[nfbmi-talk] bsbp may 1 commission meeting transcripts fyi
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1
1
2
3 STATE OF MICHIGAN
4 BUREAU OF SERVICES FOR BLIND PERSONS
5 COMMISSION FOR BLIND PERSONS
6 - - -
7 MEETING OF THURSDAY, MAY 1, 2014
8 9:15 a.m.
9 2436 Woodlake Circle, Suite 380
10 Okemos, Michigan
11 - - -
12 PRESENT:
13 BUREAU OF SERVICES FOR BLIND PERSONS:
14 Edward F. Rodgers, II, Director
Lisa Kisiel, Training Center Director
15 Sue Luzenski, Board Secretary
16 COMMISSION FOR BLIND PERSONS:
17 Lylas G. Mogk, Chairperson
LeeAnn Buckingham
18 Marianne Dunn
Gary Gaynor
19 Joseph E. Sibley
20
21 - - -
22
23
24 REPORTED BY: Lori Anne Penn, CSR-1315
33231 Grand River Avenue
25 Farmington, Michigan 48336
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1 Okemos, Michigan
2 Thursday, May 1, 2014
3 At 9:15 a.m.
4 - - -
5 DR. MOGK: We will call this meeting to
6 order. I want to welcome everybody -- we're missing one,
7 who is ill -- and all of the guests of the meeting.
8 I first want to just review what our
9 mission is so everybody is clear on that. We're
10 appointed by the Governor to report to him and the
11 director of the Department of Licensing and Regulation
12 with regard to the following: To study and review the
13 needs of the blind community in the state; to advise the
14 Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs concerning
15 the coordination and administration of state programs
16 serving the blind community; to recommend changes in
17 state programs, statutes and policies that affect the
18 blind community; to secure appropriate recognition of
19 accomplishments and contributions of blind residents in
20 the state; to monitor, evaluate, investigate and advocate
21 programs for the betterment of blind residents in the
22 state; to advise the Governor and the director of LARA
23 and regulatory -- of LARA of the nature, magnitude and
24 priorities of the challenges of blind persons in the
25 state; and to advise the Governor and the director of
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1 LARA on this state's policies concerning blind
2 individuals. So it's a big order, to the end of which we
3 have been exploring all of these questions for almost a
4 year and a half now and are collecting again today some
5 valuable information from individuals from whom we have
6 not heard before.
7 So we'll start by just introducing
8 everyone so we all know who we are. I'm Lylas Mogk, the
9 chair of the Commission. I'm an ophthalmologist and run
10 a vision rehabilitation program for the Henry Ford System
11 in Livonia and Grosse Pointe.
12 And let's start, Mike.
13 MR. HUDSON: Michael Hudson, director of
14 the Michigan State University Resource Center for Persons
15 with Disabilities, honored to be a part of this, because
16 the then Commission for the Blind made a positive impact
17 in my life a couple decades ago.
18 MR. GAYNOR: Gary Gaynor, I'm cofounder
19 of the Visually Impaired Information Center. We publish
20 and distribute the Directory of Visually Impaired
21 Services, and just very happy to be here.
22 MS. BUCKINGHAM: LeeAnn Buckingham, I am
23 owner of Framer's Edge for 15 years, 7 employees, legally
24 blind, and I also am very happy to be here. The
25 Commission Services has been very -- they've been very
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1 supportive. I'm very grateful.
2 MR. SIBLEY: I'm Joe Sibley, I live in
3 Wyoming, the Grand Rapids area. My other -- I've been
4 legally blind for about 16 years now. My other hat is
5 president of the Michigan Council of the Blind and
6 Visually Impaired, which is the Michigan affiliate of the
7 American Council of the Blind. I'm also honored to be
8 here.
9 MS. DUNN: And I'm Marianne Dunn, I am a
10 clinical psychologist from Grand Rapids, Michigan. I
11 have twins who are blind, graduating from high school in
12 about three weeks, and they receive services through the
13 Bureau of Services for Blind Persons. I'm also
14 transition coordinator on the Board of Michigan Parents
15 for the Visually Impaired.
16 MS. LUZENSKI: I am Sue Luzenski, Bureau
17 of Services for Blind Persons, I'm the assistant to the
18 director and the secretary to the board.
19 MR. RODGERS: My name is Ed Rodgers, and
20 I'm the director of BSBP, have been legally blind since
21 birth, graduate of the Michigan School for the Blind.
22 DR. MOGK: Young lady in pink.
23 MS. STACY: Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Linda
24 Stacy, I'm the driver for BSBP, and I've had the honor to
25 drive Joseph here today.
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1 MR. ROSE: Charlie Rose, Michigan
2 Protection and Advocacy Services.
3 MR. PEMBLE: Mike Pemble, Bureau of
4 Services for Blind Persons.
5 MS. KISIEL: Lisa Kisiel, Bureau of
6 Services for Blind Persons.
7 MS. MACEACHERN: I'm Lauren MacEachern,
8 M-a-c-E-a-c-h-e-r-n, the Bureau of Services for Blind
9 Persons.
10 MR. ROBERTSON: And I'm Bob Robertson
11 from the Bureau of Services for Blind Persons.
12 DR. MOGK: Thank you, all.
13 The first item is the approval of the
14 minutes from the previous meeting, which is actually the
15 transcript from the previous meeting. Are there any
16 moves to approve the transcript?
17 MR. SIBLEY: I would move to approve.
18 DR. MOGK: Is there any discussion or any
19 corrections, additions? Okay. There are none. Do we
20 have a second to approve the minutes?
21 MS. DUNN: I second it.
22 DR. MOGK: Thank you. All right.
23 We are a little bit ahead of time, and
24 Suzanne Howell is not here yet, but I hesitate to start
25 with a different presentation because she has to leave.
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1 MS. LUZENSKI: Right.
2 DR. MOGK: So I think we'll just cool our
3 heels for five minutes, and hopefully she will come, and
4 if not, then we'll do something else during that time.
5 MS. DUNN: Would you like me to --
6 (Inaudible.)
7 MR. RODGERS: Madam --
8 THE REPORTER: Excuse me. I have to hear
9 you, so you have to all speak up.
10 DR. MOGK: There are microphones up
11 there, but not for the room.
12 MR. RODGERS: Madam Chair, perhaps we
13 could put on the record that there is back in the room
14 for the audience the handouts that we sent to the
15 committee this week as attachments to a couple e-mails,
16 there is the questions and answers that the committee had
17 asked for. There is also such documents as the
18 organizational chart, an outline of Mr. Robertson's
19 duties, contracts that we're aware of, and as we get into
20 those documents later on today, there's some comments I'd
21 like to make explaining what those documents are in more
22 detail. Okay.
23 DR. MOGK: Sure.
24 MR. RODGERS: Thank you.
25 DR. MOGK: In this five minutes, a good
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1 idea Marianne suggested is her report on the transition
2 conference that she attended, and none of the rest of us
3 were able to go, so we're all interested to hear this.
4 MS. DUNN: Actually, Mike Hudson was
5 there.
6 MR. HUDSON: That's all right.
7 MS. DUNN: And I know some of the folks
8 from the Bureau were also there. Karen Wolffe was a
9 presenter, I've also always appreciated Karen's input
10 because she comes from a research background, and so she
11 backs up what she says with data, which is always a good
12 thing. She reported on data from the National
13 Longitudinal Transition Study, and there were several
14 phases of this. It started out with more than a thousand
15 youngsters between the age, young people between the ages
16 of 22 and 29 approximately. They found a percentage of
17 41.5 employed, about half-and-half part-time/full-time,
18 in that sample, which is, from the statistics I look at
19 for adults, slightly better than what we're doing with
20 our adult population.
21 Karen has published widely in the Journal
22 of Visual Impairment and Blindness, and a lot of her
23 resources and her bibliography are very, very helpful if
24 you want to know a little bit more about assisting blind
25 individuals who become employed. Karen Wolffe is her
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1 name, it's spelled W-o-l-f-f-e, and she's pretty much a
2 giant in the field, so you can just Google her.
3 One of the things that was associated
4 with employment over and over and over again were the
5 opportunities early on in a young blind person's life to
6 have the experience of having a job, the responsibilities
7 that go with that, that was the highest associated factor
8 with having employment once they reach transition age.
9 So employment during high school is really very, very
10 important as a predictor of employment later in life.
11 That goes for sighted people as well, but it's not an
12 easy thing to accomplish for blind youngsters, it takes a
13 lot of coordination among the young person's counselor,
14 parents, community, and that's one of the issues I think
15 we struggle with across the board with what we're trying
16 to do, that piece. We have people job ready through a
17 lot of the services that we provide, that the Bureau
18 provides, and then that next step of getting them into
19 employment and developing those jobs so that there is
20 somewhere that they can take their skills and employ
21 them.
22 Let's see. One of the findings they had
23 that was in this day and age, young people are widely
24 using the internet, and it's found that blind young
25 people are doing that at a lower rate, and that that has
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1 an impact, also, on later employment. I think that most
2 of that is pretty obvious in terms of why.
3 She was quick to point out the sort of
4 old-fashioned way that we all have gotten first jobs, and
5 that's to know your community and make a list of people
6 that you know, and then look at that list and try to see
7 employment opportunities there; that would be something
8 that young people with their parents and their rehab
9 counselor could do, and that's exactly how first jobs are
10 obtained. If a community is familiar with a young blind
11 person, they're going to be more open to taking the risk,
12 because I think for an employer, it often feels like a
13 risk to employ them and give them their first job, and
14 it's so important then for later employment.
15 I think this is probably our speaker. So
16 I will just highlight one additional resource that I
17 thought I have not looked at yet, but sounds very
18 promising. Karen -- Dr. Wolffe has put together a
19 preemployment program, employability skills program that
20 is a checklist for social, ILS and other kinds of skills
21 that she considers a transitions competency checklist,
22 and it's gone through three iterations, so it's something
23 that is an active document and I think would be a good
24 resource. And then she noted some of the others that I'm
25 sure our rehab counselors are familiar with, the
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1 government websites that list trends in employment, where
2 people are likely to be employed most, and that those
3 resources are also very, very good, especially for having
4 the young people check out themselves, get online, have
5 them check those sites out so that they're continually
6 looking at job opportunities, and that's helping them
7 refine where their search is going to go based on the,
8 you know, the data that tell us where growth and
9 employment is going to be. So a lot of really good
10 resources that she offered. If anyone's interested in
11 those, I can certainly get her bibliography pulled
12 together and a little summary of what she reported on.
13 MR. GAYNOR: I'd be interested in that.
14 MS. DUNN: I don't know if I missed
15 anything major, Mike, that you wanted to add?
16 MR. HUDSON: No, I think you did a great
17 summary. I think it was an energizing opportunity. If
18 you grew up blind, a lot of this stuff felt like common
19 sense, but it was good to hear it stated, good to see so
20 much engagement from educators, K-12, rehab
21 professionals, I think it's a great message, and I think
22 she's got some really excellent ideas that will need to
23 be studied a little deeper here. I enjoyed it
24 thoroughly.
25 DR. MOGK: Thank you, Marianne and Mike.
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1 Is this Suzanne Howell who's joining us?
2 MS. HOWELL: Yes, it is.
3 DR. MOGK: Okay. We're looking forward
4 to your presentation, so please come on up. And maybe
5 you could take a spot over on the side here so you're in
6 front.
7 MS. HOWELL: Absolutely.
8 MR. RODGERS: How you doing?
9 MS. HOWELL: Just fine.
10 DR. MOGK: We very much appreciate your
11 coming today.
12 MS. HOWELL: I'm very happy to be here.
13 And I thought I would start out talking a little bit
14 about my background so I could introduce myself formally,
15 and then would want to give you an update on MRS, kind of
16 what we're doing, we've been through, I'm sure everybody
17 knows quite a few transition changes, and then I would be
18 happy to answer any questions.
19 So I have been in rehab for 35 years,
20 I've been with MRS for 29, I started out as a
21 rehabilitation counselor. And I will tell you that I do
22 have a visual impairment, that I had a retinal web in my
23 eye, my left eye, lost most of my vision, which was a
24 major transition at the time that it occurred, and I
25 think that those kinds of experiences qualify you even
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1 more in terms of the work. It was very relevant to me at
2 the time that it occurred. I spent primarily my whole
3 career within the Flint district office, but became a
4 site manager, and after that, a district manager, where I
5 was for the last eleven years until this recent promotion
6 in February.
7 So since I came on board, it has -- there
8 was no honeymoon period, to say the least. We kind of
9 hit the ground running because we were transitioned, of
10 course, over to DHS, and there was a lot of work to do
11 when I came in. We have gone through a reorganization.
12 There was some talk initially about positions that we
13 would be decreasing, however, since I've come in, we
14 worked through a reorganization, and they accepted the
15 proposal that I submitted, so there won't be any loss of
16 managers, manager positions, but we continue to look at
17 ways to become more efficient. We're also looking, too,
18 at our processes and our procedures in terms of how we
19 can do things in a more efficient way so that we're
20 making sure that the checks and balances are in place.
21 And, of course, one of the things that we're looking at
22 is our four-step authorization process so that we can try
23 to make sure that services are not delayed, but that the
24 necessary checks and balances are in place so that as
25 we're issuing those authorizations on behalf of the
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1 customer, that we make sure that there's the necessary
2 accountability. So those are -- those are some of the
3 things that we're looking.
4 We're also preparing in July, as I'm sure
5 you're probably aware, RSA will be coming in to do
6 monitoring, and so we are meeting with them, we'll be
7 having some teleconferences with them. We are filling
8 positions, we have 21 counselor positions I'm happy to
9 say that are in process and moving forward. We have
10 another 17 in our phase two that we'll be incurring
11 shortly after June. And as part of the reorg, we are
12 going to look at adding possibly another manager,
13 division director position at our central office. And
14 we're moving ahead with services.
15 We're, financially, I think we're about
16 at the same place we were last year, but we are hopeful
17 that next year we will be pulling down the entire federal
18 match. We're having some talk with the senate budgetary
19 committee, and I think that there is support for that.
20 So we're working towards that.
21 I will tell you that one of the things
22 also I've been working very diligently on is really
23 helping our staff to kind of work through this time,
24 because last year, to say the least, was kind of a
25 tumultuous year for us, and the field staff I think
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1 really felt it. So we are working -- we had our first
2 leadership council, we're really focusing to getting back
3 to creating an empowered culture so that we can do the
4 business of rehab and focus on rehab solely without the
5 distractions of the day coming into play as much as
6 possible.
7 So that's kind of it in a nutshell, but I
8 really wanted to spend time focusing on questions you
9 might have or areas that you would like to pursue
10 discussion more, and I'm happy to do that.
11 DR. MOGK: One of the things that we're
12 interested in is what kind of data you collect in order
13 to support decisions that you make and how you do that.
14 MS. HOWELL: Well, you know, that's a
15 great question. We are in the process of really looking
16 at how we can expand our data reports so they're more
17 customized, and one of the things we're looking at is
18 consistently taking the national data and laying it over
19 Michigan's data to see where we're at, but doing that
20 more predominantly. We have done that in the past, but
21 it really doesn't get out to the field, and we are trying
22 to be more transparent in getting the data out to the
23 field to hopefully help us to be more empowered.
24 We're also going to be collecting more
25 audit data. The way I view audits is I do embrace them
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1 as a means to help us with continuous improvement. So
2 one of the things we're going to be doing is tracking our
3 audit responses, then we're taking those to the district
4 for analyzing at a local level, and at that point we're
5 asking the districts for feedback on, well, where are
6 you, rate yourself in that finding in terms of do you
7 need more training, do you need additional support,
8 resources, so that we can be accountable, and also have
9 some closure to the findings.
