chad, Victoria, Lisa and I had just come on, they cut us by 10% from 3 million down to 2.7 million. And our case when I went in there was, the Council ‑‑ a lot of new people on the Council, this Council needs to be involved, we need to be out there seeing what the issues are and so forth. So in that letter that we wrote in defense of getting our money restored was the fact that we needed to spend more money for our members to participate. Because if we as members do not participate, then the decisions that we have to make are being made by somebody else. That is the way the law is set up. I think we are okay from the standpoint that what we will spend for salary will be about what we said; it is just, as Chad said, the mix may be a little different.
VICTORIA CARLSON: Right. That is fine. I just needed clarification.
CHAD COLLEY: And please understand, we will eventually be in jeopardy if we continue to allow that to happen that way.
VICTORIA CARLSON: But you are going to get us out of that jeopardy.
CHAD COLLEY: I have hope.
LINDA WETTERS: I have a question or more of a comment, I guess. We have never actually had 14 employees, though, right?
JOHN VAUGHN: One of them is always us. We are like the 13th player, I guess.
CHAD COLLEY: But we have budgeted FTE for 14. One of the 14 by design is to provide the offset for Board Members salary and was never intended to be filled by an employee.
VICTORIA CARLSON: Right. That is fine.
CHAD COLLEY: It is kind of semantics. Okay. That is a salient point. Our salaries are right online with our projected spending. If you look down the next column of some significance would be the subtotal for the travel. I am still concerned we have too many places where we are sticking different travel costs but I do not know that there is any immediate resolution. If you look, we were approved for $280,000 for travel for '09. Our obligations so far are 44% of our travel expenses. That puts us right on target for what we are supposed to be. This is the third of four Board Meetings. This trip of course is not booked anywhere on our financial statement, but you can see we only have one more trip this fiscal year after this one. So we are standing in pretty good shape in that regard. Again, the rent, communications, if you want to look at where we're spending our communications, or where our administrative contacts are, you need to go to your CD, call that information up, and it gives a very clear picture of how we're spending that money in that regard. The next thing I want to call your attention to is the program contracts amount that is approved for fiscal year '09. The amount of money we intend to spend on programs during this year is $479,845. Thus far, we only have, in my estimation, two obligations. If you notice, we have not spent any of that money yet. We have not obligated any of that money yet. There are, however, two things that we clearly I think want to remember that comes out of that money. The first is the $150,000 contribution to the 2010 conference. As you recall, the cost of the 2010 conference over three years, we put $120,000 in this last year. We anticipate putting in $150,000 minimum this fiscal year, and the balance will come out of fiscal year 2010. Secondly, the progress report we anticipate costing $50,000. It is our opinion it needs to be budgeted this year. One of the things this board is starting to do is expedite our work so it hits the street while it is still relevant. In times past, by the time we got the progress report out, it was halfway through the year and not relevant anymore. I think we need to pay as we go. So we will fund this year for the progress report that will be a reflection of this year. That is $50,000. What that means is, on Wednesday, you are going to be in a position to allocate how you want to spend $280,000. That is the balance of what we say we will spend on program contracts this year. The committee chairman will be commended for coming up with priorities of your initiatives. I see no reason when you leave here Wednesday that you cannot have your priorities funded and able to be released to staff for implementation. Again, by expediting these things, it makes our reports and our work more relevant. We are about three months ahead of what we have been before. We can lose that advantage if we do not fund some of these projects at this meeting to get started on them. We will be in Minneapolis trying to do the same thing. So the staff and board have worked hard to get us to this point. Let us not miss this opportunity by failing to get these done. We may not want to spend all of that $280,000. Maybe we want to hold some in reserve. I will also remind you, if you look over at the projected column, second from the right, it shows that we have an unobligated balance of 194,800 bucks. That is not quite right. If you look up at our program contracts approved for '09, it shows $480,000. For some reason, our GSA support shows we only going to spend $460,000 of that $480,000. Let me tell you what, Mike is very diligent seeing we spend our money. It is almost like we have a sweep. Any surplus cash these days are swept off into one account. Our sweep to make sure we spend all that money is the 2010 conference. We can always use it. So we are going to spend $480,000. So you have to subtract that $20,000 amount from the surplus. So in essence, if you obligated all $280,000 that we have got left after the 2010 and the progress report, in addition to that, you will probably have something in the vicinity of $140, 00 or $150,000. I am pretty sure that will be available. It will be much clearer to us when we get to Minneapolis, which will really be our last opportunity to do anything significant. But I think it is noteworthy that we have done as well to get as far ahead as we have. But I sure hope that you do not get bogged down in details and leave here Wednesday without some clear marching orders for most of those projects that you have selected your committees to assign priority and needs to be done. And we will still have money available for contingencies or additional projects as they come along. One of the things, our finances are still not perfect. For example, the only change in the FEMA budget, while we have had expenses that should have been reflected here since the last board meeting, but the only change is we now have a program contracts line. That is the only change that is different from what you got when we were in Scottsdale. I am a little uncomfortable with that. The finance committee was asked to review our finance policy and procedures manual. There are some larger issues that have to be resolved before we can get through that. The finance committee, there is actually a clean slate as to how we want to try to make the money we spend on our financial support more timely and more useful to the board. And we have got to come up with some ways of doing that. We hope to ‑‑ it is my fervent desire that we have studied this sufficiently so we can offer you some alternatives for the board to discuss in Minneapolis. But the reason I would like for us to be in that position to do that, it is very difficult. If you make any significant change, it needs to be done at the end of the fiscal year. I do not want to go any further than that. I think that that pretty well covers everything I wanted to mention. I want to thank Lonnie and Linda for their assistance with this. Are there any other comments or questions from committee members?
