Children's Services Act Meeting Minutes

City of Suffolk Children's Service Act Community Policy and Management Team Meeting Minutes July 15, 2020 9:00 am WTCSB Harbour View Office, 7025 Harbour View Blvd, Suite 119, Suffolk Members Present: Rachel Lewis – CSA Coordinator, Shawn Sawyer – Tidewater Youth Services Commission, Donna Boykin-Lewis – WTCSB, Stephanie Whitley – Suffolk Public Schools, Randah Gaitan – City of Suffolk, Kellie Evans – The UP Center, Saniyyah Manigault – Suffolk Department of Social Services Absent: Kimberly Jennings – 5th district CSU, Mary Bess – Parent Representative, Beverly McQuarry – Health Department Guest: Stephanie Pough – Assistant City Attorney, Suffolk Meeting Scribe: Machalia Hall – Suffolk Department of Social Services 1. The meeting is called to order by Saniyyah Manigault, Chairperson at 9:12 am. 2. A Motion is made by Kellie Evans to approve the minutes from the June 17, 2020 CPMT meeting which is seconded by Randah Gaitan. All are in favor with the exception of a correction: Randah Gaitan seconded the motion to approve meeting minutes from May 20 CPMT, not Stephanie Pough. Ms. Hall makes the correction in this documentation of the minutes and all approved. 3. Rachel Lewis presents the financial report: a. We did receive supplemental. 75% given initially with other 25% held until you need it. Finance report shows 75% with 25% in reserve. Deficit is $409,284.00. The other 25% will take care of most of that but when we close out the bills we usually don't use the amount encumbered and if we come under the $398,000 we will not have to do another supplemental request. Bills are being worked on now. The city is not making any decisions until we finish the year and will see how much over we are and utilize what is in the DSS budget to cover. b. Medicaid local match is used for residential and foster care. $74,510 has been spent in local money maintaining placements. Last month we agreed to request SPED wrap funds that may take 15,000 of the non mandated expenses and after sending it up Rachel got a call from state office and the form online has not been updated for the 2021 fiscal year. She has to wait until August to get the new FY form so we won't know until august whether we got the money or not. Rachel will show it as a separate line on the finance report. c. CSA office will compare numbers from last year to see how many children we've served. Currently across the localities there are 112 active cases. Some discussion around the table for how to address the significant jump in numbers 4. CLOSED SESSION – Saniyyah Manigault entertains a motion to convene a Closed Meeting for the purpose of discussing cases before the Family Assessment and Planning Team in accordance with the provisions in subsection A of § 2.2-3711 of the Code of Virginia as amended in 2001 and 2005 respectively. Only applicable exceptions as provided in section § 2.2-3707 or subsection A  of Section § 2.2-3711 are to be discussed. Shawn Sawyer motions to enter into closed session and Kellie Evans seconds with all in favor. The team entered into closed session at 9:28am. 5. RETURN TO OPEN SESSION – Saniyyah Manigault entertains a motion to move out of Closed Meeting. Shawn Sawyer motions to come out of closed session which Kellie Evans seconds. All are in favor and the motion passed. Saniyyah Manigault initiated a roll call certifying that to the best of each member’s knowledge only the following matters were discussed during the closed session: 1) public business matters lawfully exempted from statutory open meeting requirements and 2) public business matters identified in the motion to convene the closed meeting. All affirmed. 6. ACTIONS TAKEN – A motion was made to approve funding as discussed in closed session, with the exception of child agreed upon, by Randah Gaitan and seconded by Kellie Evans with all in favor. Regarding this child there is a motion to deny level increase request by Kellie Evans and seconded by Shawn Sawyer with all in favor. The increase in level will be denied. 7. OLD BUSINESS – Rachel Lewis spoke to Parent Representative Mary Bess who lost a family member (spouse). The team signed a card for her. 8. NEW BUSINESS – a. Not a lot of updates from private day virtual meeting. Each school has to submit their plan to the state prior to reopening. Plan B opened but is now closed again for the next two weeks because a staff member tested positive. Plan B offering virtual instruction. In order to pay starting June 1, CSA is requiring information from the chart, i.e. hours, tasks completed but the schools are not cooperating prior to sending the bills. b. A kinship guardianship bill extended eligibility to fictive kin. Work bill to approve residential services report back by December. Families First has been delayed to January 2021 and they are looking to integrate CSA into that. COVID-19 has slowed that down so they have not asked CSA to provide a policy. Only 3 facilities have applied to be QRTP. Shawn Sawyer offers insight into the tedious process as the potential reason that more facilities have not applied. The CSA director is requiring facilities to become QRTP licensed to provide a higher level of care to continue to take CSA funded children. c. Revision of policy and procedures manual: i. Utilization management section- new term is CQI (continuous quality improvement). Language changed to reflect that along with 2 statements to clarify what CQI and UR is. ii. Regional subcommittee of the 3 FAPTS will meet with vendors to decide who they would partner with. Franklin and IOW are still following this policy but Suffolk has stopped and needs to resume meeting with vendors. This year the plan was to have a presentation March 29 which didn’t happen due to Covid-19. Selecting a vendor for a case is child specific but in terms of general contracts the process is different across jurisdictions. Typically, current procedure is that an RFQ is required and there used to be a vendor presentation to determine  who to use. The state does not require vendor contracts but strongly recommends them. There is a code section that exempts CSA from requirements but it was interpreted by city attorney’s office that CSA is still subject to that. Previously Rachel was sending out the contracts for all 3 localities and the vendors would send them back to her instead of Jay and the vendors are getting confused about the process. Suffolk solution 1: duplicate Norfolk process using RFP and undergoing selection process. Stephanie will explore with her team and Jay to discuss legalities of this option. Modifications to the Norfolk process may need to be explored to tailor that process better to Suffolk. Ask Jay if he is open to attending CPMT to have dialogue about how Suffolk can be involved in the RFQ process. The contracts currently approved are good through 2022 so there is time to discuss. Stephanie will provide insight from the city's perspective next meeting in August. iii. Page 39- UR review procedures for residential placements to include on site UR iv. Intensive care coordination policy, little change there our wording is right on target. Page 42 took out Level A/B group home because the changes with Medicaid Level A doesn't exist anymore so changed to "licensed group home". Page 43- CSB is only agency who could provide but the last go around with the contract we didn't do an MOA we just did a vendor contract. Took out annual MOA for purchase of ICC and just left open in general not specific to any one vendor d. E-learning courses for CPMT: OCS created online courses as a training resource. Team participated in CSA033 course. e. No members have any other items of new business. Stephanie Pough did have discussion with the City Attorney, Helivi Holland regarding whether she should continue to attend CPMT. Other localities are split on this decision and Stephanie proposed to the team whether she should attend every meeting or go through a CTA request if there is a particular issue. The team decides it is helpful for Stephanie to be present in the meeting and she will continue accommodating that. Stephanie will let the team know if Attorney Holland agrees with her continuing to attend. A motion to adjourn this CPMT meeting was made by Kellie Evans and seconded by Randah Gaitan with all in favor. The meeting adjourned at 11:44 am. Recorded by Machalia Hall, Suffolk DSS