10 Part of the concern I think with the
11 audits is, that we've experienced is that the findings
12 seem to go on and on, and we need a mechanism to be able
13 to demonstrate that we have responded and that we are
14 taking the necessary action, and then thirdly, and most
15 importantly, we have shown improvement in those areas,
16 continuous improvement, or that we have addressed the
17 issue in a way that is demonstrated and accountable for.
18 So we are looking at AWARE and trying to expand how we
19 utilize AWARE. There's also another program that we're
20 looking at, and I'm not real well acquainted with it yet.
21 You know, coming from the baby boomer, I leave a lot of
22 this to the younger folks who come in, and they have to
23 sit down and go through it with me. But there is another
24 program we're looking at that will help us to customize
25 our data a little bit more, and I would be more than
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1 happy to share that information with you as I get more on
2 board with it.
3 I also -- Ed and I were talking, and we
4 really would like to see us connect more, maybe through
5 our leadership, and to be talking more so that we can
6 take best practices from both agencies and align them
7 more. I think that creates greater efficiencies. And
8 really in many respects, the feeling has always been that
9 we were sister agencies, so we I think would be remiss if
10 we didn't really work to make that more of a predominant
11 goal; and that is a goal of mine is that we can work a
12 little bit closer together in data sharing, in terms of
13 practices and programs and lessons learned would be
14 something we would be happy to share with you.
15 DR. MOGK: Well, we'd be interested,
16 also, more specifically in what pieces of data you
17 collect. What is in the AWARE --
18 (Multiple speakers.)
19 MR. GAYNOR: On a given client, for
20 instance.
21 MS. HOWELL: So specifically what we're
22 looking at is our referrals, how many referrals are
23 coming in. You know, order of selection has been on the
24 radar with MRS, and we are developing a referral module
25 for that; so what is the time when someone actually comes
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1 in, makes an application, we get them into the system,
2 and then what is the amount of time from orientation to
3 eligibility, we're looking at that. We're looking at the
4 individual plans for employment and how those plans for
5 employment in terms of the dollar amount work towards the
6 goal of the employment. For instance, how much are we
7 spending on that customer, and is that the most efficient
8 service delivery plan financially. The other thing that
9 we're looking at is how much we're spending on our
10 placements, and the way that we are paying for placements
11 kind of -- there's an array of ways that we pay for
12 placement, but is that the most cost-effective. Is it
13 better to do an outcome-based payment where the vendor
14 gets paid for if they place the person, or is a tiered
15 system better. We're looking also at how many of our
16 customers are falling out, how many people are falling
17 out within that 90 days. And we have had a substantial
18 number at one point, and so the concern I have is what
19 support services do they need in order to make sure that
20 we're tracking that person adequately during that 90 days
21 rather than just putting them in a job and then we're
22 done kind of. You know, we want to make sure that in
23 that 90-day period, they're getting adequate support,
24 that we're checking in on them.
25 Last, I would tell you that we are
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1 looking really closely at our third-party agreements on
2 how we can -- you know, what is the data. What we find
3 in those agreements is that is where most of our
4 innovation occurs, and we are looking to really expand
5 those agreements where it makes sense and where the
6 members lend themselves to. Part of what our partners
7 say in terms of data collection is that oftentimes they
8 want to expand because there's a need and in a particular
9 targeted area, like with transition or with Community
10 Mental Health, and sometimes we don't have the ability to
11 be as responsive as they would like. And so we're going
12 to work on that and try to see what we can do to share
13 data a little quicker and to see if we can respond and
14 get those agreements expanded, even during the fiscal
15 year rather than in many situations we wait until the end
16 of the year. So those are kinds of specific things we're
17 collecting.
18 And then I would tell you probably most
19 importantly is customer satisfaction. We are tracking
20 that, but we're looking at some other ways of gathering
21 information in a way at a local level so that we can
22 compare that with statewide feedback that we're getting.
23 I also want to mention we are rolling out
24 four vision statements. They're nothing, not rocket
25 science or nothing new, but what they will deal with is,
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1 number one, our willingness, our desire to be the highest
2 producing VR in the nation, customer satisfaction; we
3 want to fortify and strengthen partnerships, both
4 internal with the department and external partnerships;
5 and we want to be make sure that we are creating a strong
6 positive culture with within MRS. So those are the kinds
7 of vision statements; I'm going to be visiting every
8 district to work with them, we've already started some of
9 that.
10 And then we're also asking the districts
11 to gather their own data that's customized to that
12 location, because we know that no two district offices
13 are alike. So for instance, in Detroit, as we are
14 working, and we are working with DHS to consolidate
15 offices, that has an impact sometimes on our ability to
16 gather information. And so we're looking at, in your
17 area, how does your environment and how does the county
18 logistics in your area that you're serving, how does that
19 impact your data. And so we're looking at a lot of those
20 in terms of our business, but particular to customers,
21 those would be the areas.
22 DR. MOGK: Would you give us an example
23 of the third-party agreements, for example?
24 MS. HOWELL: Sure. We do have third-
25 party agreements with, for instance, the Intermediate
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1 School Districts. Our agreements are a little bit
2 different than yours because they cover an array, a
3 number of students. So, for instance, you know, with, I
4 might say with, for instance, in the Flint area with
5 Genesee ISD, it would cover all the schools in that area,
6 as well as the charter schools. We would then provide
7 transition services to those students, we would have
8 counselors, and we do have counselors in every county
9 going into almost every school. They provide an
10 orientation with the parents and the students, and then
11 from that, they gather information on students that are
12 interested in MRS services, and we would begin to pull
13 them in, utilizing that agreement and money to provide
14 services. Now, sometimes the agreements will allow for
15 us to pay for what we call purchased service staff,
16 support staff, that will work with that population
17 specifically and with the counselor, but on behalf of
18 that student in this case to help them to move through
19 the program. And then by the time the student gets done
20 with school, we have got them all the way up to their
21 plan. After they graduate, we then implement the
22 rehabilitation plan with them, which is in synch with
23 their career pathways that they've gotten through the
24 school, and then we begin to work with them on employment
25 or college or whatever the goal would be at that time, to
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1 move them towards it in terms of the next step.
2 MS. DUNN: Just for clarification, the
3 individual that you employ for the student, a little more
4 on that position.
5 MS. HOWELL: Sure. That can come from a
6 variety of areas, it depends on the location. It could
7 be a person we hire from Goodwill or from New Horizons;
8 it could be someone from the school that the school
9 identifies that, and there's mutual agreement that this,
10 based on the essential functions that that person would
11 be performing, the school might say we have a retired
12 person that we think would be great in that capacity. So
13 through that agreement, we would, in concert with a
14 community rehab organization, we would go ahead and hire
15 that person to come in and work with the students and
16 with that caseload of students.
17 MS. DUNN: So it wouldn't necessarily be
18 a one-on-one, but --
19 MS. HOWELL: No.
20 MS. DUNN: -- a mentoring kind of?
21 MS. HOWELL: It could be -- well, it
22 could be anything. It could be also that if it's a
23 student, we have some program support people that go into
24 the schools and they will, before the counselor comes in,
25 they will go in and gather all the information on that
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1 student. And so there might be, you know, we might have
2 20 or 30 people that are being referred, and so by the
3 time when the counselor comes in to present at that
4 orientation to the parents, they can meet after that
5 meeting with that program support person and go through
6 that information quickly, so it's to really help that
7 person move through the process. Sometimes those
8 program's support people also will be providing job-ready
9 activities, they'll -- whatever it might be, or help the
10 person to collect diagnostic medical information. So
11 they can do -- the array of duties is just really
12 dependent on the need of that particular agreement and
13 student.
14 MS. DUNN: So I would imagine they are in
15 the front lines doing work that would be hard for the
16 counselor to --
17 MS. HOWELL: Yeah.
18 MS. DUNN: -- either have time for or --
19 MS. HOWELL: Right.
20 MS. DUNN: -- know the lay of the land as
21 well?
22 MS. HOWELL: It would be almost like the
23 ancillary services, the supplemental services that
24 support that program. And a lot of times we also use our
25 Centers for Independent Living for that as well and pull
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1 them into those agreements as well.
2 MS. DUNN: Thank you.
3 MR. GAYNOR: Where is the funding, who is
4 paying for that person that she was talking about, the
5 outside, that counselor?
6 MS. HOWELL: What happens in those
7 agreements is the school will put up or the partner puts
8 up, you know, about, say, 20 percent of the money, and
9 then we match that through federal funding. And so there
10 is mutual planning, though, and agreement in the way when
11 we sit down, we plan with that partner, so that if the
12 partner's saying, I really think with the amount of kids
13 we've got or customers we have coming through, we're
14 going to need a person, then the agreement would pay for
15 that and we would budget that into that agreement. So
16 that would be all done ahead of time. We also would sit
17 down and decide upon what the skill-set is going to be
18 for that job, and then would do joint interviews so the
19 partner has representation. And because we want this as
20 much as possible to be a win/win, but also a
21 representation and meet both the goals of the partner and
22 MRS.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Could you explain what -- I
24 haven't heard you use this term, but what job readiness
25 is; and do you do your own job placement, or was that a
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1 placement company that you mentioned?
2 MS. HOWELL: Well, that's a great
3 question. And that is something the counselors -- I mean
4 I think when I talk to counselors and they use the word
5 job-ready, for every counselor, that definition could
6 mean something different, you know. But we have a status
7 within our system that is job-ready. And typically the
8 way that we gauge that now is based on some training we
9 received is that the customer needs to demonstrate that
10 they are motivated, they're reliable and they're
11 dependable; in other words, they're engaged and they're
12 ready to move to work.
13 As far as if we do our own placement, we
14 have a placement program that we implemented a year ago,
15 and it's in place. Is it used as much as I would like to
16 see it; no. But that's one of the things we're working
17 on, and that was the enhancing employment outcomes that
18 we brought in and trained staff in, and what that
19 requires is that staff, and sometimes we have our program
20 support staff assist us with that, where they will make
21 calls in a region to employers, and they will ask them
22 simply four or five questions if they're hiring. Out of
23 that, we have gotten appointments to go out to those
24 employers and meet with them. And then when we go in,
25 it's simply to just listen to the employer. And you see
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1 a lot of counselors will say to us, well, we're not sales
2 people. We say, great, you're not, because in this mode,
3 you're going to use your counseling skills, so it's a
4 great match. And they go in and they listen to that
5 employer and what the employer needs are. It may not be
6 acquisition to hire, it may be that they need help with
7 something else. We had one employer that wanted more
8 information on how to write up a job description, because
9 the people that were doing it for him, he was paying for
10 that, so we brought in support from our unit and we were
11 able to help him with that at no charge.
12 But if it's acquisition, in some of the
13 districts what they're doing is they're maintaining a
14 list by county of the job-ready customers. Now, that
15 list is fluid, and customers come on the list and they go
16 off the list, depending on where they're at; but at any
17 given time, that list is shared with our placement
18 vendors and our staff so that we can track the placement.
19 Then in some of the districts, they're meeting monthly
20 with the vendors to look at that list. And a counselor
21 might say, you know, my person's been on that list for
22 eight months or nine months or a year, and nobody's
23 pulled that person off, and we begin to address that
24 specifically. We don't want people on the list a long
25 time, because as you can imagine, it really, really hurts
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1 the confidence of the customer.
2 So we're trying to get more to a
3 universal job-ready list where we share that with
4 vendors. And in some of the districts where we're seeing
5 the pay-to-plays, where they -- where you pay only if the
6 person is placed in the job, we've seen a really good
7 return on investment in our funds. And I'll give you an
8 example. At one point in one of districts, they were
9 paying $600,000 for placement, and that was looked at,
10 and when we began to use a pay-for-placement, what they
11 did is the district took placement and they separated it
12 out from any kind of job-seeking skills, so it was a
13 standalone service so we could isolate it. And what we
14 found is we weren't really paying $600,000 a year to
15 place people, we were paying for everything else. And
16 when we began to separate that out, the cost for
17 placement went down considerably, it was down to I want
18 to say about 450,000, which was a considerable savings.
19 And then we could rationalize, well, of course the money
20 is going to get that person ready, but the actual
21 placement. It also gave us the ability to address with
22 our vendors exactly what they were doing, what does
23 placement mean to them. Because when you talk about
24 job-ready, their definition sometimes isn't the same as
25 ours either, and placement definitions aren't the same.
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1 And so one of the things, too, we're looking at is trying
2 to really refine those definitions so we're all talking
3 the same talk, so it doesn't mean something different.
4 MR. HUDSON: Can you sense any tendency
5 towards disadvantaging the most severely disabled persons
6 by the model of, you know, the kind of reimburse for
7 placement, were they kind of becoming the ones I don't
8 want to work with that person?
9 MS. HOWELL: Well, you know, I have heard
10 that, so when my counselors say that, my response is, if
11 you think that's what's going on, help me understand what
12 you're going to do to place that person. And the
13 counselors will typically say, you know what, I am going
14 to place that person, or they'll sit down with the
15 vendor. And I have been in meetings with staff where
16 they have confronted vendors in a very professional way
17 as to why someone has been on the list so long. And our
18 feeling is is that it doesn't make us look credible or
19 working with integrity if it's always about the money.
20 We get the bottom line, but how can we tell people we're
21 placement people, all of us, if we're letting that
22 customer sit on a list.
23 And I did talk to a customer who had been
24 on the list for a year and a half. She was a 57 year old
25 woman. And she said to me, I am too old and nobody wants
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1 to hire me, and that was her feeling. And so when I
2 brought that and presented it to the group, I will tell
3 you that three of the vendors stepped up, and within four
4 months, she was placed.
5 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
6 MS. HOWELL: So I think we have to -- and
7 I use the word confront -- but we have to bring that and
8 put it right on the table, because otherwise none of us
9 has credibility.
10 MS. DUNN: Suzanne, could you give us a
11 breakdown of the disability groups you serve?
12 MS. HOWELL: Everything but legally
13 blind. Everything but legally mind.
14 MS. DUNN: And the percentages? The
15 majority are --
16 MS. HOWELL: I would tell -- you know,
17 that's a great question. I was really surprised when I
18 looked about two months ago, and our hearing impaired
19 population has gone up, and I apologize, I don't have
20 exact percentages, but I would tell you that we saw that
21 percentage jump about almost 7 percent, which really
22 surprised us. We think it's because people are aging
23 out, and we're hearing more, no pun intended, about those
24 folks who are getting referrals from hearing aid dealers
25 and other places. And in some of the cases, of course,
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1 they're looking for us to help them with hearing aids,
2 which we have gone to a bulk hearing aid process, I will
3 tell you, where we're purchasing right from the
4 manufacturer, which is, again, another efficiency that's
5 helping us to save money. But I will tell you the
6 majority is probably folks with cognitive issues, and
7 we're seeing a large increase in autism, students with
8 autism, and people; and, of course, physically disabled I
9 think would probably be the third in terms of how I rank
10 them. But I'd be happy to get that information to you if
11 you would like it, and we can provide that to you more
12 specifically.
13 MS. DUNN: Thank you.
14 MR. HUDSON: Has mental health been a
15 rising force there?
16 MS. HOWELL: Mental health, you know, it
17 ebbs and flows with their budget. We're seeing some
18 major cuts, as I'm sure you are. We do have concerns
19 about these agreements we have with them that serve a
20 large number of people, but we are trying to do
21 everything we can locally to hang on to that.