LONNIE MOORE: Chad, I just, as you know, have been very busy lately, and I missed the last couple of calls and I sincerely apologize. Sometimes everyday job takes precedence. A question. The surplus is not entirely correct. There is really a 280 plus 190, and the 190 is going towards basically towards the progress report and the 2010 summit and other for additional contracts?
CHAD COLLEY: I prefer to say that money we are going to spend for those things comes out in what's budgeted for.
LONNIE MOORE: Right.
CHAD COLLEY: This surplus basically comes from the difference in our '09 budget. It is not like we have been super efficient or anything. That is the windfall from the Omnibus Spending Bill.
JOHN VAUGHN: It is from the continuing resolution, the funding at the higher level.
LONNIE MOORE: I know we had already agreed to the 150 to 2010 summit.
JOHN VAUGHN: But that is in the projects budget.
CHAD COLLEY: Also, one other thing, if you go to your CD, you will see how we are spending money on administrative contracts. It lists them alphabetically. Most are pretty self‑explanatory. You can see web services, accounting, those types of things. It is not sufficient for us to go down line by line at this meeting.
Motion: Chad Colley moved for acceptance of the finance committee report. Pat Pound seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.
Action item: Mr. Vaughn asked members if any of them would be willing to join the finance committee. Pat Pound and Katherine McCary volunteered and Mr. Vaughn appointed them to this committee. Mr. Vaughn also advised members that he would likely call a teleconference meeting of the full Council between this meeting and the Minneapolis meeting to deal with possible budget issues or priorities for the FY 2011 budget submission.
Executive Director’s Report - Michael Collins
MICHAEL COLLINS: because of the limited time available, I am going to give you the Reader's Digest version of this. And John, with your permission, I will hold off until after the public comment on the national summit report. I am just going to give you a couple of minutes of updates because we have people who will be calling in nationally--we hope--for public comments in a couple of minutes.
JOHN VAUGHN: Do we know how many folks we have signed up in here to give public comments?
MICHAEL COLLINS: We had three people initially signed up and I saw three hands go up.
JOHN VAUGHN: So we will switch back and forth, as we need to.
MICHAEL COLLINS: Okay. Just a quick briefing on staff. I hope you all had a chance to say hi to Carla Nelson. She is out at the registration area. You do not usually see her because she does not usually travel with us. An update on Mark Quigley. I can't give much detail other than he had a situation this weekend when he wasn't feeling well, he went in for tests, and they recommended he take the week off. He had the key to get in here this morning so that created stress on my part. But thank you, Lisa and Joan, for getting here early. This facility opens at 8:00 a.m. We did not know that when we contracted with them. For those of you who get here early and on Wednesday when you have an 8:00 a.m. executive session scheduled, we will be pushing to get in. How is that? We have contracted for more of our quarterly meetings. John already explained some of that. We are in the process of identifying one of a couple of hotel options in Houston. That will be taken care of hopefully later this week or early next week. I wanted to touch a bit on the report releases. You know we released the veterans’ healthcare paper on the 4th of this month. We had a good response to it. We did give people some print copies, such as at the White House. But we are also going to make sure they get a full distribution in the veterans committees in Congress as well. Tomorrow is our test because we approved these reports that are being released tomorrow very late in the game. And, under normal circumstances like John said, we would not have been able to get them released so quickly. So we had to jump through some hoops, and that's part of Mark's stress, I imagine, because he and Julie have been going back and forth on draft after draft and every time we get it back from the editor, something new pops up that was not there when we sent it to the editor. So I want to congratulate Julie, and Mark in his absence, for doing a great job, getting that edited, and making sure that it says what the committees wanted to say. I also want to thank the committee chairs, staff and members for responding back with your priorities for the reports. We will go through that on Wednesday. Please take the time to go through and look at the last section of our packet that has the table in there. It lists out everything we have received back from the committees as their priorities. And we did something unusual. We did not list them with the fiscal year when they could take place because we want you to have an open mind and set your priorities anew knowing that the Council and staff will be quick to jump on whatever priorities are established. With that, I have about 30 seconds left and we have the gentleman here ready to hook us up to the phone lines. Martin, can you bring in the sign-in sheet for Chad, please? Thank you. And then we will get going and I will answer questions any time during breaks, lunch and hopefully we will have a few minutes at the end of this public session to talk about the national summit. JOHN VAUGHN: Let me just say, I think we have all been really pleased with the job Carla has done. She has been a real champion for making sure our expense reports are filled out. Are most of you finding that working pretty good? Carla, we thank you.
