[nfbmi-talk] approved mcb jan 31 2012 minutes
joe harcz Comcast
joeharcz at comcast.net
Sat Mar 31 13:13:14 UTC 2012
MICHIGAN COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND
APPROVED
MICHIGAN COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND
SPECIAL COMMISSION MEETING
201 N. Washington Square
Victor Center Building
2nd Floor Conference Room
Lansing, MI
January 31, 2012
9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
VIA Conference Call
MINUTES
COMMISSIONERS PRESENT VIA TELEPHONE
Mr. Larry Posont Ms. Lydia Schuck
Mr. John Scott
COMMISSIONERS ABSENT
None (2 Commissioner vacancy’s currently exist)
MICHIGAN COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND STAFF PRESENT
Mr. Pat Cannon Ms. Sue Luzenski
Ms. Constance Zanger Mr. James Hull (via telephone)
GUESTS/ATTENDEES
Mr. Mike DeRose Mr. Phil Kozachik
Ms. Elham Jahshan
GUESTS/ATTENDEES VIA TELEPHONE
Mr. Joe Sibley Mr. Terry Eagle
Mr. Joe Harcz Mr. Dave Robinson
Mr. Fred Wurtzel
CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL AND DETERMINATION OF QUORUM
Commissioner Larry Posont called the special meeting to order at 9:07 a.m. Roll call was taken and a quorum was present.
Discussion of 2012 Performance Objectives for Agency Director
Objective 5
Commissioner Schuck read Objective 5 as proposed by Commissioners, stating that Pat’s proposed Objective was the same.
SCHUCK MOVED TO ADOPT OBJECTIVE FIVE AS WRITTEN; SCOTT SECONDED.
Discussion: There was no discussion.
THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Final Objective 5:
Objective 5: Continue support of the Business Enterprise Program (BEP)/Elected Operators Committee (EOC) Ad Hoc Committee into 2012 as it concludes its
work and presents its recommendations to the BEP/EOC. Work with these entities to help support attainable goals to help advance the mission of the BEP
and its operators.
· Explore potential funding sources to enable more B E P licensees to attend the popular national training called BLAST (Business Leadership and
Superior Training) as a way to broaden access to vital training for new and veteran BEP operators. Progress on this initiative to secure additional funding
for the conference will be reported to commissioners in March and June.
· Consistent with the 2012 BEP Annual Workshop Theme of “Looking from the Customer’s Perspective,” BEP will work with EOC and operators to explore
ways and resources to develop and enhance promotional and marketing opportunities for each facility to promote customer satisfaction, quality and earnings
for BEP operators. Report progress to commissioners in March, June and September.
Objective 6
Commissioner Schuck read Objective 6 as proposed by the Commissioners.
SCHUCK MOVED TO APPROVE OBJECTIVE SIX AS IT WAS READ; SCOTT SECONDED.
Discussion: Director Cannon pointed Commissioners to the objective staff drafted, which incorporates all of the reports Commissioners requested. Ms. Zanger
added that the requested information is data that is provided to the Rehabilitation Services Administration and asked for clarification of some of the
data requested. There was discussion about the listing for the programmatic data. Staff and Commissioners discussed the process of completing the BEP
inventory project of equipment, the time frame for completing this and securing a vendor to complete the job efficiently and accurately.
Final Objective 6:
Objective 6: BEP financial reporting and equipment inventory
a. Quarterly, commencing April 2012, the BEP will provide the Elected Committee with the following programmatic data: gross sales, merchandise purchases,
payroll expenses, other operating expenses, vending machine and other income, net proceeds, levied set-aside funds, set-aside funds collected to date,
late set aside fees by facility, net profit to vendors, vendor earnings and net income for the whole BEP program by facility type. The Agency will provide
reports to the EOC on a quarterly basis and to individual operators in an accessible format upon request.
b. B E P is currently in the process of completing a full equipment inventory and upon completion will continue to monitor the inventory, providing
a report to the Elected Committee and the Commission Board in March and June with a target completion date of September 2012.
THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.
Objective 7
SCHUCK MOVED TO APPROVE OBJECTIVE SEVEN AS WRITTEN BY THE COMMISSIONERS; SCOTT SECONDED.
Discussion: Commissioner Posont stated that there is a need for a BEP trainer and for that trainer to be housed at the Training Center. Director Cannon
responded that several years ago the BEP training was removed at the request of the Training Center Director, Christine Boone because of a space issue.
He went on to state that objectives are not meant to state an official work station or what official duties are for any given position, civil service
does that. Commissioner Posont stressed that being at the Training Center for this would assist potential BEP vendors in being successful by having access
to necessary training as needed while at the Training Center. Director Cannon concurred that he wants the best possible training also and that his Objective
7 as written reflects this. Ms. Zanger commented on the history of BEP vendor training since 2010 including staff issues, surveying participants for the
purposes of training evaluation and the ongoing assessment process during the on the job training experiences. Commissioner Scott commented on the length
of the vending stand training now and what the length of this training used to be. Commissioner Schuck stated that Objective 7, as written by Pat, adequately
covered the intent of the objective.
Final Objective 7:
Objective 7: BEP Training
a. Continue to provide B E P Manager Training using the enriched curriculum developed in 2011, and continuously seek student and O J E trainer and the
E O C input for curriculum enhancement.
b. Continue to work with the Elected Committee and the BEP/EOC Ad Hoc Committee and based on their recommendation, develop and implement training for
current licensees.
c. Reports will be provided to the Elected Committee and the Commission reflecting the current status of Program training.
d. Report to commissioners quarterly a summary of the various assessments of new trainee’s progress on the BEP operators training. Assessment of training
quality will come from host OJE operators, EOC, EOC training subcommittee and the trainee.
THE MOTION PASSED WITH SCOTT AND SCHUCK VOTING AYE AND POSONT VOTING NAY.
Objectives eight and nine, which are LARA Department mandated objectives will be automatically included with the Directors objectives.
PUBLIC COMMENT
Mr. Joe Harcz: I find it remarkable that we’re working on an evaluation for next year and we had a failure in the evaluation last year which
is still not up on the website. I’d kind of like to know what happened to that. But also, we have, overall with the program and not just BEP, a total
lack of accountability on where the money is and where it’s going. We looked at, just the other day, some of the projections got put out which I circulated
around and you’ve got, oh, $250,000 for legal and we’re talking about today what programs and inventory control and that type of thing that were cited
all the way back in 2003 in a single audit and in 2004/2005 somewhere about with the general accounting office. We’re already going through inventory
problems or accountability with the single audit being conducted by the Auditor General right now. Nobody knows where anything is but this agency keeps
plowing in money into private vendors and that goes to the training. We’ve already got as a public account more than $30,000 going into McVety and Associates
last year. Where’s their expertise and how much did we spend on the hotel and then we’re told we don’t have the money to hire a trainer. There’s no accountability,
general accountability going on with this agency. None. I would also like to know just who the vendors were that we contracted and how much we paid them
on the second inventory that Ms. Zanger talked about. Those are supposed to be part of the public record. They’re right up on the Department of Technology,
Management and Budget website. The other thing that we need to look at, and we need to look at very strongly, and this goes to the Agency overall is to
take the Director up on the accountability of how the stimulus funding was developed and how many retentions we have. I’ll tell you one thing this is
part of the public record, we hired a whole bunch of people with stimulus money to work part time and temporary at CVS and I’ll tell you that how many
people got retained at CVS. None. They also had job coaches paid for at roughly $35 an hour by who, oh I don’t know, New Horizons. Why are we accounting
where the program dollars go and into rehabilitation of blind people and look at the numbers ladies and gentlemen. Look at the number of people that are
not retained. Look at the line item at $50,000 on social security because we aren’t putting people into competitive employment which is the number one
job of this agency. Thank you.