22 One of the things I did want to talk with
23 Ed about in the future is proposing that we maybe have a
24 joint meeting where we pull in our school districts, our
25 mental healths, to really sit and talk strategically
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1 about, in a time where funding is becoming more
2 difficult, how do we come together to really effectively
3 strategize in terms of advantaging our resources
4 together. I really think during times like this,
5 sometimes we tend to pull back and everybody kind of goes
6 underground, and I'd really like to see us do more
7 connectivity with each other, because there may be ways
8 that we can advantage each other to help customers in a
9 more seemless way.
10 DR. MOGK: Would you tell us a bit about
11 your training center?
12 MS. HOWELL: Michigan Career Technical
13 Institute is in Plainwell. One of the things -- I'm glad
14 you asked about that. One of the things we're doing at
15 the direction of Director Corrigan, who's been great to
16 work with, is exporting MCTI's services across the state.
17 We have three initiatives we're working on right now, one
18 I'm really excited about, and that is we are working with
19 Michigan Works vendors, and in this case it's in Berrien
20 County, the vendor is Connexis, and we are working --
21 they had a CNA program with path participants from DHS,
22 they had a very poor rate of return in terms of people
23 that were able to stay in that program because of reading
24 issues and literacy issues. So MCTI's CNA trainers are
25 the people that wrote the certification criteria. So
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1 we're partnering with Michigan Works to go in and train
2 their trainers how to work with folks that have learning
3 disabilities, because MCTI's return on those folks has
4 been really good in terms of going through that program.
5 And we're looking at this kind of as a two-prong; one,
6 we're going to be assessing those customers that are in
7 that program for services if they need them, and
8 secondarily, we're trying to work to help create a
9 stronger infrastructure and accessibility for people that
10 have disabilities that may not be coming our direction or
11 may not know about us. We recognize we can't be
12 everything to everybody, but we do think there are some
13 things we can do with partners to teach them in terms of
14 training the trainer so that their classes at Michigan
15 Works are a little bit more accessible.
16 The second initiative is we are working
17 with the distribution center here at Meijer's in Lansing
18 to provide not just employees, because they have a need
19 to hire about 200 people, but we're also working with
20 them and one other employer initially to develop employer
21 resource networks where we bring services on site to the
22 employer. So we're looking at possibly having a
23 Department of Human Service worker, Michigan Rehab
24 Services counselor, and possibly a Community Mental
25 Health, maybe someone from Social Security, so that based
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1 on what the employer is telling us, we can bring those
2 services and export them into that environment at the
3 workplace. So for instance, we might have staff there
4 maybe two times a week, based on the need, and they would
5 be able to set up meetings with employees that have
6 questions or concerns. Some employees have concerns
7 about family members that have mental health issues
8 that's impacting their work, and so we're -- we would be
9 able to come in and assist in getting that network of
10 support set up. It does not mean that MRS is going to
11 open cases on people, but what it means is that we would
12 be part of that employer resource network.
13 DR. MOGK: So that the -- your funding,
14 that is not contingent on, or is not necessarily
15 connected to an individual case, an individual client?
16 MS. HOWELL: Well, yeah, it is, because
17 we issue authorizations on a case-by-case basis, but it's
18 not I think similar to yours, it's a little bit different
19 in that we're working under a funding source that is
20 drawings from -- by caseload. So when you say
21 individual, we do issue individual authorizations on
22 behalf of that customer, but we may -- I mean that's the
23 process. But we -- basically when we're looking at
24 arranging programs and services, we may be looking at a
25 larger number. I mean we do individual, but we most of
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1 the time are looking at arranging services and programs
2 for a multitude of people rather than just one customer.
3 Does that make sense? It's a little different I think.
4 DR. MOGK: Right. So that the example
5 that you just gave of going into the workplace and some
6 employees have issues with family members with -- and the
7 family member is not your client?
8 MS. HOWELL: Right.
9 DR. MOGK: Nor is the employee?
10 MS. HOWELL: Right. We would be able to
11 sit down and consult, but it would be also with the
12 ability to say to that person, maybe your son or daughter
13 does need services. So it would be almost like going in
14 and doing a consultation as we would in any district
15 office if someone walked if the door and had an issue or
16 a problem, but we're trying to export it more to the
17 employment site.
18 DR. MOGK: And the funds that you can tap
19 into to do that can be a general, not tied to a
20 particular client or even a few clients?
21 MS. HOWELL: Right. Because at that
22 point, it would be -- and again, I'm not too familiar
23 with your process, but if someone walked into a district
24 office and wanted to see a counselor because they had a
25 family member and wanted to find out if MRS could do
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1 something for them, that would be part of our role to do
2 that, that would fall under the purview of the rehab
3 counselor to be able to sit down and consult with that
4 family, just as we would if we were in a school district
5 talking on a mental health facility. So we would spend
6 that time helping that person to assess whether or not
7 MRS was the best first step and whether they should come
8 in.
9 DR. MOGK: Okay.
10 MR. SIBLEY: Is there a structure in
11 place if you -- maybe Ed can chime in on this, too -- if
12 we have a consumer who is blind, but also has other
13 disabilities which would be better served by MRS, is
14 there a structure in place where they could receive
15 services from both agencies, or does it have to be one or
16 the other?
17 MS. HOWELL: You know, my understanding
18 would be that we would probably want to work together to
19 be able to serve that person. I think what we would do
20 is to sit down and separate out, you know, if it was a
21 legally, the person was legally blind versus the other
22 disabilities, and then what part and role MRS would play
23 and what part and role the Blind Services would play. I
24 think we'd have to look at that and make sure that we
25 were working in concert so that there wasn't duplication
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1 of services, but certainly I would want to make sure that
2 we were taking a strong look at that, and my feeling
3 would be that on behalf of the customer, we should be
4 able to do that. And if we were not able to do that for
5 whatever reason -- I know in the past we have worked with
6 our business network unit and with Veterans, Veterans
7 has, you know, played their role and provided services
8 and we played ours, so I wouldn't think it would be any
9 different with BSBP as well.
10 MS. BUCKINGHAM: I have a question.
11 MS. HOWELL: Sure.
12 MS. BUCKINGHAM: How would you share the
13 information for each client from BSBP in your
14 organization?
15 MS. HOWELL: So if we worked jointly?
16 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Yes.
17 MS. HOWELL: I think we would have to
18 have the counselors meeting, talking, and working closely
19 together as a team, you know, so that there was a high
20 degree of connectivity and communication.
21 MS. BUCKINGHAM: With actual records,
22 would you be able to --
23 MS. HOWELL: I would assume so. If
24 releases are signed --
25 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Yes.
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1 MS. HOWELL: -- I would think there would
2 be no problem with that, absolutely, yeah.
3 DR. MOGK: We could probably go on much
4 longer, but unfortunately we only have --
5 MR. GAYNOR: Can I sneak one more in?
6 DR. MOGK: Yes, quickly.
7 MR. GAYNOR: How would a new client find
8 you? Who refers people to you, and do you have a public
9 awareness type thing set up?
10 MS. HOWELL: You know, that's a great
11 question. I will tell you personally, I wish that we
12 could put billboards up on 69 or wherever, 96, or we
13 could do, you know, commercials, but, you know, we can't
14 really do that. So we do get a lot of referrals from
15 Michigan Works, Community Mental Health, the schools,
16 people learn about us in a variety of ways. But the
17 concern I have is that I don't -- I think sometimes when
18 I hear stories, that someone will say, you wouldn't
19 believe what I've been through and I never knew about you
20 guys, and it just, it's a frustration for me. So the
21 only way I know to get by that is that we just keep
22 talking to people, we talk.
23 I mean I, you know -- I'll just tell you
24 a little story. I was shopping at Target stores and I
25 was in line and there was a gal at the cash register and
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1 she was having a terrible time doing her job because she
2 had a physical impairment, and but she was trying. And
3 so I waited until she was open and I said, you know, are
4 you -- do you have anybody helping you -- because Target
5 does real great peer support, I've done some programs
6 with them -- and she said no, and I don't want to make a
7 big deal out of this because, she said, I don't want to
8 lose the job, and I said, absolutely. I said, look,
9 here's my card, just give me a call if you get a chance.
10 Well, two weeks later she called and she said she had
11 gone all the way through school, even though we're in the
12 schools, she was not part of special ed, and never was
13 referred, we never knew about her. So with regards to
14 students that have physical impairments, sometimes they
15 slip through the, you know. So we begin to work with
16 her, we put some accommodate -- very simple
17 accommodations in place, and she's working. So that's
18 the kind of thing I think we have to continue to battle.
19 But that's why I think the transparency and connectivity
20 and communication with all of us is so important, so that
21 if you're out, we all become billboards for each other,
22 if I can refer to it that way.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Thank you.
24 DR. MOGK: Thank you very much. And
25 would you please leave us your card --
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1 MS. HOWELL: I will, I'd be happy to.
2 DR. MOGK: -- so if we have further
3 questions?
4 MS. HOWELL: And it's very timely because
5 I just got them two days ago.
6 MR. GAYNOR: The new cards.
7 MS. HOWELL: The new cards, right. Thank
8 you very much. And I do want to express my appreciation
9 to Ed and all of you for allowing me to come in and share
10 some of my ideas. I really look forward and hopefully
11 that we can work very closely together in the future.
12 BOARD MEMBERS: Thank you.
13 DR. MOGK: Okay. Next up is Rob
14 Robertson. Thank you, also, for coming. And we asked
15 you to come because we saw your name on the flow chart
16 and thought, who is that and what does he do.
17 MR. ROBERTSON: Trying to keep hidden.
18 MR. HUDSON: Too late.
19 MR. ROBERTSON: Okay. Well, I'll give a
20 little background, too. I was interested to hear that
21 Sue Howell has 35 years in rehab, because that's what I
22 have, and we both started at MRS, so we must have gotten
23 hired about the same time, but I didn't know her back
24 then because I worked in the Lansing area. But I worked
25 at the MRS Lansing office as a counselor for about seven
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1 years, then went over to the Workers' Comp Bureau, and
2 our job there was to make sure that injured workers were
3 getting the services that they needed from the private
4 sector rehabilitation companies. Then we got a new
5 governor, and somebody made the decision that they didn't
6 need a rehabilitation unit in the Workers' Comp Bureau
7 any longer, so I ended up getting moved over to the
8 Commission for the Blind, and I've been there ever since.
9 I was a counselor for about three years, and then an
10 opening came up in the central office, and I got that,
11 and that's where I've been since.
12 Currently I wear a number of hats. I
13 think you all saw the sheet that was put together. But
14 primarily, most of the time is spent in two areas. One
15 is being the H.R. manager and the liaison to the
16 department's Office of Human Resources, and that involves
17 all H.R. matters, you know, the creation of positions,
18 filling positions, disciplinary action, transfers, and
19 whatever you can think of that has to do with H.R.
20 People come to me within the agency, and then I work with
21 our H.R. office to make sure that we're doing what we
22 need to do to make things happen.
23 The other part, the main hat that I wear
24 is the training coordinator, and that can be identifying
25 training opportunities for staff, a lot of times it
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1 involves coordinating large trainings, getting the people
2 signed up and, you know, doing the arrangements for that,
3 can be identifying training needs, just anything having
4 to do with our staff development comes through me.
5 I'm also facilitator for the Agency's
6 safety team, and this is an internal committee that is
7 involved in a number of issues regarding employee safety.
8 Most recent, we're purchasing some AEDs, two for the
9 Training Center and one for the central office, just to
10 have in case we need those.
11 MS. DUNN: AED?
12 MR. ROBERTSON: AED is an automated
13 external defibrillator. And we'll be providing training
14 for staff, or actually the Red Cross will be providing
15 training for staff on how to use those.
16 I do administrative reviews when
17 necessary. Most of those come out of the Business
18 Enterprise Program, but occasionally one comes out of
19 Vocational Rehab Program. And that's basically the first
20 step in the hearing process, it's an informal meeting. I
21 have no authority in there, I'm not an arbitrator or
22 anything like that, I can't issue a ruling, but it's
23 primarily to get the sides together and hopefully resolve
24 it before it gets to a hearing. Sometimes it works and
25 sometimes it doesn't, but that is the first step.
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1 Also, we do case reviews is one of my
2 hats. And that's where I will look at specific cases, VR
3 cases primarily, and just take a look and make sure that
4 counselors are doing what they're supposed to in terms of
5 eligibility and plan development and case management,
6 those types of issues.
7 And then I also do whatever else the
8 director asks me to do. So that's primarily the outline
9 of what I do. So it covers a lot of areas, and depending
10 on the day, it can be one thing is focused on or a lot of
11 things going on at once.
12 So if anybody has any questions, I'd be
13 glad to --
14 DR. MOGK: Two of the areas you mentioned
15 I appreciate you elaborating on, one is the trainings.
16 We've been interested in the continuing education of
17 staff and wondered what your array of options are you're
18 providing to the staff.
19 MR. ROBERTSON: Well, we've always had
20 the belief that training is an ongoing thing. I mean
21 it's not something we do and then we say, okay, we've
22 completed that, we're done now. It's -- we're always
23 looking to get better and, for instance, in job
24 placement, that's a big area for our counselors. We want
25 them to be the best that they can be at doing job
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1 placement. And so if we send somebody to a placement
2 program, we don't say, okay, they've completed that, they
3 know everything there is to know about job placement.
4 But we look at different areas, and these areas are
5 identified in a variety of ways. The managers may say,
6 hey, we need training in whatever, or the counselor will
7 come to their manager or they may contact me and say, you
8 know, I could really use some training in this area, or I
9 saw a training program next month in Detroit on this
10 topic, I'd like to go. Every once in a while we will do
11 a, it's not real formal, but a more formalized training
12 needs assessment for our staff. We'll ask them, send out
13 a little questionnaire saying, you know, what areas do
14 you think we need or what do you need.
15 For instance, over the last year we've
16 done a training program on social media. Counselors,
17 teachers, managers attended that. It was, a presentation
18 was made by the staff from the Region 5 TACE Center at
19 Southern Illinois University, and the topic was to teach
20 clients how to use social media in general, but primarily
21 for job placement. MARO, which is an organization in
22 Lansing, along with the TACE Center out of SIU, have
23 provided a very good employment training. It's limited
24 to just a handful of people each year because it's six
25 days over a three-month period, and it's rather intense.
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1 So we have, I think we sent seven people last year, and I
2 think we've got five going this year, and that's been an
3 excellent program.
4 DR. MOGK: What does it include, the MORO
5 training, what sorts of things?
6 MR. ROBERTSON: I'm not sure of all the
7 details, to tell you the truth, but it's basically
8 teaching the counselors what they have to do, you know,
9 how do you get somebody a job, what are the barriers,
10 some best practices that they've learned, because the
11 TACE Center, which stands for Technical Assistance and
12 Continuing Education, is a federal program, and their job
13 is to provide technical assistance and training to the VR
14 agencies in Region 5, which is what we are in. So they
15 have information from Minnesota and Illinois and Ohio,
16 and they bring that to this training and share the best
17 practices there as well.
18 MR. GAYNOR: How are these evaluated?
19 You have said both, about both these programs that
20 they're excellent programs. Are they evaluated by your
21 staff and you have read reviews of them, or how are you
22 judging them?
23 MR. ROBERTSON: That's based on feedback
24 from the participants.
25 MR. GAYNOR: Do you have that in writing,
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1 or is that something verbal or what?