MICHAEL COLLINS: We will tell her about it later.
MICHAEL COLLINS: Right. I am just going to take you through the second page of my report on the National Summit on Disability Policy, which was tab 5 of our agenda. If you turn the first page over, you will get the second page. I did not number them. I did not know it was going to be this long. I want to just touch base with you with what the steering committee has done and approved for Council involvement or comments. The first thing we did last year was select a contractor for the project. We did decide to invest $300,000 over three fiscal years. We have selected the hotel for the summit. It will be at the Renaissance Hotel, not far from the Capitol. It is the most accessible for our meeting at this time. The dates will be July 26th and 27th of 2010. July 26th is the 20th anniversary of the signing of the ADA. Two days after the summit are allotted for our quarterly meeting. So the members will come to Washington, be able to participate in the summit, and stay for two extra days of meetings. We will condense all the Council business into two days. We have looked at the report from the 1996 NCD summit on our website. We sought out its lessons learned. We have a couple of members who participated in that, and Mark Quigley was working on it at that time. So he is on the committee, along with me. We have identified the 10 tracks for the summit. We have begun to put together white papers on those 10 tracks. Those are the big 10 issues in this country as gauged from the interest we have had over the last few years and reports done on the subjects.
We have agreed upon a preliminary agenda, including plenary sessions and luncheons with speakers. We have also scheduled several breakout sessions and we will have 10 breakout tracks. Each of those 10 breakouts will be focusing on a particular track throughout the summit. We have talked about the cost and the types of accommodation needs we will have for participants and the potential cost of the summit, which is actually projected at more than the $300,000 we have budgeted. So what I say in a few minutes will have more meaning if you keep that in mind. We have talked about the need to have projected CART in every one of the breakout rooms so that we have the ability to not have to restrict anyone from fully participating in this event. It will also give us the benefit of a full transcript from the real-time captioning that will be taking place in those sessions. Also, people who don't use it all the time may benefit from it, and gain greater understanding of what's going on. We have put together draft letters for the private and public sector for potential sponsors. We hope to get donations from many of those larger organizations. And also the government. We hope to have donations to cover the interpreting, captioning and will also look at other in-kind items to support this event. And we will also look for a lot of support for scholarships, as Chad mentioned. We have preliminarily identified that we would have 60 scholarships available to cover hotel and meal costs outside of the conference for people who apply for financial aid. This will be a 300‑person, delegate‑only event. This will not be open to anybody who walks in the door and pays an admission fee. There will probably not be an admission fee, but people will be asked to commit to attending all of the sessions for that particular track during the summit. So that when they come out with recommendations, it will not be a recommendation made by a small core of people who stuck it out or somebody who wandered in the last day and was really influential in changing the mind of the breakout group. We want to be sure these recommendations are developed in an orderly manner. We have put together a process where each of the 10 breakout sessions will come up with the three top recommendations for policy. Each of the breakout sessions will bring their policies to the main group. So we will have 30 identifiable priority issues that will be put in front of the 300 people who will be experts in disability policy, people who have been around the block a time or two over the last 20 years, and who will be consumers of all types. Young people, people from throughout the country, and obviously a few of the policy wonks in disability and government services in D.C. Those people will identify a top 10 list. We will use an electronic voting system so we will be able to prioritize by voting the top 30, but the top 10 will be the primary subjects upon which the report will be done by the contractor after the conference, and will represent the consolidated requests of the community nationwide. That will be delivered to NCD in the same way as the progress report, and distributed as such. So there is a lot of work to be done. We still need to go out and find private and government funding for this. The nonprofit organizations are being asked, if they do not have funding to support this, and which we don't expect them to have, to identify key members of their constituencies who they will sponsor to travel to Washington, knowing that the lodging and per diem will be covered, to participate on their behalf in these sessions. Some of those consumers will not be representing their organizations but themselves or their peers with disabilities. So this is a big project. I applaud the Council for taking this on. I think it would have been easy to say, oh, it is too big, costs too much, and so forth. But we are taking little nibbles from our budget. Chad has identified where we may have more funding at the end of this year so we can maybe cover some of that gap and down the road offer more than 60 scholarships. But even with the 60, we are in the red for this budget. We initially wrote in 20 scholarship recipients but realized that to be fair, in this country, in this economy, we will need more of these people at the table. That's it from me for now.