Mr. Dave Robinson: I want to thank the Commissioners and the difficulty I know in dealing with this issue. I know the BEP is a big image issue
with the Commission for the Blind and I believe over the last four years under the current management it’s slowly deteriorated to the point where there’s
nothing in the program you can count on. First of all, the Commissioners, for you the Commissioners you rely on reports that are accurate and correct
and I know for a fact that much of the report that Zanger has given you are falsehoods. Outright lies about what happened, what is happening. You voted
to continue an enhanced training class when we know the very last class that was conducted, there are so many issues that have been created that we will
never depend on the training of the people who are just coming out here in September. All the way from limited vending stand training to no training on
small appliances to readers who were giving answers to trainees in the serve safe tests just so they could pass. Lots of different issues that are there
and are true but yet are not reported to you by the management of the BEP. They’re hiding a lot of things. They’re hiding an awful lot of things. And
also I‘d like to correct the fact that Christine Boone is on record as saying that she’s willing to and believes the enhanced recommendations of the Ad
Hoc Committee for the training are good ones and are willing to have the Training Center as the vehicle to make things better for BEP trainees and it’s
not correct that she just doesn’t want them there at all. And I believe that one of the big issues with the training is the fact that people coming out
of the training center and into the BEP class do not have the blindness skills like Commissioner Posont said, that’s the only way you can detect those
shortcomings. If we don’t do something and do it immediately this entire program is going to be made up of people that do not have the blindness skills
and do not have the business training that is needed to run a facility in today’s market. And it’s going to get worse, way worse before it ever gets better
if we just go along with the current management strategy. And don’t forget, the management of the BEP believes that the EOC is only an advisory committee
and they can ignore them any time they please.
Mr. Joe Sibley: I just wanted to say for the process again today, this time and last time, I appreciate that there was discussion on both sides
of the table. There was discussion and sometimes there was debate and that’s great. I don’t expect everyone to sing Kumbaya all the time. But there
was discussion, there was compromise and things were actually worked out so I want to compliment the Commissioners and staff and everybody involved that
there was actually proactive discussion to actually accomplish the goals today. Thank you.
Mr. Joe Sontag: I will definitely be brief because a lot of what I was going to say has already been said. I agree strongly with the comments
of Dave Robinson and with Joe Harcz about the Commission in general and about the BEP deliberations today particularly. I would just hasten to add that
things are not going to get better in terms of the amount of friction that exists currently between clients, between BEP operators and the program. Some
of these difficult discussions are never going to go away until everybody starts doing a better job telling the truth and doing what needs to be done as
opposed to doing what they like to get away with doing or not doing. With regard to training, follow up on things Dave was speaking of how in the world
do you ever expect to have a competent operator who can submit an accurate and true report as required by our promulgated rules when we have one known
situation where an individual has failed the business math component of the training twice and who has been alleged that the individual, the people who
are responsible for administering the business math portion were ordered to pass the individual. The same individual claimed a personal emergency and
as a reason for not being able to attend a portion of the training only to find out that the individual was right there in the hotel and had celebrated
something a little too vigorously with some of his friends from home and was in his room the next morning seriously incapacitated to the point where he
didn’t feel like he could attend class. It was only because Ms. Zanger was willing to take him out for breakfast to get some food into him so that he
might be functional that he was able to attend class that day. Back in the bad old days when the training was substandard and it was producing such lousy
operators such as old duffers, that would never have been tolerated. Tardiness, failure to attend without a reasonable excuse, that was grounds for termination
of the training right there. We just don’t have it and if we don’t have, that’s just one of many. I’ll just close by saying if we don’t have standards
and if we don’t insist that those standards be met then we might as well just admit that we’re wasting time and money and just call it what it is. A free
for all at this point and just get ready for the serious fall out because it will, in fact happen. Our promulgated rules were put there in all seriousness,
not because people like to become heavy weights, not because people like to monitor, not because people like to call people on the carpet but because the
vast majority of the rules and policies are found to be necessary and yet with every passing months we are finding more and more reasons to pretend we
have them yet avoid implementing them. Thank you.