2 MR. ROBERTSON: It's verbal. I'm
3 guessing the TACE Center -- I'm trying to think. I
4 believe the TACE Center did share their written
5 evaluation of the first one with us, now that I think
6 about it, because I'm sure they collect written
7 evaluations because it's required under their grant. But
8 most of the feedback that I get is in talking to people
9 who attended and then later on talking to the managers
10 saying, hey, we noticed a difference, has this training
11 made a difference, and you hope it does.
12 MR. SIBLEY: Do you require staff to
13 attend these trainings, or do you just give it to them as
14 an option, or both?
15 MR. ROBERTSON: For things like that,
16 it's optional, unless a manager makes it mandatory. I
17 mean I don't make it mandatory, and the Agency doesn't
18 say you have to go to this, but if an individual is told
19 by his or her manager that, hey, you know, I think you
20 need to go to this, then yeah, it becomes mandatory. But
21 primarily it's people who have expressed an interest in
22 wanting to attend and have let -- has let that interest
23 be known to us.
24 MR. GAYNOR: Would you able to supply us
25 for the last year what training has been and who
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1 attended?
2 MR. ROBERTSON: I would have that
3 information, yes.
4 MR. GAYNOR: Could we get that, please,
5 or you can discuss it with whoever you have to discuss it
6 with?
7 MR. ROBERTSON: Yeah. The information is
8 there.
9 MR. GAYNOR: Right.
10 MR. ROBERTSON: And yeah, I can, I think
11 I can provide that.
12 MR. GAYNOR: Thank you.
13 MR. ROBERTSON: I'll have to check and
14 make sure.
15 MS. BUCKINGHAM: How long is the
16 training?
17 MR. ROBERTSON: Which one?
18 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Either of them. Are
19 they a week long, it varies?
20 MR. ROBERTSON: It varies. You know,
21 some programs are one day.
22 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Okay.
23 MR. ROBERTSON: The training one that we
24 were just talking about is two days a month for three
25 months.
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1 MS. BUCKINGHAM: And they have different
2 speakers, or do they have special speakers or --
3 MR. ROBERTSON: Yes, depending on which
4 program it is, yeah, they always have somebody else come
5 in. Like the one that Marianne was talking about earlier
6 with Karen Wolffe, that was something that we offered up
7 to our staff, and I think we had about 35 of our staff
8 attend that one. The rehab conference in the fall is a
9 great opportunity, that's the largest conference in the
10 state for rehabilitation professionals, so we do like to
11 send staff to that one if they want to attend.
12 MR. HUDSON: So in short, if somebody
13 wants to attend one of those big ones, they can go?
14 MR. ROBERTSON: Yes.
15 MR. HUDSON: Okay. Not a limited
16 resource that's hard to get to?
17 MR. ROBERTSON: It hasn't been in recent
18 years.
19 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
20 DR. MOGK: If an employee doesn't elect
21 to go to any of these and the manager does not require
22 it, then they may not attend any training sessions; is
23 that correct?
24 MR. ROBERTSON: In theory, that could
25 happen. Usually when Leamon Jones, the head of the
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1 Consumer Services Division, sets up a training program,
2 whether it's job placement, they did one last year or the
3 year before on case management, they've done one on, or
4 they're going to do one I think on mental health
5 services, when he identifies a training need and wants us
6 to set it up, then it becomes mandatory for his staff to
7 attend. So he's not going to set up a training
8 regardless of who the presenter is for his staff and say,
9 we're doing this session on, you know, June 5th and 6th,
10 it's going to be on job placement, the counselor can't
11 say, no, I don't feel like going. They will go to that
12 one. But when we identify something, you know, if I find
13 a training on a particular topic and I announce it to
14 staff, there's a training on these dates on this issue,
15 who wants to go, then it becomes voluntary.
16 MS. DUNN: Okay. Just for clarification
17 before we get too far away, MARO did you say?
18 MR. ROBERTSON: Yes.
19 MS. DUNN: Could you tell us more what
20 that is and --
21 MR. ROBERTSON: I think MARO is their
22 official name now, but it used to stand for Michigan
23 Association of Rehabilitation Organizations, but now I
24 think they're just MARO. And they are the parent
25 company, if you will, for community rehab programs around
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1 the state, like Goodwill, Peckham, these types of places.
2 And so they provide support to their members, and part of
3 that is training, and they always open up their training
4 to our staff.
5 MS. DUNN: So it may not be blindness
6 specific?
7 MR. ROBERTSON: It may not, correct.
8 MS. DUNN: Is there anything that they
9 offer that is?
10 MR. ROBERTSON: If we -- well, the
11 employment one that they're cosponsoring with TACE, that
12 is blindness specific. No, I take that back, it's not.
13 I don't think. I don't think it is. I'm trying to
14 remember now. But we have done a couple that are
15 blindness specific, but when you get them from an outside
16 organization, they're generally not.
17 MR. RODGERS: They will, Marianne, as an
18 add-on to what Bob just said, if we request something
19 specifically, they will try to arrange a program with us.
20 That's the arrangement we have with them.
21 MR. ROBERTSON: Especially the TACE
22 Center.
23 MR. RODGERS: Yes.
24 MR. ROBERTSON: You know, that's their
25 job. So if we contact them and say we want a training
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1 for our staff on this topic, then they will do whatever
2 they have to do to make that happen.
3 MR. RODGERS: And we periodically hear
4 from TACE, we periodically, either monthly or bimonthly I
5 get communication from them, from Southern Illinois
6 University, asking are there any hot topics that we may
7 have, wish to have them work out some training or
8 something. It's an ongoing thing, it never really stops
9 with them.
10 MR. ROBERTSON: And a big thing that we
11 stress to our counselors, if you go to this training
12 program, it's not blindness specific, the basic
13 principles are the same; how to develop a relationship
14 with an employer, how to assist a client's readiness for
15 employment, how to figure out what they want to do and
16 what they'd be good at. All of this stuff works
17 regardless of the disability, and so that's what they
18 need to get out of that.
19 DR. MOGK: I have two questions.
20 MR. RODGERS: Can I add one comment first
21 on this. What Bob's forgot to mention, and Bob knows
22 this stuff really well, so I'm not trying to say he
23 doesn't, but one of the things Leamon Jones has done in
24 the past is he's also asked the TACE people to put
25 together online training that is at times specific to
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1 blindness, over the years, that's gone on, too. In other
2 words, they'll provide the training and then employees on
3 their own schedule can go over a two-week period or
4 three-week period and avail themselves of that training.
5 So that's another facet of TACE.
6 MR. ROBERTSON: And I'm glad you reminded
7 me of that, because that is something that you may be
8 interested in as well. The Region 5 TACE Center does
9 offer that online training, and it's available to anybody
10 at no cost. We have started a policy, I guess, or
11 whatever you want to call it, that all new hires within
12 the agency have to take the one online class that's
13 called the History of Vocational Rehabilitation. Most of
14 our staff, you know, that came out of rehab grad programs
15 have that history, or at least they did at one point.
16 But when we hire people who don't have a rehabilitation
17 background, we feel that it's beneficial for them to get
18 an understanding of what rehabilitation is, how we got to
19 where we are, and the history of it. So but they also
20 offer a number of other programs that any of you would be
21 allowed to take, and they are accessible.
22 DR. MOGK: In addition to training and
23 interacting with clients in particular, does any of the
24 training include awareness of the job trends and job
25 situations currently out there?
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1 MR. ROBERTSON: I've got to believe it
2 does. I mean I don't get into that much detail with
3 them, but knowing the labor market is certainly a primary
4 issue for our counselors and managers in general, because
5 you have to know what the trends are so that when you're
6 working with a client in the early stages of their
7 program, you can help them identify those things that are
8 going to be more suitable, depending on the labor market.
9 So I'm sure that that topic comes up in any type of
10 placement activity that they're involved in.
11 DR. MOGK: Okay. And then my other
12 question is, do you have a systematic approach or a
13 systematic schedule, say, for reviewing cases, for
14 reviewing files?
15 MR. ROBERTSON: Yeah. It's been over a
16 year since we've done one, and we've got to start doing
17 it again, but the goal is to do about three a year, and
18 we have about seven offices or whatever it is. So
19 hopefully every two years, at least one review is done in
20 each office.
21 MR. GAYNOR: One case?
22 MR. ROBERTSON: No, one office. We do an
23 office each time. So like if I want to do a review of
24 the Flint regional office, there's four caseloads up
25 there maybe, I forget exactly right now, where you pull a
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1 sample of cases from each of those caseloads and then
2 look through them on the automated system and then look
3 at the actual paper file to make sure that the --
4 DR. MOGK: So it would be one or two from
5 each counselor each time, is that --
6 MR. ROBERTSON: No, it's usually more
7 than that. It's usually seven or eight from each one.
8 Trying to get a cross-section, look at somebody who's in
9 a job placement program, look at somebody who is, you
10 know, in a training program, look at a case that's been
11 closed successful, maybe look at a case that was closed
12 unsuccessful. So you try to get a cross-section of each
13 caseload and then, you know, it works out to about six,
14 seven, maybe eight cases for each one.
15 DR. MOGK: So you do that every couple
16 years in each region?
17 MR. ROBERTSON: That's the goal, yes.
18 Like I say, it hasn't been done for a little while, and
19 we're going to start doing it again very soon.
20 DR. MOGK: Is that something you
21 personally would do?
22 MR. ROBERTSON: Yes.
23 DR. MOGK: And is there a system and/or
24 is there feedback on the system to you from managers who
25 reviewed files, is that done regionally?
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1 MR. ROBERTSON: You mean the managers
2 doing their own review?
3 DR. MOGK: Of their staff, right.
4 MR. ROBERTSON: Hopefully they're doing
5 that. They don't share that with me, that's not part of
6 my process. But yeah, I would assume the managers are
7 looking at cases of, you know, current cases in their
8 office.
9 MR. HUDSON: So yours is more than a
10 performance-based review, it's to see if you're meeting
11 datapoints that you need to do department-wide or
12 unit-wide reports on your progress or your closure rates
13 to get reimbursements and things like that?
14 MR. ROBERTSON: Well, it's done for a
15 couple reasons. One, there are certain things we are
16 required to do. So in that aspect, it's kind of a
17 compliance review.
18 MR. HUDSON: Okay. All right.
19 MR. ROBERTSON: Counselors don't like it,
20 I understand it, I was a counselor and I hated people
21 snooping through my cases, but that's part of the reason.
22 But the main reason we do it is to identify areas that
23 perhaps need some attention and some areas that are
24 exceptional. So that, you know, for example, if maybe we
25 identify a need in one office that somebody's having a
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1 difficult time with writing an eligibility statement, for
2 instance, I can go to the manager and say, hey, so-and-so
3 over in this office does an excellent job of that, maybe
4 you can get these two together so that, you know, we can
5 make this one over here a little better. So it's a --
6 it's a teaching tool primarily, but there is the
7 compliance aspect to it.
8 MS. DUNN: And are those data included in
9 some sort of report that you compile?
10 MR. ROBERTSON: I put together a report
11 and give it to the director of the Consumer Services
12 Division --
13 MS. DUNN: Okay.
14 MR. ROBERTSON: -- and then he shares it
15 with his managers, I believe.
16 MS. DUNN: And I had another question
17 which really I recognize is quite a bit of overlap with
18 Consumer Services. But we've become familiar with the
19 notion as it relates to job placement and job development
20 of a term called enclave and concern about funneling
21 people into, funneling consumers into jobs that somehow
22 might limit their choice. Is that a hot spot in terms of
23 the issue of job placement and job development, is that
24 something that is -- is that from a training perspective
25 in terms of helping counselors actually place people?
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1 MR. ROBERTSON: I'm not sure I'm quite
2 understanding what you're saying. We don't do enclaves
3 because --
4 MS. DUNN: Right.
5 MR. ROBERTSON: -- there's, you know,
6 that's not done anymore like it used to be because of
7 the -- they have to be placed in an integrated work
8 setting, and by definition, an enclave usually isn't
9 integrated. So I don't believe anybody is funneling, I'm
10 not familiar with that term, but I don't believe anybody
11 is funneling people into enclaves.
12 DR. MOGK: Well, the context of that is
13 some feedback that we had gotten when inquiring, for
14 example, as to whether someone might talk to the
15 management at Big Boy, national management at Big Boy or
16 state management at Big Boy, whether there would be jobs
17 in those places for visually impaired clients, for
18 example, at the drive-in window or something like that,
19 and the instant response was, that's an enclave, can't do
20 that, we never do that, that's an enclave. We said,
21 well, we didn't even know what the word meant. And so
22 we're not talking about saying that that's all they can
23 do, but that was just an example of exploring in a large
24 company what there might be that someone could do.
25 MR. ROBERTSON: I'm not familiar with
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1 that.
2 DR. MOGK: So it seemed like a hot
3 button, the word enclave, that we were taken back.
4 MR. ROBERTSON: No, I'm not familiar with
5 what you're talking about. I mean McDonald's has a lot
6 of jobs, and, you know, if I'm the counselor and I
7 believe that, you know, this person I'm working with
8 wants to -- I mean I placed people at McDonald's before
9 when I was a counselor, you know, so I don't know what
10 that's about.
11 DR. MOGK: It might just be individual.
12 MS. DUNN: Well, it's within the larger
13 context of how job development is done, and clearly
14 there's an individual component to that, where the
15 counselor works with the individual and tries to match
16 them in their job. But from the other side of it, in
17 terms of developing resources and having sites, employer
18 sites that are ready to accept, that's the issue of
19 training that I'm wondering about, if there's a real
20 struggle for counselors to pursue a way of developing
21 jobs that they can then assist clients in getting so that
22 the -- so that the universe isn't infinite, because
23 that's a bit overwhelming, but --
24 MR. ROBERTSON: Are you talking about the
25 counselor developing a relationship with that employer,
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1 in this example, McDonald's?
2 MS. DUNN: Yes, and with the goal of
3 perhaps having multiple consumers employed at some point
4 with that employer, and that was the feedback we received
5 in terms of that would be the funneling, that would be
6 the limiting of choices. And so I'm looking at it from
7 the counselor perspective and recognizing, that's a tough
8 job for them, then, if there isn't a sense that in the
9 area of job development, we have a few Meijer, you know,
10 Spartan stores, whatever, folks that we work with to
11 place individuals and developing jobs in those kinds of
12 settings.
13 MR. ROBERTSON: It's been a while since
14 I've dealt with this issue, this might be a Leamon Jones
15 question.
16 MS. DUNN: Yeah.
17 MR. ROBERTSON: But I don't think the
18 examples you're giving, whether it's a McDonald's or a
19 Meijer or whatever, would be considered an enclave,
20 because they are integrated, not every employee in there
21 is going to be a person with a disability, plus they're
22 working with the public, so interacting with the public I
23 believe takes away the enclave notion.
24 MS. DUNN: Okay. That's helpful.
25 MR. RODGERS: Marianne, what an enclave,
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1 I think the term, the way you're using it generically, I
2 think goes back to the old days of sheltered workshops --
3 MS. DUNN: Correct.
4 MR. RODGERS: -- and that's --
5 MS. DUNN: And we are having a hard time
6 getting through that.