Public Comment Session – Moderated by Chad Colley, Vice Chairperson
Public comment was provided on the following subjects.
National steering committee of project action
Scholarships to the 2010 conference
Mobility assessments with continental airlines, encourage attention to people with cognitive disabilities
Head injury evacuation at Galveston
Money follows the person, Medicaid and Medicare
Youth empowerment
Youth Leadership Network
NCD Youth Advisory Committee
NCD Cultural Diversity Advisory Committee
Formal request to the president requesting a youth representative appointee
Restrictions on the federal government’s long term care insurance program
Preparedness, response and recovery
Post traumatic stress disorder
Traumatic brain injury
Hidden disabilities such as mental health challenges
Workplaces and societal/environmental risks to people with mental health challenges
Consider meeting in NASA or Suffolk County or Long Island, neighboring New York City – area has a high population of people with disabilities, and would receive unique comments
Mr. Vaughn recessed the meeting for lunch at 12:00 p.m. The meeting reconvened at 1:30 p.m.
International Committee Report – Kathy Martinez and Victoria Carlson, Co-chairs and Joan Durocher, staff
NCD sent a letter to the President strongly urging President Obama to sign the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The treaty opened for signature in 2007, and entered into force in 2008. To date, 139 countries have signed the CRPD and 50 have ratified it to become States Parties. In 2007, NCD sent a similar letter to then President George W. Bush. The Committee began discussing a strategy for next steps with respect to the Convention, given the treaty ratification process. The committee also began discussion of other plans for work this year, including outreach to get best practices from around the world.
The Committee has put forth as one of their priorities for possible funding in either 2009 or 2010 a report on the accessibility of US based overseas development programs, including the accessibility of US embassies and missions.
NCD has been participating in a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) working group, which is developing a manual/guidance document that will be sent to all of the USAID missions, offices and bureaus with the goal of providing them with clearer instructions on how they can better integrate people with disabilities in all of their programs and operations. The manual/guidance will provide USAID staff with clear steps to improve inclusive development.
At the last NCD board meeting, the board voted to continue its membership in the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD). In 2008, USICD focused on organizational development and hired a new Executive Director. Beginning in 2009, USICD has launched an Education and Outreach Initiative to raise grassroots awareness of the Convention and build support among Americans with disabilities for US inclusion of disability perspectives in foreign affairs.
The Committee invited the following representatives of the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development and the United States International Council on Disabilities to the quarterly meeting.
Presenters:
Stephanie Ortoleva, Foreign Affairs Officer, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, U.S. Department of State
Ms. Ortoleva discussed 1) the role the State Department will play in ratification of the CRPD; 2) the Country Reports and coverage of disability; 3) efforts to ensure embassy/mission accessibility; 4) the Advisory Committee on Persons with Disabilities.
Robert Horvath, U.S. Agency for International Development, Displaced Children and Orphans Fund/Leahy War Victims Fund
Mr. Horvath discussed 1) an overview of the work USAID is doing to ensure that their overseas development programs and missions are being operated in a manner that is accessible to and inclusive of people with disabilities; 2) an update on the Fund for Inclusion; and 3) an update on the implementation of the accessibility provisions of their RFPS/RFAs; and 4) an update on their development of a draft manual for assisting in mission accessibility.
Eric Rosenthal, Board Member, United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD), Founder and Executive Director, Mental Disability Rights International
Mr. Rosenthal discussed 1) the work the United States International Council on Disabilities is doing; 2) how NCD and USICD can best work together; and 3) opportunities for work on the Convention and foreign assistance in the coming year; 4) the many NCD recommendations that have been implemented by the State Department and USAID.
Civil Rights Committee Report – Lisa Mattheiss and Victoria Carlson, Co-chairs and Julie Carroll, staff
Victoria reminded the Council that the Civil Rights Committee meets monthly, on the second Wednesday of each month at 12:30 PM.
Victoria reported that the Civil Rights Committee recently discussed 3 new bills in Congress that would affect the civil rights of people with disabilities, particularly with respect to aversive treatments, restraints and seclusions.
The first, HR 1255, would restrict the ability of advocacy organizations to bring class action lawsuits against institutions on behalf of people with developmental disabilities.
The second, HR 911, the “Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act” would establish standards and monitoring and enforcement mechanisms for residential programs serving children with emotional, behavioral or mental health disorders, or problems with drug or alcohol abuse.