Mr. Terry Eagle: I’d like to speak as a former operator and as a member of the ad hoc committee. I’m really pleased that the commission has
taken the steps to at least try to get the information that is required under the law and has not been forthcoming to the operators committee especially
and any operator that wants it. This information has been asked for repeatedly, and repeatedly and repeatedly at operators committee meetings and it never
shows up for whatever reason. Somebody has to be held accountable for following the law and rule of law. Secondly, I’d like to say that as a member of
the Ad Hoc Committee we put a lot of time and effort and a lot of input into looking at the program and trying to make recommendations that will improve
it. We have a meeting on Friday and very soon we will be wrapping up our recommendations and sending it to the EOC and the Commission Board as well as
the operators in general and I really hope that the Commission Board will really stay on top of this and help us achieve what we believe can be a number
one program in the country. You may or may not know that back in September at the BLAST conference Michigan was laughed at repeatedly because of our lack
of training and lack of achievement within this nation which one time was a number one program and was used as a model. And finally, I’d like to say that
the problem of training needs to be addressed and I don’t care what you call it whether it’s a trainer or a teacher, whatever, this position has to be
formulated whether it’s from inside or outside. Whether it’s a training coordinator or whatever, this has to be done because without the right resources
to get the right people assessed and into the right program and trained properly this programs gonna die and there’s too many vultures out there now already
looking to get their hands on the program. And I know for a fact that if this Commission doesn’t move very soon other people in the disability community
plan to do legislative action to take it away from the blind people. Thank you.
Mr. Fred Wurtzel: I just want to say, speak to one issue and that’s the training issue. We got to have goals for the program administrator,
for the Director that are measurable, achievable and realistic and time driven, all that stuff. The counter proposal to the proposal that the Commissioners
put forth were not any of those things. It was vague, basically unmeasurable as far as results go. The resistance to putting the training program in
the Training Center where there’s access to assessments in Braille and mobility and all the other skills of blindness and access to remedial training if
necessary, those things only make good sense. The idea of putting people in apartments and having them find transportation to and from training programs
would be an outstanding idea. By putting the trainer position as a Promotional Agent requires a college degree. We need to keep the position available
to existing operators if possible. I don’t know of any existing operators who might be interested or qualified to be a trainer but the very best resource
for a good BEP training is BEP operators. And so I think that you ought to consider that job classification. The reason it was a maintenance mechanic
was because we couldn’t figure out another position that didn’t require a college degree that would mainly fit the job duties of the trainer. So that’s
one of the things, if you want the job to be open to blind people and open to people with valid experience, relevant experience then I think that putting
it as a Promotional Agent will run counter to that. It may, if you found a person who was qualified for that, there’s no reason you couldn’t later on
expand that into an upward mobility situation for the person, a career ladder position and help them move into that and increase their pay grade. Those
are the things, but the main thing again remains and continues to be a pattern or behavior here is to try to change the job duties and change the objectives
so that they’re not measurable and no matter what happens you can claim success and I’m very happy with the way that things have been done so far to keep
everyone accountable. Thank you again for your hard work Commissioners, I’m hoping that your work turns out to be valuable for the future of the Business
Enterprise Program. Thank you.
Director Cannon requested that a meeting be set up for Commissioners to discuss the House of Representative Cafeteria. Ms. Zanger gave a history of the
past operators in this cafeteria and informed Commissioners that a small EOC Ad Hoc committee had been created to write interview questions and develop
a process for interviewing potential candidates.
A meeting was set for Wednesday, February 8 at 9:00 a.m. via telephone.
SCOTT MOVED TO ADJOURN THE MEETING; SCHUCK SECONDED.
MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY
The meeting adjourned at 11:09 a.m.
____________________________ ____________________
Larry Posont Date
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