7 MR. RODGERS: Yes, yes. Because
8 obviously we do not want to limit the choices of clients
9 to a sheltered workshop setting, so that's why the staff
10 probably reacted quickly dealing with the enclave concept
11 is because some of the counselors go back to the days
12 when we still had sheltered workshops and they know that
13 that's kind of taboo now in most settings. So --
14 MS. DUNN: But what it pointed to was
15 perhaps some misunderstanding on the part of some of the
16 rehab counselors that an effort -- let's say, for
17 example, you've got a hundred blind people employed doing
18 drive-through window operating and they like it and it
19 works well, that somehow directing a client to that job
20 would, some of counselors seemed to view that, then, as
21 the funneling, the enclave, that that would be wrong to
22 do, --
23 MR. GAYNOR: And management.
24 MS. DUNN: -- and management I guess,
25 that was -- anyway, I'm wondering if that's a training
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1 issue that has come up in terms of counselors feeling
2 empowered or limited, and a confusion around where their
3 efforts should go?
4 MR. ROBERTSON: I'm a not aware of it. I
5 don't know. I have not heard that.
6 MS. DUNN: Okay.
7 MR. RODGERS: We've had no feedback
8 across the board that that's an issue.
9 MS. DUNN: Okay.
10 MR. RODGERS: And in terms of funneling,
11 we do funneling to a certain extent in that over the
12 years in the Lansing area, the Central Region, we have
13 employed and had placed lots of our clients over a
14 40-year period with General Motors, doing all kinds of
15 work for what was then Oldsmobile, now it's General
16 Motors, because they produce Cadillacs and Chevys and
17 everything else in our local plants. They may be working
18 in accounting, they may be working on the line, they may
19 be doing janitorial services. We've always had a very
20 good relationship with General Motors here locally, and
21 it's developed into many of our clients working for GM,
22 and earning very good salaries and very good benefits in
23 the automobile industry.
24 DR. MOGK: Okay.
25 MS. DUNN: Thanks for --
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1 DR. MOGK: Anything else? We're a little
2 bit over time. Very much appreciate your coming.
3 MR. ROBERTSON: Okay. Any time.
4 (Multiple speakers.)
5 MR. HUDSON: Let me ask one more. Bob,
6 are you satisfied with the VR data system you have as
7 providing the data and the structure you and the
8 counselors need to do the best job you can do?
9 MR. ROBERTSON: I don't use it that often
10 except to identify cases for a case review.
11 MR. HUDSON: Are you seeing what you need
12 in there, is --
13 MR. ROBERTSON: Yes.
14 MR. HUDSON: -- the structure sound to
15 provide --
16 MR. ROBERTSON: Yeah. I think --
17 (Multiple speakers.)
18 MR. HUDSON: Are you seeing what you need
19 in there, is the structure sound to provide the kind of
20 analysis and the data tracking you need to do all the
21 administrative operations, including reimbursements and
22 things?
23 MR. ROBERTSON: I have seen everything
24 that I need to see, yes.
25 MR. HUDSON: Good. Thank you.
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1 DR. MOGK: Thank you. Thanks a lot.
2 MR. RODGERS: We're going to let Bob be
3 excused, Madam Chair, if that's okay.
4 DR. MOGK: Sure.
5 MR. RODGERS: He has some duties he has
6 to take care of back at the office.
7 DR. MOGK: Next, Mr. Rodgers.
8 MR. RODGERS: Thank you. Good morning
9 again. I just want to make sure that everybody got a
10 copy of the organizational chart, that it's up to date as
11 we can get it. We also provided it in two formats; the
12 one format was the traditional one that's put out by
13 civil service and all the departments in state
14 government, which has, for those who are, can not read
15 it, it has a bunch of little boxes that sometimes I can't
16 read either with lines being drawn through, and it lists
17 the, for instance, the central office and then the
18 various divisions, and then, of course, we put it
19 together for you also on a handout that Sue worked very
20 hard on in putting it together so that there's a
21 breakdown of everybody that is in each division. For
22 example, the Administrative Services Division in Lansing,
23 it mentions that Mike Pemble and all of his employees.
24 The one thing I would indicate, and I
25 think I did in my e-mail to the Chair, was that in terms
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1 of the org chart, we used a couple generic terms because
2 there's fluctuation, and that's with the student
3 employees. Student employees, student assistants are not
4 regular employees, they're not in my FTE headcount. Over
5 my 30 plus years' career in government, I've learned that
6 student assistants are a great resource because they
7 don't cost me a lot of money and they work like crazy and
8 they're all enthusiastic and they've always done a very
9 good job for us. We pay them a minimum wage of, I think
10 we're now paying, if they're in graduate school, I think
11 we're paying roughly $15 an hour; if they're in
12 undergraduate school, around $13.00 an hour, but they get
13 no other benefits, they get no annual leave, they get no
14 sick time. If they work three hours, that's what they
15 get paid for. So you'll notice on the chart and in the
16 outline that Sue put together that we just list student
17 assistants. And we interchange them, we move them
18 around. Lauren is here this morning, one of our student
19 assistants, and she would attest to you that she's done
20 about 17 different jobs in her one-year career with us so
21 far, so we move them around where we need them. So if
22 you have any questions about that, please feel free to
23 either ask them today or to contact me.
24 Of course, you've got Bob's outline of
25 his credentials. And I'd like for those people who are
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1 listening in on the internet and audio to be aware that
2 Mr. Robertson has a B.A. from Northern Michigan
3 University, a master's degree in counseling from Northern
4 Illinois University, and a master's degree in public
5 administration from Western Michigan University. He
6 started out as a rehab counselor for Michigan
7 Rehabilitation Services way back in 1979 when he was
8 about 12 years old or something. He also has been a
9 rehab counselor for the Workers' Comp Disability
10 Commission where he worked with individuals who were in
11 the worker's comp program trying to help them become
12 employed. He has a background also with the former
13 Commission for the Blind as a rehab counselor. He's also
14 been a rehab consultant, and presently has his jobs that
15 he's outlined for you. And I think we're very lucky to
16 have Bob. It's a rare individual that has both his
17 administrative background, as well as his rehabilitation
18 schooled skills and experiences, and it's a necessary
19 skill I think.
20 You also have, Madam Chair, a very brief
21 outline from Rob Essenberg summarizing what BADP, the
22 Business Assistance and Development Program, does. We
23 had hoped that Rob could be here today, and we when get
24 to questions, you'll probably want me to elaborate more.
25 He's tied up with some issues today with the Anderson
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1 Project, as we fondly refer to it. We're trying to get
2 the Anderson Building open within the next couple weeks
3 so that that facility will be able to serve the Michigan
4 House of Representatives like it did up through 2011 when
5 the legislature basically kicked us out for probably a
6 lot of good reasons.
7 You also have a very brief outline of
8 agreements, contracts and memos of understanding. Memos
9 of understanding are those type of documents where
10 there's interchange between us and other units of
11 government generally. For instance, we have a memo of
12 understanding between us and the Department of Education
13 which outlines our relationship with the Department of
14 Education. This list is not all inclusive, it may well
15 be that in putting it together, we missed one or two
16 contracts. I would also caution you that there are other
17 contracts that are available to BSBP which are
18 departmental contracts, contracts that LARA may have for
19 various services, and there's also statewide contracts
20 dealing with certain things, and, of course, we have to
21 use whatever vendors are approved for statewide services,
22 departmental-wide services, and/or services that we may
23 have individually. So you should have that document now,
24 and if you have any questions about that, please feel
25 free to --
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1 MR. GAYNOR: And I'll interrupt right
2 now, if you don't mind.
3 MR. RODGERS: Pardon?
4 MR. GAYNOR: Such as what type of
5 services? You keep saying various services. Does that
6 include the O&M people, the IT people, the CILs that do
7 computer training for different clients? Where do those
8 fall in?
9 MR. RODGERS: It includes all of that,
10 Gary. For example, we have a relationship with DTMB,
11 which provides generally all of our computer needs, and
12 then they pull that money, because they're also the
13 management people of money, out of my budget. But then
14 we also have, for instance, listed on our list is we have
15 the one with Libre System 7 people, who do a lot of our
16 database stuff, and we're working with them, and I've
17 mentioned them before, to increase our data collection
18 and to improve it, and they're presently enhancing and
19 expanding. We just got approval to get additional monies
20 from them in order to enhance some things in the data
21 system.
22 MR. GAYNOR: That's the big picture,
23 though.
24 MR. RODGERS: Yeah. I can't --
25 MR. GAYNOR: I'm talking on the client
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1 level where you hire an IT person to go out and teach
2 someone how to use their computer.
3 MR. RODGERS: Yes, we do that, too. But
4 now you're asking me questions that are down in the area
5 that Ed can't answer.
6 MR. GAYNOR: Okay. Because that's where
7 we were going with that question in the first place.
8 We've heard about O&M people, IT people, CILs that you
9 contract.
10 MR. RODGERS: Okay. That will take me
11 longer to put together --
12 MR. GAYNOR: Okay.
13 MR. RODGERS: -- because what that is is
14 a vendor -- as I understand it, Gary, and I don't want to
15 mislead you, as I understand it, which could be wrong, we
16 have a list of departmental or state-approved vendors in
17 a whole bunch of areas, okay. For example, we have some
18 vendors that are listed that do business plans, there's
19 like two or three of those folks that help our clients
20 who want to perhaps start their own business. For
21 instance, we just had a lady start a business in
22 Kalamazoo, and I know I'm going get this wrong, so Sue
23 may interrupt me and correct me. It's a consignment
24 business where maybe your daughter has a prom dress that
25 she wears once and would like to sell that prom dress,
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1 and I know this is a crazy example, that this lady then
2 would put that in her store if she took it on
3 consignment, and if she sells the prom dress, then she
4 would get a percentage of that money. Okay. So we have
5 vendors that do those kind of things, helping people do
6 business plans. We could give you a more expansive
7 specific list, but that's going to take time.
8 MR. GAYNOR: That's what we were looking
9 for.
10 MR. RODGERS: Okay. All right. Sorry
11 that we were not able to provide that on this short of
12 notice. I think I got your request, what, a week or so
13 ago, a two weeks ago?
14 MR. GAYNOR: Well, the way that -- see,
15 we thought with these lists should, you should be able to
16 push a button and get them.
17 MR. RODGERS: It don't work that way.
18 Sorry.
19 MR. GAYNOR: I know. But according to
20 Rob just now, it does work that way, he's able to pull up
21 what he needs.
22 MR. RODGERS: What he needs.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Well, that's kind of -- if
24 I'm a voc rehab person and I need an IT person, you mean
25 it's going to take me forever to find an IT person?
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1 MR. RODGERS: No, no. There is a list of
2 IT vendors, I just did not realize that you wanted that
3 much minutia, but I will provide it.
4 MR. GAYNOR: Thank you.
5 DR. MOGK: For example, Ed, which doesn't
6 seem to be minutia, the Jewish Vocational Services, for
7 example, is contracted apparently quite regularly for
8 services for clients, so that was the, sort of the
9 impetus for our asking about contracts, not so much Kelly
10 Services.
11 MR. RODGERS: I was not aware of that
12 per se, Lylas, but I will pursue that for you.
13 DR. MOGK: Okay. Thanks.
14 MS. LUZENSKI: Some of those smaller
15 organizations, well, they're -- sometimes they're just
16 entrepreneurs, they're one-person businesses we have
17 purchase orders for, so we set aside money in case they
18 are going to be contracted with, we don't have yearly
19 contracts with them, so that's the difference in what --
20 (Multiple speakers.
21 MS. LUZENSKI: What we chose or what we
22 pulled together was people that we actually have
23 contracts with that we sign because that's what we
24 understood you were looking for.
25 DR. MOGK: Got you.
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1 MR. GAYNOR: Thanks.
2 DR. MOGK: So we'd be interested in this,
3 is that list of state vendors accessible?
4 MS. LUZENSKI: Yes, but it's in a
5 different -- from what Bob was talking about, that's a
6 different program. So that's the state program, where
7 the Libra System 7 program where we have our case files
8 in, that is -- that's a program that we use as an Agency
9 or as a Bureau main where you guys all had to try to
10 register in to get reimbursement, that's a state system,
11 and then that's where someone else within our
12 administrative services department would create a
13 purchase order in order for us to be able to work with
14 these different vendors.
15 MR. GAYNOR: If I'm a counselor and I
16 need an O&M person, how do I find one?
17 MR. RODGERS: Lisa.
18 MS. KISIEL: Yes. Crap. I was sitting
19 back here so nice. Typically the way that we find our
20 vendors is that we have relationships with different --
21 for instance, it might be, as someone mentioned,
22 orientation mobility. So we have a relationship with the
23 university, you know, we know who's graduating, some of
24 those have been interns, practicum students, et cetera,
25 they actually a lot of times come to us, and they come to
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1 us with resumes and we interview them and, you know, we
2 may decide that we need to vend with them to provide
3 services. We actually don't use purchase orders, we use
4 service authorizations, because that would be part of a
5 rehabilitation plan. Same is true if we provide adaptive
6 technology training, if we hire an individual to go into
7 someone's home and work with them, we -- you know, I was
8 sitting here thinking as you were talking, a lot of that
9 is very regional obviously because, you know -- there are
10 some people that do some statewide stuff, but, you know,
11 we have a big state, so a lot of times, you know, what
12 some of the vendors that Detroit uses may not be the same
13 as what the west would use or the central region would
14 use. Sometimes they are, and it's sort of a network of
15 individuals. We do have a technology, a list of
16 technology trainers that's available to us. I know our
17 tech committee works pretty diligently to interview
18 people and make sure that we have qualified individuals
19 providing services. And same is true with the O&M, you
20 know, like, for instance, the Training Center uses O&M
21 instructors as subs at times, so we have a list. Those
22 folks do have purchase orders because they're working as
23 a sub at the Training Center.
24 MR. GAYNOR: But are those shared between
25 regions?
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1 MS. KISIEL: Absolutely, yeah.
2 MR. GAYNOR: So you could get me a list
3 of those?
4 MS. KISIEL: I could get you a list of
5 those.
6 MR. GAYNOR: That would be great.
7 MS. KISIEL: We could certainly ask for
8 that information. You know, I don't know that there's a
9 master list of those, if that's what you're asking for.
10 MR. GAYNOR: There has to be something if
11 you're sharing them.
12 MS. KISIEL: Yeah, we're sharing, you
13 know, there's a lot of, you know, who are you using and
14 we share those resumes. And you also have to remember,
15 too, there's a lot of flux in that --
16 MR. GAYNOR: Sure.
17 MS. KISIEL: -- because people get jobs
18 and they move away and they --
19 MR. GAYNOR: So you take them off the
20 list.
21 MS. KISIEL: You take them off the list,
22 you know, et cetera, so.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Yeah. Thank you.
24 MR. RODGERS: Thank you, Lisa.
25 DR. MOGK: Does anybody have anymore
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1 questions for Ed?
2 MS. BUCKINGHAM: I just wanted to add
3 something. I am familiar with that. Lisa, probably you
4 know Jennifer Graham?
5 MS. KISIEL: Uh-huh.
6 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Okay. She was my O&M,
7 and she came to me at my office, so that was through the
8 Commission, so she's obviously on that list. So I don't
9 know if you're still working with her. And then I also,
10 CASO worked with me in my computer training, they came to
11 my office, so I am familiar with that, and it worked well
12 for me.
13 MS. KISIEL: And, yes, Jennifer is still
14 providing services.
15 MS. BUCKINGHAM: That's good. She's
16 great.
17 DR. MOGK: Since Lisa is here, I have a
18 couple questions for Lisa. But if anybody has any more
19 to ask Ed specifically, so we don't switch gears in --
20 MR. RODGERS: Before we jump to Lisa, is
21 there anybody that -- I have met with Rob, he had
22 provided you with answers to what, four or five questions
23 with parts, and then Constance had provided some answers
24 to her questions, and then you have the answers to my
25 questions, and I know you may still be mulling that
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1 material over. Does anybody today, though, and you can
2 always follow up in writing to me with an e-mail,
3 anything jump out at you that you want to quiz me on
4 before we switch over to Lisa?