Third, the Committee is monitoring the reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, and will research whether it can be amended to provide protections for students with disabilities in school settings.
Victoria stated that the Civil Rights Committee will continue to monitor these bills and will work with NCD's Legislative Committee to bring any recommendations to the full Council if action by the Council is warranted.
Presenter: Susan Daniels, President, Daniels and Associates, contractor
Susan Daniels, President of Daniels & Associates and the Principle Investigator on NCD's DD Act project, provided an overview of the DD Act and a brief update on the progress of NCD's DD Act project to date.
Health Care Committee report - Victoria Carlson and Anne Rader, Committee Co-Chairs and Julie Carroll, staff
Anne reminded the Council that the Health Care Committee meets monthly, at noon on Friday of the second full week of the month, to monitor projects, meet with contractors, and discuss emerging health care issues.
Anne reported that the veterans paper, Invisible Wounds: Serving Service Members and Veterans with PTSD and TBI, was released on March 5, 2009. It is available at http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/2009/veterans.doc. The feedback on this paper so far has been very positive.
Anne reported that the Health Care Committee received the final draft of the report on the Current State of Health Care for People with Disabilities, and it is under review by the Health Committee. It is hoped that we will have the report ready for release in a couple of months.
Anne reported that the Health Care Committee recently discussed the implications of the move toward making all health information electronic. A significant amount of funds from the recent stimulus package was devoted to increasing the use of online medical records across health care institutions. This raises privacy concerns for people with disabilities.
Dr. William A. Yasnoff, MD, PhD, a health information consultant, gave a presentation to the Council on emerging trends in the field of health information technology and electronic medical records, and discussed the implications for people with disabilities and chronic health conditions.
Chairman Vaughn recessed the meeting at 4:45 p.m.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Members and staff present. Carla Nelson departed. Stacey Brown, Staff Assistant arrived.
Reconvene NCD Meeting
Chairperson Vaughn reconvened the meeting at 8:30 a.m. and summarized the agenda for the day.
Review of Agenda – John R. Vaughn, Chairperson
Chairman Vaughn reviewed the agenda, highlighting speaker Kareem Dale, from the Administration. Chairman Vaughn shared that the board does its business at these quarterly meetings in person, but most of our committee meetings are done by teleconference, trying to identify the kind of projects, research projects, we might want to be doing, or managing those projects as they are being done.
Council Members, staff and guests introductions
Chairman Vaughn asked the Council to introduce themselves and where they are from, followed by staff introductions.
Administration Perspectives on Disability Policy:
Presenter: Kareem Dale, Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy
Kareem Dale began his remarks by calling President Obama’s Plan to Empower Americans with Disabilities, put forth during the Presidential campaign, one of the most aggressive agendas put forth by any president in the history of the country. Mr. Dale next outlined the actions that affect positive changes for people with disabilities.
Chairperson John Vaughn asked how NCD could best support Mr. Dale’s efforts. Mr. Dale answered that NCD should continue doing what it is doing, emphasizing that the Council now had someone at the White House who would focus on reading the reports and putting them to use.
Employment Committee Report - Linda Wetters and Lonnie Moore, Co-chairs, Joan Durocher, staff
The Employment Committee has selected its top 10 recommendations (directed at federal agencies) from the compiled list of NCD employment recommendations during the years 2001 – 2008. The Committee will meet at lunch today to discuss how to prioritize and implement action on the rest of the top 10 selections. The Committee is already moving forward with implementation – see GAO meeting re: the funding formula (below). Also, the 2010 Summit will begin laying the foundation for the public information campaign. Several of the one-stop recommendations can be addressed as we meet with new agency officials.
Other items since the last Council meeting:
*The Committee has put forth as one of their priorities for possible funding in 2009 a paper on employment and technology – and expand it to a full report in 2010.
*On the March 25 employment committee conference call, the Committee had a guest speaker, Barbara Butz (who is also working on NCD’s Developmental Disabilities Act project), who gave an update on current issues with the Ticket to Work.
*On February 23, Linda, John, Mike and Joan met with GAO to discuss potential changes to the VR funding formula. NCD will continue to work with them as they refine their report.
Disability Human Services Infrastructure Report - Linda Wetters, Chair, Martin Gould, staff
Work proceeds on this important project. Since we are just getting this project up and running there is not much to report. The expert panel for the project has now met and the review of literature has begun. We expect to have a more complete report at the Minneapolis meeting.
Housing Report - Linda Wetters, Chair, Joan Durocher, staff
An overview of the NCD housing study was given by Janet Smith.