5 MR. SIBLEY: A structural question about
6 the BADP. Can a client be a client of the BADP
7 individually, or would he have to go through a local
8 counselor then be referred to the BADP?
9 MR. RODGERS: The counselor system still
10 is in place. If you're a client of the Agency, then you
11 meet with your counselor, you put together your
12 individual plan, et cetera, and then if what you're
13 interested in is starting your own business, there would
14 be a referral from the counselor to Rob's division, just
15 like there might be a referral to training for BEP or
16 there might be a referral that a person goes to Michigan
17 State University, just depends on what the individual
18 needs are and what the counselor and the client have
19 worked out.
20 DR. MOGK: Two questions with regard to
21 BADP. One is whether Rob's purview is exclusively with
22 regard to jobs, entrepreneur, potential entrepreneurs, or
23 does it -- does any of his purview include identifying
24 job opportunities in the community?
25 MR. RODGERS: He is not involved in job
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1 identification per se. Okay. Obviously in the course of
2 doing his job, or in his division doing their job, he may
3 become aware of stuff in the network. It's like I think
4 Suzanne said earlier this morning, a lot of the things we
5 do in voc rehab, whether it's MRS or BSBP, is
6 unfortunately word of mouth and relationships that are
7 built up over time. Most of his focus is going to be in
8 business development, business assistance. I think he's
9 actually either unofficially or officially has helped,
10 for instance, LeeAnn a little bit with some of her
11 issues. Is that correct, LeeAnn --
12 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Yes.
13 MR. RODGERS: -- that Rob worked with
14 you? So that's the type of thing he's doing.
15 DR. MOGK: And my other question in that
16 regard is the, will the new businesses that he develops
17 receive support anywhere similar to what the BEP vendors
18 do? I mean will the Commission provide monetary support
19 to these businesses?
20 MR. RODGERS: There will be an initial
21 assistance because it will be a business plan. Bob is --
22 one of the things that Rob is doing now -- I have Bobs
23 and Robs and Roberts, sometimes I call Bob Rob and
24 Robert, et cetera. One of the things that we will be
25 looking at is the individual's business plan. If it's a
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1 nonexistent business that they want to start up, let's
2 say they want to manufacture T-shirts, okay, as an
3 example, and they come to us and they want to do -- they
4 don't want to be part of BEP, they want their own
5 business, he or she will then work with Rob to create a
6 business plan, and there will be startup costs that we
7 will assist with, like we've done under our Voc Rehab.
8 For example, I mentioned the young lady that has the
9 consignment store in the Kalamazoo Mall, we gave her
10 startup costs. There was some initial startup and
11 assistance on equipment that we gave her. We will do
12 that also with a new business. But we will not continue
13 to sustain that business like we do with the BEP. The
14 BEP is regulated under the Randolph Sheppard Act and
15 P.A., and I always forget, 269, which does provide for
16 continual funding. For example, if the cafeteria at the
17 Ottawa Building needs a new oven, we will pay for that
18 oven, that's part of the BEP program. If you start your
19 own Subway, once you're up and running, if you need a new
20 oven, you're on the hook for it, because there's not a
21 mechanism that allows for funding beyond the BEP program
22 in the same way that we do with the BEP program. And I
23 don't know if I've answered your question or not, but
24 that's how it will work.
25 DR. MOGK: Yes, you have. We're
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1 interested, just by virtue of the statistics, that 90
2 percent of small businesses fail.
3 MR. RODGERS: Yes.
4 DR. MOGK: So that would seem be a very
5 risky operation. And I realize it's a benefit to have
6 the startup costs.
7 MR. RODGERS: It is risky. Okay. And
8 when I say startup costs, and you're testing an old guy's
9 memory now, when I say startup costs, the lady in the
10 Kalamazoo Mall, I think we gave her enough money to pay
11 her first six months' rent, to pay for her first six
12 months' cell phone service, provided her, as I recall,
13 with an accessible cell phone, bought her a cash register
14 and some other things. I think we even may have helped
15 her with her utilities for the first six months. But
16 it's not going to be a continuing thing. She's either
17 got to make it or not on her own.
18 DR. MOGK: So there are, the 90-day
19 guideline for Voc Rehab, is there a timeline for these
20 businesses, that they have to be in operation for two
21 years to decide whether it's successful or --
22 MR. RODGERS: I'm not sure I know what
23 you mean, Lylas, by the 90-day Voc Rehab.
24 DR. MOGK: They have to be in a job 90
25 days before it's declared successful; if they quit on day
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1 92, that's not our problem. So we have -- they have to
2 be in the job 90 days to be considered a successful
3 closure. So I'm asking for the BADP, is there -- I
4 presume that when they're launched, the numbers would
5 suggest that they would be able to maintain the business
6 forever?
7 MR. RODGERS: That's why they have to put
8 together -- that's correct. That's why they have to put
9 together a business plan, and it has to be a business
10 plan that's approved by the Agency. For example, we had
11 a recent business plan in a small community where this
12 person wanted to get into the auto mechanic business, and
13 this person wanted to have to start with two bays, you
14 know, which are two work areas, so you can be working on
15 two cars at once. We did a feasibility study of the area
16 and concluded that it was risky to give him the amount of
17 money that was necessary for two bays, but we felt that
18 there was a legitimate possibility he could be successful
19 with one bay and limiting the amount of employees he
20 would employ. He was a mechanic himself. So he has a
21 facility that eventually he could put in a second bay,
22 but that's going to be on his dime, not ours, if the
23 business is successful. And again, I don't know if I
24 answered your question.
25 DR. MOGK: No, yeah, that's fine.
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1 MR. RODGERS: Okay.
2 DR. MOGK: And presumably Rob will be
3 tracking these businesses?
4 MR. RODGERS: Rob will be tracking them
5 more than 90 days, if for no other reason, because a lot
6 of the startup costs are based over six months or a year,
7 because we realize that small businesses getting started
8 do have that curve in terms of failure.
9 DR. MOGK: Okay.
10 MS. DUNN: I had a question, Ed. In
11 developing this position, this division, what was the
12 input that you had from rehab counselors in the field in
13 terms of their identifying a need?
14 MR. RODGERS: The feedback we got with
15 them is we put out the idea, and from there we
16 entertained any feedback that there was that they have
17 clients, whether or not they wanted to go out and do
18 their own business. The problem we felt philosophically
19 was the BEP program is one that is almost a parent/child
20 relationship, and our goal was to provide individuals
21 with an opportunity to be in the private sector and be
22 their own entrepreneurs and run their own business, much
23 as LeeAnn has done, for example. The problem with the
24 BEP Program is it has evolved over time into a program
25 that was not reaching, in my opinion, its initial
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1 creation.
2 When the BEP Program was created in the
3 '30s and '40s, and I could be a decade off, it was
4 supposed to be a startup program to get people trained,
5 let them have experience running their own businesses,
6 and then go off. And what's happened in Michigan and in
7 other states is it's become a life-long occupation with
8 no growth beyond the program itself for some of those
9 individuals.
10 So there was feedback, but it was
11 informal. There was a view that we needed something that
12 would put people in the private sector and make them less
13 dependent upon the Agency or state government per se.
14 MS. DUNN: A followup, then, to that
15 question. The sense I had was that the division was
16 developed in response to some of the failed sites in the
17 legislation buildings, and that there -- that you are
18 wanting to have someone heading up the relationship with
19 different companies, the -- I forget who it was initially
20 where there was all the hubbub, but --
21 MR. RODGERS: Tim Hortons.
22 MS. DUNN: Tim Hortons. And I guess I'm
23 wondering from that perspective, it seems like that was
24 the intent of the division, and that the other
25 entrepreneurial pieces related to individual clients
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1 is -- I can't -- I have a hard time getting my mind
2 around that being the primary focus of this division.
3 MR. RODGERS: It was not the primary
4 focus, so I think you're --
5 MS. DUNN: Could you talk about the
6 primary focus?
7 MR. RODGERS: I think you're misinformed
8 by somebody. The main focus, as I just said, was to take
9 BADP and help create opportunities for blind
10 entrepreneurs to be in the private sector, that was the
11 focus. Now, how you get there, there's different
12 mechanisms we can use. And in fact, we on occasion have
13 had some BEP operators go off into the private sector and
14 start their own businesses. So while that was one of the
15 vehicles we've used in the past, we wanted to expand it
16 so that there was more assistance for people to get out
17 there and get started, or assistance to continue a
18 business they started on their own. For instance, I
19 mentioned T-shirts earlier because I'm aware that there's
20 a blind entrepreneur in this state who started his own
21 T-shirt company, and he's been somewhat successful, but
22 he now I think is seeking assistance from our new
23 division to help expand his business. I don't know if I
24 answered your question or not.
25 MS. DUNN: Maybe a little.
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1 MR. RODGERS: I'm sorry.
2 MS. DUNN: So I assume the Anderson
3 Building, we're working with a particular company, and
4 the hope is that we can enlist companies that will then
5 employ a number of blind individuals; is that a big piece
6 of what the --
7 MR. RODGERS: That could be --
8 (Multiple speakers.)
9 MS. DUNN: Is that a big piece of why the
10 BADP was developed?
11 MR. RODGERS: It's not a big piece, but
12 it obviously is one of the consequences of creating the
13 division. What we have done in the Anderson Building, it
14 was a three-part thing; we wanted to get back in the
15 Anderson Building, we wanted to be in a form that was
16 acceptable to the legislature, we also were in need of a
17 separate training facility for Rob's division, and we
18 also wanted to expand out into the private sector by
19 encouraging the private sector to be a partner in this
20 endeavor in the Anderson Building. So the Anderson
21 Building is an example of a public/private project, so to
22 speak, in that we have offered and are presently working
23 with private-sector people to allow us to sell their
24 products in the Anderson Building kind of as a pilot
25 program. So we're reaching out to local companies. You
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1 probably read the press release which indicated that in
2 fact we were working hand-in-hand with the Michigan
3 Restaurant Association. And that's about all the details
4 I can get to at the moment.
5 MS. DUNN: Could you talk a little bit
6 about the overlap there with -- how it's similar and
7 dissimilar from BEP?
8 MR. RODGERS: It's similar in that some
9 of the training will be similar. It's an enlargement of
10 what BEP does in that the goal is for Rob and his
11 division employees to be able to train and assist
12 individuals to go out into the private sector rather than
13 just training them to be BEP operators. It will be run
14 in conjunction with a blind operator and with Rob's
15 division. And remember, part of the training that BEP
16 does is to have on-site training, too; so there may be
17 some coordination between Rob and the blind operator in
18 terms of doing some on-site training with some of the BEP
19 people after they finish their schooling. But that's all
20 evolving now, Marianne.
21 MS. DUNN: Okay. And one further
22 question, if I may.
23 MR. RODGERS: Sure.
24 MS. DUNN: How many business plans do you
25 currently have from consumers, and what do you anticipate
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1 in that?
2 MR. RODGERS: That's a tough question
3 without either Rob being here, because he's been involved
4 with Voc Rehab and reviewing business plans. My recall
5 is that this year we have approved five or six business
6 plans for Voc Rehab clients, and that there's three or
7 four more in the hopper, so to speak. So by the end of
8 the fiscal year, it may be a dozen or more, just depends.
9 MS. DUNN: And when can we anticipate Rob
10 will be able to speak with us?
11 MR. RODGERS: Hopefully -- well, your
12 next meeting is when?
13 DR. MOGK: October.
14 MS. LUZENSKI: October 2.
15 MR. RODGERS: He should be available by
16 then.
17 MR. GAYNOR: Think he can put it on his
18 calendar?
19 MR. RODGERS: I will make sure it's on
20 his calendar.
21 MR. GAYNOR: While we're -- go ahead.
22 DR. MOGK: I just want to clarify in my
23 mind. So Rob is training people for food service?
24 MR. RODGERS: As a start, as a starting
25 point --
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1 DR. MOGK: Right.
2 MR. RODGERS: -- he's training people for
3 food services, because that's what the Anderson Building
4 is providing, food services.
5 DR. MOGK: Right.
6 MR. RODGERS: As his division evolves --
7 this is brand new concept remember, it's just getting off
8 the ground. As it evolves, there will be additional
9 training added on as it grows.
10 DR. MOGK: But if he -- if people are
11 sent in to be trained in food services and they are not
12 going to go into the BEP, then there isn't a format for
13 contacting other major restaurant companies to place
14 these people in those jobs.
15 MR. RODGERS: Rob is developing those
16 contacts as you and I speak here.
17 DR. MOGK: So that he will be out there
18 finding job placements --
19 MR. RODGERS: Okay. I see where you're
20 going, because of your earlier question. So I
21 misanswered your earlier question, I apologize. He will
22 be going out there, because he is out there now. And I
23 can't give you -- I would love to give you details today
24 of one or two companies he's finalizing agreements with,
25 but I can't. I simply can't.
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1 MS. DUNN: That's fine.
2 MR. RODGERS: I got burned once on the
3 Tim Hortons' thing, that's not going to happen to me.
4 The old saying, shame once on you, shame twice on me. So
5 until it's finalized, I'm not going to release anything.
6 DR. MOGK: Okay. That's -- I think I got
7 it.
8 MS. DUNN: Just -- I'm sorry -- for
9 clarification again, so the primary focus is food
10 service --
11 MR. RODGERS: No, that's --
12 (Multiple speakers.)
13 MR. RODGERS: No, no, no, that's isn't
14 what I said, Marianne.
15 MS. DUNN: Okay.
16 MR. RODGERS: No. What I said was it's
17 starting up with that as the first part.
18 MS. DUNN: Okay.
19 MR. RODGERS: It will evolve and grow
20 into other training and to other opportunities. We had
21 to have a base to start. When you -- when you're
22 teaching mathematics, the first thing you have to do is
23 teach the little kid what the numbers are, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
24 and then you teach them how to add, 2 and 3 is 5.
25 MS. DUNN: What other areas are you
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1 looking at then?
2 MR. RODGERS: Again, I'm not at the point
3 that I want to release that. Sorry about that.
4 MR. SIBLEY: Rob is, the division now, if
5 somebody gets referred to him with another business, not
6 in food service, he is in the position --
7 MR. RODGERS: He's the man.
8 MR. SIBLEY: -- now -- he could assist
9 them with their guidance and possibly --
10 MR. RODGERS: Absolutely, that's one of
11 his charges.
12 DR. MOGK: Okay.
13 MR. GAYNOR: Next. Part of the reason
14 that we are here is because of the readiness of BEP
15 operators or the lack thereof at some of the facilities,
16 and so we when requested the exit exam for the BEP
17 operators, it was denied. I'd like to know why.
18 MR. RODGERS: It was denied because it's
19 a test that is used to determine if a person has
20 successfully completed their training, and as such, were
21 they ready to be in the program so that they could be
22 awarded a facility when it comes up on the bid line.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Exactly. And so how do we
24 know that those questions are working if we don't get the
25 chance to review them, because the reason we're here is
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1 because it wasn't working?
2 MR. RODGERS: The reason you didn't get
3 the questions is if two or more people know something,
4 then word gets out, and I don't want to impugn anybody --
5 MR. GAYNOR: Two or more people already
6 know it.
7 MR. RODGERS: Pardon?
8 MR. GAYNOR: Two or more people already
9 know it.