Janet Smith, Co-Director and Associate Professor, Nathalie P. Voorhees Center, Urban Planning and Policy Program, University of Illinois at Chicago
The project is intended to be a comprehensive study of the state of housing in America in the 21st century. This evaluation focuses on: (1) public laws, policies and program initiatives that affect housing opportunities for Americans with disabilities, as well as others who have accessible housing needs, e.g. the aging population and those who acquire temporary disabilities; and (2) housing, supports, and other benefits provided through the public and non-profit and/or private sectors. The purpose of the study is to determine whether, and to what extent, public, non-profit and private housing and related programs have provided adequate, affordable and accessible housing for Americans with disabilities as well as others who have accessibility needs - like the aging population and those who acquire temporary disabilities.
Release of NCD Policy Paper on Federal Employment of People with Disabilities
Reactant Panelist:
Susan Parker, Director of Policy Development, Office of Disability Employment Policy, Department of Labor (DOL)
Federal Employment of People with Disabilities was released with a presentation by Susan Parker. Ms. Parker discussed the status of employment of people with disabilities in the Federal Government and made recommendations for improving federal hiring and advancement of employees with disabilities. Forty-six callers joined the release via teleconference.
Mr. Vaughn recessed the meeting for lunch at 1:00 p.m. The meeting reconvened at 1:30 p.m.
Public Comment Session – Moderated by Chad Colley, Vice Chairperson
Public comment was provided on the following subjects:
Substance Abuse Treatment
Early Identification, Screening and Treatment of youth with disabilities
The role of the public school system and the Criminal justice system
Comments on NCD’s Housing Report
Women with developmental disabilities
Emergency Preparedness
Employment issues
People with disabilities enhancing their education
Traumatic brain injury
Special Olympics
Difficulty accessing health services
State prison inmates
Chairman Vaughn reconvened the business meeting sharing that most of the work of the Council takes place every month as the council works in various types of committees.
Legislative Committee Report – Tony Williams and Kathy Martinez, Co-chairs and Anne Sommers, staff
Legislative Committee Co-Chairs Tony Williams and Kathy Martinez provided an overview of the work of the Committee and staff since the last quarterly meeting prior to the presentations made by the legislative panel. Mr. Williams made brief mention of the appointments with Congressional staff that Ms. Sommers and Mr. Collins have had as well as the letters that Council members’ Congressional Members received in the last month, informing them that a Council member was amongst their constituents and encouraging them to think of the Council as a resource throughout the session. Mr. Williams next introduced the two guest presenters on the legislative panel, Mrs. Connie Garner of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, and Ms. Sharon Lewis of the House Education and Labor Committee. Mr. Williams also explained that although Republican Committee counterpart staff from the House and Senate was invited, neither individual was able to participate due to scheduling concerns.
Presenters: Connie Garner, Democratic Policy Director, Disability and Special Needs Populations, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee and Sharon Lewis of the House Education and Labor Committee
Ms. Lewis and Ms. Garner shared information with the Council, which included which disability policy work fell under their respective committee’s jurisdiction; which disability policy work they believed was likely to be taken up by their respective committees during the Congressional session; how the current U.S. economic situation was likely to impact disability policy work during the Congressional session; and how NCD, as an independent federal agency, could best benefit the anticipated Committee’s work.
Following their brief remarks, both Ms. Lewis and Ms. Garner took questions from Council members regarding specific legislation and the effect of the recent stimulus package.
Homeland Security Committee Report – Pat Pound and Chad Colley, Committee Co-Chairs and Martin Gould, staff
The Members of the NCD Homeland Security Committee are Chad Colley, Co-Chair; Pat Pound, Co-Chair; Anne Rader; Graham Hill; and John R. Vaughn. Martin Gould is the NCD staff person assigned to the Committee.
On March 31st, the Committee covered three main topics: (1) activities engaged in and accomplishments achieved since the last NCD quarterly meeting; (2) background context and information about the Committee's current research project; and (3) a discussion about, and vote on, a draft homeland security report completed by NCD's contractor.
1. Activities/accomplishments:
* provided written comments, at FEMA's request, of their target capability list documents
* participated in the Department of Health and Human Services’ meeting of the National Commission on Children and Disasters
* participated in the Interagency Coordinating Council for the Emergency Preparedness of People with Disabilities.
* agreed to join a discussion at the national hurricane conference which will be held in Austin, Texas in early April.
* also agreed to participate in an invitational emergency and persons with head injury conference in Galveston.
* Pat Pound attended a working conference sponsored by the American National Standards Institute and the National Fire Protection Association related to needed standards for emergencies and people with disabilities. Their standards for limited use of elevators in emergencies should be announced sometime in 2011(NCD heard of these in its summer '08 meeting) Agreement to work on standards that resulted from the conference are those dealing with evacuation chairs--how they are built and how to use them.
* proposed to speak at the 2009 Community Preparedness Citizen Corp conference in August but have not heard about acceptance.
2. Background of emergency work by NCD:
Post 911, NCD was concerned about people with disabilities in emergencies. As a result, NCD undertook research , and issued a report in April 2005 entitled “Saving Lives.” Hurricane Katrina and Rita hit in the fall, and NCD's report got credible attention. NCD garnered a lot of attention out of that. Subsequently, NCD was written into the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) and given some specific responsibilities in that regard. In addition, and later, NCD was also provided with a supplemental appropriation of $300,000 to do the work outlined in PKEMRA. Since the publication of Saving Lives, at almost all NCD quarterly meetings, there have been one or more panels on emergency management. NCD had a hearing specifically in New Orleans on what happened during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. NCD also conducted a public solicitation about emergency management. Finally, NCD has also tracked outcomes of various emergencies as they have occurred and shared that kind of information.
3. Current research:
In 2008, NCD entered into a contract to provide an updated report that describes the barriers, the facilitators and some of the best practices in emergency management around the country. NCD wanted to know about people with disabilities in each of the phases of emergency management (i.e., preparation, response, recovery and mitigation). NCD also wanted to learn about emergency management practices at local, state and national levels. In essence, the research contract basically called for a compilation or compendium of evidence-based or documented knowledge, and what should we do next.
The final draft report is about 500 pages in length. The draft report includes information from many NCD quarterly meeting presentations. In addition, a number of things NCD discovered along the way are cited as best practices. Board Members were provided a copy of the report several weeks before this quarterly meeting for review and discussion on March 31st. NCD also relied on an expert reviewer for the report. The external reviewer was very favorable. He offered a couple of minor but very valuable actions for improvement involving very minor wording changes, but it was very powerful.
One Committee Member made a public comment about the research contractor.
“Of all the work we've done, Elizabeth Davis seems to be the most eager to get this the way we want it. Some people have such a sense of ownership that nudging them is sometimes problematic but I didn't sense any of that.”
In the final print version, it might be possible to include tabs with clear labels on them. In the online version, it should be possible to have links that are easy to follow making the material more user friendly. Pat expects that the current report will be used by emergency managers in the field selectively, according to their ‘individual’ areas of expertise. We have also targeted probably June as our day for our report release. That is the beginning of hurricane season. So it seems to be a good opportunity to get interest from the media .
The committee will need to talk about how to use some of the supplemental appropriation funds remaining in the NCD Homeland Security budget line item. Ideas that could be considered are: (a) bringing together a cross section of folks with disabilities and folks in the emergency field to work on implementing some of the final research report’s recommendations, or (b) excerpt some of the great lists in the report, such as the whole appendix on resources, and make some great handouts or pullout, so to speak, of the report.
Motion: After the discussion of the report, Chad Colley moved for adoption of the Homeland Security Committee Report and the research report prepared by EAD & Associates. Anne Rader seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.
Emerging Trends Committee Report – Marylyn Howe and Linda Wetters, Committee Co-chairs and Julie Carroll, Staff
The Emerging Trends Committee meets monthly. As recommended by the Council, the Emerging Trends Committee conducted an open competition for the writing of the 2009 Progress Report. Three responsive proposals were received. Three external reviewers provided ratings and comments, and the Emerging Trends Committee intends to make a recommendation on the selection of a Contractor very soon.
The Emerging Trends Committee had a presentation last month by Jessica Lehman, Project Director on Disability Rights and Justice, Generations Ahead. Generations Ahead is working on the disability issues with respect to human genetic technologies, and would like for NCD to be involved in the debate. Some of the issues of concern to people with disabilities include:
- Selective abortion based on disability,
- Efforts to prevent disabilities through genetic intervention,
- Whether the ability to selectively prevent disability through genetic intervention will become a duty to do so,
- Whether parents have the right to select an embryo with a disability,
- Whether advances in genetic technologies will reinforce the medical model of disability,
- Whether society can both affirm the rights and values of people with disabilities and also select against their existence.
The Emerging Trends Committee does not have a recommendation at this time as to whether or how NCD should be involved in this debate, but wanted to bring the issue to the Council's attention.
The 2008 Progress Report was released during the Council's quarterly meeting. A panel of reactors provided comments on the report during the release.
Emerging Trends Committee Panel Presentation Summary
National Disability Policy: A Progress Report Reactant Panel.
Twenty-six callers also joined the release via teleconference.
John D. Kemp, Principal, Powers, Pyles, Sutter, and Verville, P.C.
The report does a good job of laying out the framework for living with a disability. Kemp added some thoughts and comments, and suggested ways certain topics could be addressed more deeply, particularly regarding the importance of improving access to technology for people with disabilities.