10 MR. RODGERS: But that's staff only.
11 Okay. One of reasons that test questions are not
12 released under FOIA is because once you release things of
13 that nature, there's a way of them having make it around,
14 so to speak, and I don't, at this time, want to have to
15 divert important staff time of the BEP Program to revise
16 the test at this moment because it gets out.
17 MR. GAYNOR: So it's the same test you've
18 been using?
19 MR. RODGERS: It's a security -- it's a
20 security issue.
21 MR. GAYNOR: It's the same test you've
22 been using, then?
23 MR. RODGERS: It's the same test we have
24 been using. And our passing rate, I can get you the
25 passing rate. I mean if people are passing the test and
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1 going on in the program and running a facility, I would
2 say that that's some assurance that they were asking the
3 right questions from their trainer. Remember, the
4 questions are based on the training.
5 MR. GAYNOR: Some of the reason we're
6 here is because they weren't running it efficiently.
7 DR. MOGK: Why are they not all
8 successful in that case?
9 MR. RODGERS: There's all kinds of
10 reasons, like you said earlier, Lylas, why a business
11 fails; sometimes it's location, sometimes it's trends in
12 the economy, sometimes it's a person that has difficulty
13 for personal reasons.
14 DR. MOGK: Okay. I understand. I just
15 have to go on record taking exception to the idea that
16 information given to the advisory board appointed by the
17 Governor would be the equivalent of leaking it to the
18 public. I just think that's --
19 MR. RODGERS: I understand, but we
20 philosophically disagree on that. At this point, if we
21 had three, for instance, versions of the test, I'd be
22 more inclined then to give you a version, but at this
23 point, I'm just not in the position that I believe I
24 would be carrying out my duties if I released the test to
25 anybody.
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1 DR. MOGK: Because the suggestion is that
2 one of the seven of us may --
3 MR. RODGERS: I know the suggestion.
4 DR. MOGK: -- release this information.
5 MR. RODGERS: I understand.
6 DR. MOGK: We agree to disagree on this.
7 MR. RODGERS: Yes. Thank you.
8 DR. MOGK: Lisa, a couple questions. Do
9 you -- can you tell us what the reasons for the medical
10 visits, the outpatient and ER medical visits for T.C.
11 residents were for the last year? Do you have --
12 MS. KISIEL: The reasons?
13 DR. MOGK: Yeah. Thanks, Lisa. When we
14 were at the T.C., you had mentioned that you could keep
15 the local ER and outpatient clinic busy with T.C.
16 residents. So our question that we had sent in early in
17 April was what are the reasons for the emergency room and
18 outpatient clinic visits, do you record that when you
19 take someone, do you have a record of --
20 MS. KISIEL: Yes.
21 DR. MOGK: -- why they were taken or --
22 MS. KISIEL: We do record that, however,
23 I will give you generalities, you know, just because
24 obviously I can't speak about specific cases.
25 MR. GAYNOR: You can't give us names --
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1 MS. KISIEL: Right.
2 MR. GAYNOR: -- but with --
3 (Multiple speakers.)
4 MR. GAYNOR: I'm sorry. No, it's okay.
5 Well, I just wondered, it's been -- it was requested back
6 the beginning of April, and I don't see why we can't have
7 specifics. We can't have names, we know that.
8 MS. KISIEL: Right.
9 MR. GAYNOR: But what type of visits, and
10 then it should be easy to come up with a year-long list
11 of where people went?
12 MS. KISIEL: I can -- I mean I can get,
13 you know -- there are -- I can answer your question today
14 generally, and I can share with you that, as you well
15 know, the leading cause of blindness for individuals 55
16 and younger is diabetes, so there may be incidents of low
17 blood sugar. A lot of times it's incidents of just
18 general illness, you know, flu, colds, could be, you
19 know, they have to have something, we have individuals
20 who have received transplants, so they have to get
21 certain labs done, they have to, you know -- sometimes --
22 MR. GAYNOR: It's not an ER visit?
23 MS. KISIEL: No, that's not -- but
24 sometimes people choose to go on the weekends when the
25 only place to go do it is -- okay. That's a judgment
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1 call on their part, not mine. Okay. I wouldn't manage
2 it that way, but they're individuals and they can choose
3 to do that. So most of them are urgent care visits just
4 because they don't have doctors in the area, so they
5 just -- they -- there are a flourish of lots of, you
6 know, sometimes medications, they need to get something,
7 you know, refilled, and they, maybe they didn't do that
8 before they left home. As I said, flus, colds, seasonal
9 stuff, just -- it's really that general. It really is.
10 And sometimes I think, you know, there's just lots of
11 people that come, there's lots of reasons that they go,
12 but not necessarily are they remarkable.
13 MR. GAYNOR: But I guess the question
14 would be, it was a month ago we asked for it. Now, these
15 are all generalities that anyone could say. Why didn't
16 we get the list?
17 MS. KISIEL: I can't answer that
18 question.
19 MR. RODGERS: If I could?
20 MR. GAYNOR: Sure.
21 MR. RODGERS: The reason you didn't get a
22 specific list, such as cardiac arrest, just listing
23 cardiac arrest might lead to identifying the student.
24 MR. GAYNOR: My gosh.
25 MR. RODGERS: Well, I'm sorry, Gary, I'm
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1 playing lawyer with you now, but it's a concern that I
2 have, and it's a concern that the federal government and
3 the state government have, that we have to be careful
4 that we do not identify clients. I'm not even supposed
5 to give you --
6 MR. GAYNOR: Then why didn't you just --
7 MR. RODGERS: -- the client's name.
8 MR. GAYNOR: -- put that in writing
9 before today so that we wouldn't keep asking the same
10 questions?
11 MR. RODGERS: I don't recall how your
12 question was posed.
13 DR. MOGK: It was e-mailed.
14 MR. RODGERS: Was it e-mailed?
15 MR. GAYNOR: Uh-huh.
16 MR. RODGERS: I apologize, that one went
17 over my head. I don't recall that e-mail.
18 DR. MOGK: Okay. My other question is,
19 in the numbers that I read were a 178 successful closures
20 last year, which was a 32.7-percent success rate, and so
21 my question is -- and this is not just for you, Lisa, I
22 guess it's for Leamon, who's not here -- what percent
23 were in school, what percent were employed? And then I
24 noted that only 59 of those 178 successful closures went
25 through the Training Center, so does that mean that the
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1 other 119 already had full jobs skills, did they already
2 have jobs and the department kept them in the job or --
3 MR. RODGERS: There --
4 DR. MOGK: I was surprised to find that
5 of the successful closures, a minority of them,
6 significant minority went through the Training Center.
7 So does anybody have an explanation for who --
8 MR. RODGERS: I can give you a general
9 explanation, and then we can, if you'll put that in an
10 e-mail to me and Leamon, we can give you more specifics I
11 think. The figures you just gave, the 179 and the 59
12 went to the Training Center, I suspect that a large
13 amount of the 179 may have been college students who were
14 graduating. Okay. That would be one category. And they
15 might not have gone from the Training Center, they might
16 have gone through Transitional Services, they could be a
17 person like me who's low vision who simply went from high
18 school into college and is now graduating this year,
19 because we did graduate a significant percentage of
20 students. Every year we have a significant number. We
21 have right now I think something like 260 students that
22 we're supporting in various educational programs. So if
23 you just do the math, if they're in a B.A. program, you
24 know, a fourth of those generally graduate every year, so
25 you're talking about 60, maybe 60 people completing
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1 programs right there. So you add that to the 59 and now
2 you're up to 120 in terms of the total 179. It could
3 also be that the individuals who were coming through the
4 program for a variety of reasons didn't need the skills
5 at the Training Center, they already had those skills.
6 That would speak, to my mind, that perhaps Transitional
7 Services was, and the school districts and BSBP were
8 doing a good job because these folks already had the
9 skills when they finished Transition and went on to
10 whatever they're going to do. So there's a variety of
11 reasons that would impact on those figures. And we can
12 sit here all day and make up a list of categories that
13 would impact that.
14 DR. MOGK: Right. So it would suggest
15 that the bulk of successes are students going through
16 school, not people --
17 MR. RODGERS: I don't know if it suggests
18 that, I only offered that as a possibility, --
19 DR. MOGK: Right. So Leamon --
20 MR. RODGERS: -- as a percentage
21 possibility.
22 DR. MOGK: So Leamon would have that
23 information?
24 MR. RODGERS: I think so.
25 MS. KISIEL: If I could add, that's 178
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1 successful closures. Those are individuals that obtained
2 employment and their cases were closed.
3 DR. MOGK: Or they were in school?
4 MS. KISIEL: No. If they were -- 178 is,
5 it was of the list of individuals who obtained successful
6 employment in FY '13.
7 DR. MOGK: That does mean they --
8 MR. GAYNOR: Homemakers --
9 (Multiple speakers.)
10 MS. KISIEL: Homemakers included.
11 DR. MOGK: -- weren't in were college?
12 MS. KISIEL: I'm sorry.
13 DR. MOGK: That doesn't mean they weren't
14 in college?
15 MS. KISIEL: It does not mean they -- I
16 mean they could have been in college, they may have
17 graduated and got a job, but at the end of the day, they
18 were employed, and their case was closed because they
19 were employed.
20 DR. MOGK: Okay. So --
21 (Multiple speakers.)
22 MR. HUDSON: And that would include
23 job-in-jeopardy cases, also?
24 MS. KISIEL: Correct, that would include
25 job-in-jeopardy, that would also include Business
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1 Enterprise Program, that would include any employment
2 that was longer than 90 days where the case was closed
3 successfully.
4 MR. RODGERS: Lisa, would it also include
5 upper mobility?
6 MS. KISIEL: It could, yes, if the case
7 was opened as a new case, it could include upper
8 mobility, yes.
9 MR. RODGERS: So there wouldn't be a
10 Training Center referral in that case, right?
11 MS. KISIEL: Correct. There would be --
12 you know, there's lots of variables, although I will tell
13 you that the reason I wanted to know that number as far
14 as who came to the Training Center is I felt we needed a
15 baseline, because I would love to see our numbers be way
16 higher than that, you know, in providing services to
17 individuals to help them become more employable, but I
18 don't know that we had that previous, so I wanted to
19 start somewhere.
20 DR. MOGK: Right.
21 MS. KISIEL: And so that's where we, you
22 know, that's where we are. And I also compared that to
23 other Training Centers, and it was pretty high. It's
24 fairly high.
25 MR. HUDSON: Now, the maximum number of
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1 people that can actually go through the Training Center
2 in the year is about 100 now?
3 MS. KISIEL: Last year we served 136, and
4 that's a steady incline since -- I'm sorry -- yes,
5 incline since the renovation. You know, it went down for
6 a bit when we were at the Clarion and so on, and now it's
7 on a steady incline up. 2009, which was the year before
8 the renovation, we served 153, I believe.
9 MR. HUDSON: Right. But I mean that
10 isn't counting the remote mini adjustments, right?
11 That's just -- or are you counting --
12 MS. KISIEL: That is not, no, that is not
13 including that. No, we count those numbers separate.
14 MR. HUDSON: But your capacity at
15 Training Center is about 28, right, and you --
16 MS. KISIEL: Correct.
17 MR. HUDSON: -- can do only -- you do
18 ten-week sessions now, so there's four of those a year.
19 MS. KISIEL: There are four, however, if
20 someone needs to be there longer, they take a week break
21 and come back.
22 MR. HUDSON: But 4 times 28 might be near
23 a hundred then, but you think you can get up to 130?
24 MS. KISIEL: Yes.
25 MR. RODGERS: Well, you did, didn't you,
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1 Lisa?
2 MS. KISIEL: We did last year, but we
3 weren't on the ten-week schedule. We had 136. And, of
4 course, this is a, you know, this is a pilot for that
5 particular program --
6 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
7 MS. KISIEL: -- and we're looking at
8 those numbers.
9 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
10 MR. RODGERS: The other thing that may
11 happen, Mike, when somebody comes in and they only need
12 three or four weeks and they go out and then somebody
13 else comes in --
14 (Multiple speakers.)
15 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
16 MR. RODGERS: I'm sorry. So it may be
17 that a person's only there, too, for four or five weeks,
18 they leave and somebody else takes their spot.
19 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
20 MS. KISIEL: Correct.
21 DR. MOGK: Anything else?
22 MS. DUNN: This is a pilot program, I
23 know, Lisa, as far as the ten-week modules, but do you
24 have any sense how many individuals might be doing two-,
25 three-week program? Do you have a lot of clients that in
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1 the past have only needed about that level of training or
2 amount of training?
3 MS. KISIEL: A lot in the past as opposed
4 to now?
5 MS. DUNN: Well, I mean you'd have to be
6 basing it on the past. Are there a lot of individuals
7 who come to the Training Center who only need three or
8 four --
9 MS. KISIEL: Most stay longer.
10 MS. DUNN: Okay.
11 MS. KISIEL: Yeah. The average stay is
12 about eight weeks. There are, you know, at least -- I
13 have the numbers if you need them, I've got that all.
14 But, you know, there are a significant amount that stay
15 more, usually. You know, someone said to me yesterday,
16 they said, someone wants to come for two or three weeks
17 for training, and I corrected them and said, they may
18 come for two weeks, but it won't be necessarily training
19 because we're going to be assessing you. You know, you
20 have to know what a person's capabilities are, and then
21 you start working, you know. So it's a good introduction
22 in two to three weeks, but it's a slow start if you're
23 going to -- you know, unless you come with a fairly
24 extensive basket of skills and you just need to do some
25 finishing touches, which happens, but most of the time
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1 people want and need to stay longer.
2 MS. DUNN: Okay.
3 MR. HUDSON: So Lisa, if you think, then,
4 that 28 is the kind of capacity revolving four times in a
5 year, you must think that probably about a third of the
6 people are going to come in for short periods, like less
7 than ten weeks, to get to your 130, so you've got some
8 ideas for the mini programming of some kind I guess to
9 get to 130?
10 MS. KISIEL: Yeah. I mean we're studying
11 that this year and seeing how that's -- I think the last
12 time -- we just checked that count -- it was somewhere
13 over 75 people we've served so far --
14 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
15 MS. KISIEL: -- this year, so.
16 MR. SIBLEY: Do you have any early
17 feedback on the ten-week program, or is it too early to
18 tell?
19 MS. KISIEL: You know, so far -- I'm
20 sorry. So far, Joe, I think it's going well. I think
21 that some of the benefits are that, you know, students,
22 you know, individuals get an opportunity to have a break,
23 they do get to go home, take care of, you know, finances,
24 business. People have lives, you know, that they're
25 leaving. It's been good for the staff in some sense
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1 because we've been able to do some -- you know, I, during
2 the week that we're closed, I meet with the teachers for
3 at least a whole day and we do work on curriculum
4 development, you know, things that you do when you work
5 with staff, and staff development and things like that
6 that they don't have time to do when they're working all
7 day. You know, the difference between being in the
8 field -- and I can say this from experience. The
9 difference from being at the field and -- in the field
10 and being at the Center is that your time is much more
11 structured, you don't have the time to do what I'm doing
12 today, because if I'm teaching and I'm here, that means I
13 either have to get a sub or somebody else has to cover my
14 students. So, you know, it's nice, that's a real benefit
15 for us.