Elizabeth Leef, Policy Analyst, National Council on Independent Living
The recommendations in your report are very general, and important things were left out. Leef gave suggestions for improving areas that are not thoroughly addressed in the report, including eliminating the in-home rule for DME, eliminating the 2-year waiting period for Medicare, and increasing accessible housing.
Peter Thomas, Principal, Powers, Pyles, Sutter, and Verville
The report is well done. Thomas gave a few suggestions for expanding some of the recommendations, particularly regarding the need for services for people with TBI, the need for better access to medical equipment, and the importance of making sure people with disabilities are included in current health care reform efforts.
Chairman Vaughn recessed the meeting at 5:00 p.m.
Wednesday April 1, 2009
Members and staff present: Chad Colley and Anne Rader departed.
Reconvene NCD Meeting
Chairperson Vaughn reconvened the meeting at 8:30 a.m. and summarized the agenda for the day.
Review of Agenda – John R. Vaughn, Chairperson
Chairman Vaughn reviewed the agenda
Council Members, staff and guest introductions
Chairman Vaughn asked the Council to introduce themselves and where they are from, followed by staff introductions.
Unfinished business – John R. Vaughn, Chairperson
Action: NCD should conduct a public solicitation asking how each state, city, or county has spent stimulus money in ways that affects the lives of people with disabilities, including best practices or creative uses of the stimulus money that are positive efforts toward quality of life for people with disabilities. It was agreed that this could be done through the Emerging Trends committee and that, as examples become known to NCD, that they could be posted on our web site for review and possibly impact how stimulus funds are used.
Motion: Mr. Vaughn led a discussion about where to hold the April 2010 quarterly meeting and noted from his review of meeting locations over the past five years that we probably should consider holding a meeting in the mountain states such as Denver, Colorado or Detroit, Michigan or Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. After a brief discussion, Pat Pound moved that we hold this meeting in Detroit, Michigan and Kathleen Martinez seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.
Motion: Pat Pound moved that the Council designate $50,000 of this year’s money for Website improvements including accessibility improvements, starting with a list of publications by subject. Victoria Carlson seconded the motion. Amended Motion: Pat amended the motion adding ‘with the approval of the executive committee after the appropriate research.’ The motion passed with nine votes in favor and one against.
Discussion and Prioritization of Council Projects – FY 2009 and 2010
Motion: Pat Pound moved and Linda Wetters seconded a motion to commit up to $150,000 for an independent research project to examine the delivery of special education and disability-related services to the children and families of members serving in the United States Marine Corps (USMC) with the goal of determining if there are any problems and how they might be corrected. The motion carried unanimously.
Action item: The Chairperson will either name a committee to conduct this project or assign it to an existing committee. Lonnie Moore, Heather McCallum, Lisa Mattheiss and Marylyn Howe volunteered to serve on a committee for this project.
Action item: The Chairperson indicated that during his March 16 meeting with the USMC he advised them that he would get back to them with the Council’s position on doing such a report. Mike Collins said he would work with the policy staff and put together a draft similar to an RFP that talks about the parameters and what is expected in such a study. Mike will work with USMC staff to provide some guidance on developing such a draft.
Motion: Pat Pound moved, and Kathleen Martinez seconded a motion, to commit up to $100,000 for a research project looking into the accessibility of U.S. facilities and structures around the world including State Department and Department of Defense facilities and projects funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars being constructed abroad. The motion carried unanimously.
Motion: Pat Pound moved that the Council reserve $150,000 for a technology-related report, to include the subject of Digital Media. Lonnie Moore seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously
Action Item: Mike Collins will send notes and meeting notices from the Summit steering committee meetings to all members. The next meeting is Tuesday, April 7, 2009, at 10:00 a.m.
Action item:
The consensus of the Council was that projects not approved at this meeting but in our FY 2009 and 2010 budget narratives would roll back to the 2010 budget. As the finance committee will soon start work on the FY 2011 budget, projects not yet acted upon by the Council will be included in that budget. Possible projects to be included in the FY 2011 budget include:
- A facilitated strategic planning session for new and current Council members expected to come on the Council by next year sometime.
- A paper or report on the use of adverse punishment or use of restraints in schools.
- Paper or update on previous work regarding the Work Force Investment Act and No Child Left Behind.
- Paper concerning issues that adversely affect parents with disabilities.
- Project on transition of disabled military personnel back to their military job or to civilian life; are the VA and DOD providing opportunities for a successful transition?
Action item: The newly expanded finance committee will be heavily involved in the FY 2011 budget process including the narrative for the budget.
Motion: Pat Pound moved to adjourn the meeting at 11:20 a.m. Katherine McCary seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
Meeting adjourned at 11:20 a.m.
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