16 MR. HUDSON: Ed, one question for you.
17 MR. RODGERS: Sure, Michael.
18 MR. HUDSON: Part of being a good
19 advisory person, I feel like sometimes -- and I may be
20 just speaking for myself here -- but I would benefit -- I
21 hear you mention earlier a press release, and I feel like
22 I don't know what press release that was, and I'm
23 wondering if there's a way that, either if I'm not --
24 maybe I'm missing something -- but I'd like to get on the
25 list that would send me information before I see it in a
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1 newspaper or a publication. Like if you're going to do a
2 press release, could I be in the circuit, or could the
3 board be in the circuit of learning about those, you
4 know, as they're being sent out? And then on some other
5 dynamics --
6 MR. RODGERS: Can I address that one
7 first?
8 MR. HUDSON: Yes, sure.
9 MR. RODGERS: It's my understanding that
10 the press release on the Anderson Building, either the
11 chair or you folks did receive that.
12 MR. HUDSON: Okay. Then I must have
13 misplaced it.
14 MR. GAYNOR: I didn't either, Mike.
15 MR. SIBLEY: I didn't.
16 MR. HUDSON: Okay. So --
17 MR. RODGERS: Sue tells me we sent it to
18 you.
19 MR. GAYNOR: Within the last two weeks
20 you mean?
21 MR. RODGERS: No, no. No, no. When
22 it -- either the day -- the day it was going to be
23 issued. You have to understand, I don't control
24 departmental press releases, the department does, and
25 they don't give it to anybody until the day they're going
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1 to release it. So no, you wouldn't have gotten it two
2 days before, if that's what you're asking for, because
3 the department won't do it that way.
4 MR. HUDSON: I'd like to get on -- I'd
5 like to give you my e-mail later and get on that list to
6 receive those kind of things as they come out, because I
7 feel a little sometimes surprised as I learn things in a
8 paper that I didn't see directly, and that may have been
9 my mistake on that one that I missed it.
10 MR. RODGERS: There is a list we can put
11 you on that you'll receive all the departments, they
12 don't break it down by agency, you'll receive all their
13 press releases.
14 MR. HUDSON: I want to get the ones for
15 this agency, though.
16 MR. RODGERS: There is not a list that
17 the department has that does that. They have a general
18 press release list that they can put you on.
19 MR. HUDSON: Maybe I can get on Sue's
20 list, then, to get that.
21 MS. LUZENSKI: Yes.
22 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
23 MR. RODGERS: Well, the only thing that
24 Sue and I have gotten in the last year that I'm aware of,
25 because it's BSBP, was just that one press release, I
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1 mean they shared it with me like at 4:00 o'clock the day
2 before they issued it.
3 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
4 MR. RODGERS: And then I think we got the
5 copy the next morning in an official e-mail, and then it
6 went out.
7 MR. HUDSON: Then the other thing, I
8 don't know how much of an invasion this feels for you,
9 but sometimes I believe key unit-wide communications
10 might go out internally that I don't know about and would
11 help me get a sense of the flavor, the feel, the
12 dynamics, the shifts, the trends going on, and ways that
13 would help me be really a little more thoughtful than
14 just reading a lot of reports that you've been good at
15 generating at our request, the flavor for how a
16 communication goes out to directors of units or staff.
17 For instance, I heard at -- I heard that staff were
18 directed not to speak to the board members, and I don't
19 know if that's true or not, but I have no sense of how to
20 gauge that other than if people tell me they can't talk
21 to me because I'm on the board without going to you
22 first.
23 MR. RODGERS: No. What staff was
24 instructed is to let us know about contacts with the
25 board. That's different than saying they can't talk to
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1 you.
2 MR. HUDSON: Okay. So they can talk to
3 me?
4 MR. RODGERS: Well, and we also have
5 asked that when you, as a group, want to talk to them or
6 interview them, that you coordinate it with Sue so we
7 know -- we have to know where our employees are, it's
8 just that simple. You know, you met with, for example,
9 Lisa I think at the Training Center, right?
10 MR. HUDSON: Yes.
11 MR. RODGERS: Okay. And Sue was involved
12 in coordinating that for you. That's all. We're not --
13 I have not showed up, if you'll recall, if you think back
14 now, I don't think I have showed up, if you're worrying
15 about a chilling effect, at any of your interviews with
16 any of my staff. We have made staff readily available to
17 you. I don't think you can really shoot at us and say we
18 haven't made staff available to you.
19 MR. HUDSON: No. And actually, I don't
20 want to be adversarial at all in this. I'm just saying I
21 don't have a good sense of how things happen, but I hear
22 things like people shouldn't talk to me, and it makes me
23 feel like I'm being kept at a distance, and I just -- I
24 want to be thoughtful and partner-oriented in this
25 advisory process, and anything I can do, like hearing the
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1 press releases or seeing key kind of unit-wide --
2 MR. RODGERS: Sure, sure.
3 MR. HUDSON: -- directives would help me
4 get a sense for, you know, the needs, the feeling, the
5 operation of a big organization that I'm supposed to
6 help, you know, reach higher levels of succession.
7 MR. RODGERS: Sure, sure. Let me give
8 you a food for thought, then I'll tell you how we work
9 contacts within the Agency. Assume for a moment that you
10 are able to, meaning just you, and then multiply it by
11 seven, to contact any of my staff any time you want
12 directly over any issue --
13 DR. MOGK: Ed, that's not what we were
14 suggesting.
15 MR. GAYNOR: We've already addressed
16 that, Ed, and we don't do that.
17 MR. RODGERS: Okay.
18 (Multiple speakers.)
19 MR. GAYNOR: We're talking about walking
20 along through the building and stopping and talking to
21 someone and being told they can't talk to you because --
22 MR. RODGERS: Well, if anybody does that,
23 let me know who they are. All right? How's that?
24 MR. GAYNOR: Okay. Okay.
25 MR. RODGERS: Now, here's what we do have
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1 in place, so that you don't get the idea that I'm just
2 picking on the advisory commission, that I'm trying to
3 play hide the ball, we have a contact form. When an
4 employee is contacted by a member of the legislature, a
5 department director's office from like MDOT or my
6 department or whatever, the media, a consumer group, or a
7 member of your board, they are -- they fill out a contact
8 form that they send to Sue Luzenski showing what the
9 contact was, that way we know what contacts were made.
10 And I think it's reasonable of an agency to do that.
11 Now, if that -- if that's what staff is referring to that
12 I can't talk to you, then that's a real stretch on that
13 form.
14 DR. MOGK: I think that was it, Ed. We
15 have not made any contacts with staff without going
16 through Sue, but --
17 MR. RODGERS: And that's what I thought,
18 Lylas, yeah.
19 (Multiple speakers.)
20 DR. MOGK: -- when we're in Lansing --
21 MR. RODGERS: But Mike threw me the way
22 he asked the question, guess.
23 DR. MOGK: When we're in Lansing and
24 happen to be walking through and see someone that we know
25 and we say, hi, how's it going, and the response is, I
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1 can't talk to you because you're on the advisory board,
2 that's what we're talking about.
3 MR. RODGERS: Well, that is not a message
4 that was sent to anybody in terms of talking to you
5 obviously. And we do have the contact forms and, you
6 know, that we just want to know.
7 MR. HUDSON: So do you do unit-wide or
8 commission-wide or bureau-wide communications that I
9 might be able to see, kind of get a feel for the inside
10 feel? I just don't have that right now.
11 MR. RODGERS: Well, I'm not going to
12 promise you that I'm willing to send you every internal
13 communication.
14 MR. HUDSON: Absolutely not.
15 MR. RODGERS: Okay. General things, I am
16 willing to share with you, but to be honest with you,
17 there's not a lot of that. I think you have the
18 impression, Michael, that there's a lot more bureau-wide
19 communications going on than there really has been in
20 terms of an e-mail that goes to everybody. Now, I get a
21 lot of e-mails from staff that's generated, like a voc
22 rehab counselor will run across something. For instance,
23 one of them sent out an e-mail recently where they had
24 gone to the Wolffe presentation and they sent an e-mail
25 to the entire BSBP list with a comment about the program
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1 and something they had learned in the program. Okay.
2 That kind of thing happens a lot.
3 MR. HUDSON: So there is a BSBP list,
4 that's good for me to know.
5 MR. RODGERS: There is a BSBP list,
6 that's correct.
7 MR. HUDSON: Could I be added to that?
8 MR. RODGERS: I don't see any problem
9 there. You'll have to coordinate that with Sue, because
10 I don't know how the internet works.
11 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
12 MR. GAYNOR: I think what Mike was
13 thinking about, about nine months ago or a year ago,
14 might be a year ago now --
15 MR. RODGERS: Time flies, yeah.
16 MR. GAYNOR: Yeah. We received an e-mail
17 that said the director's update or director's report or
18 something like that that you sent out --
19 MR. RODGERS: Yes.
20 MR. GAYNOR: -- kind of outlining what
21 was going to happen and/or what is happening, or if
22 you've made some changes; like you're working with Mike
23 and you made this, Mike Pemble, and you made a change
24 here, just things that, because we don't have a policies
25 and procedures, which we'll talk about, and then so that
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1 we see that, you know, you're moving here, like the
2 target keeps moving, so it would be nice to know where
3 it's moved.
4 MR. HUDSON: Yeah.
5 MR. GAYNOR: That's all.
6 MR. RODGERS: Well, we're still evolving,
7 so it may seem from the outside that the target is
8 moving. In some instances, that's true, and other
9 instances, it's not. I think I shared with you that
10 report, did I not?
11 MR. GAYNOR: Yes. That's what mean, nine
12 months or a year ago.
13 MR. RODGERS: That's the only report, so
14 to speak, that we have issued so far.
15 MR. GAYNOR: Okay.
16 MR. RODGERS: Okay. I did, at the end of
17 my first year of my administration, I issued that report.
18 Well, it actually came a month or two after my first year
19 was completed. At the end of my second year, you'll get
20 another report; at the end of my third year, you'll get
21 another report. I'm not going to do interim reports per
22 se. Quite frankly, I don't have the time to do it.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Right. We understand that.
24 But when there's -- if there's a major change of some
25 kind --
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1 MR. HUDSON: Policy changes, direction
2 changes, things that will help us --
3 MR. RODGERS: I'm more than willing to
4 share those.
5 MR. HUDSON: That's what I -- I just
6 don't feel like I understand those things right now.
7 MR. RODGERS: Okay. Okay.
8 DR. MOGK: If we're set, we should take a
9 break so we don't delay our next guests. Okay. So we
10 have 10 minutes rather than 15.
11 (At 11:40 a.m., there was a ten-minute recess.)
12 - - -
13 DR. MOGK: We'll start this second half
14 with presentations by James Chaney and Greg Keathley from
15 the Elected Operators Committee, and we appreciate very
16 much that you both have come. And go ahead.
17 MR. KEATHLEY: I'm Greg Keathley, vice
18 chair of the Elected Operators Committee for the BEP
19 Program. First of all, thanks for the invite, it's a
20 pleasure to be here, I consider it an honor.
21 You asked what you felt our role as EOC
22 members was. My personal belief, and I mean I'm sure
23 everybody doesn't have the same feeling that I do, but we
24 basically try to represent all the operators in the
25 program's opinions, views, concerns, we try to stop a lot
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1 of problems before they become problems, we often direct
2 operators to the right person to maybe get this resolved
3 with any problems they have. We also do a lot of
4 research ourself, we try keep up what's going on
5 legislatively, new products that they might be interested
6 in, maybe demographics have changed in their region;
7 resolving a lot of unwarranted I feel sometimes
8 complaints, a lot of rumors get going, and we try shut
9 those down before they become bigger problems. It's been
10 a big problem in the past in the program. We've been
11 working together closely with the Agency and
12 administration to hopefully stop all this. We kind of
13 like cutting it off at the legs when it comes in now. If
14 it's not a real problem, we try to stop people from
15 bringing those issues. Like if we're having a meeting,
16 rumors, we shut down immediately. You know, if they have
17 a genuine complaint or concern, we try to take that to
18 the correct subcommittee. We have subcommittees that
19 generally handle certain parts. Like we had one for
20 rules and regulations, and if something pertaining to
21 that, which I take that to that subcommittee. We have a
22 training subcommittee, so if it's a training issue, we'll
23 take it to that subcommittee. We have a workshop
24 subcommittee where we try to put together our annual
25 workshop, they work on doing that. We have one just for
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1 insurance, so if that's a concern, we take it to that
2 subcommittee. Promotions and seniority. At any rate, we
3 take -- we try to take it down that avenue of the
4 subcommittee, and then it will come to the EOC and we'll
5 vote on it there if it couldn't be resolved on the lower
6 level.
7 We dedicate a lot of time. You know, the
8 pay is horrible, the benefits are great, though, to be
9 able to feel like you're actually helping somebody make a
10 difference. I take my role very seriously, spend a lot
11 of money on my, you know, on my own dime. I go to D.C. a
12 lot and lobby for the program, I try to attend the Blast
13 and the Sagebrush. And I just love helping people. And
14 my interest is in the future of this program and for it
15 to be successful.
16 And I came into this program, when I
17 first came in, that was a big problem. Before I ever got
18 my foot in the door, just at the Training Center alone I
19 heard so much negativity from people not even involved in
20 the program, outside the program, whether it would be
21 people from certain groups or just individuals that had a
22 grudge. And so, you know, a lot of people like myself
23 were coming in with a chip on their shoulder thinking
24 that it was negative and that they're going to do this
25 and do that, they just want to get you out; and over
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1 time, in my own personal experience, I figured -- I
2 figured out that, you know, it's not true. And we try to
3 stop any of the new people coming in now, we try to put a
4 positive message in there here if we can, that's why we
5 go to the new class and meet with them, myself and
6 Mr. Chaney. And we just want them to realize, you know,
7 you're going to get out of this program what you put into
8 it. But we just don't want people to be coming in with
9 the negative views that's been happening in the past.
10 And I think we've done a lot of great work changing that.
11 Like I said, we've been working very close with the
12 Agency staff, and we've built a great relationship. A
13 lot of things are changing, and I feel in the right
14 direction.
15 The mandatory trainings we put together I
16 think is crucial for not only the new people coming in,
17 but for the existing operators that have been here, you
18 know, 10, 15, 20, 25 years that maybe didn't have that
19 type of training, you know. And whereas before we had,
20 you know, it's always been voluntary training that they
21 can attend, but some people just don't have the drive
22 that they necessarily need, so now we've made it
23 mandatory for them to go to this training, and I think
24 it's a -- you know, we just started this year, but it's
25 helping out great. We've really cracked down on
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1 recordkeeping and bookkeeping and, you know, holding
2 operators accountable on that part of it, and I think
3 that's helping.
4 The negatives, I think before a lot, we
5 had a lot of facilities that just didn't make enough
6 money for somebody to make a living, a single person
7 couldn't make a living, let alone a family. We've been
8 working with the Agency to really knock these out, get
9 rid of them, either add to those facilities to make them
10 a sustainable site, or we've broken up them sites and
11 added each site into another facility to make it
12 stronger.
13 I don't have a lot of negative to say,
14 like I said, other than, you know, the rumors that went
15 around that we're really working on. I feel great about
16 where we're going, I feel great about the staff that's
17 been put together and the relationship we built, the EOC
18 and the Agency, and I think we're on a rail for success,
19 and we're definitely heading down that rail. And I am
20 just -- the only thing I could see that could help the
21 program at this point in my view is we definitely need --
22 or well, I guess us, too, but the Agency could use some
23 more help. We need another promotional agent, we need a
24 permanent trainer, you know, things like that. But, you
25 know, those are conversations we're having, and these are
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1 things we're leaning toward, in my opinion, moving
2 forward, and I'm happy to be a part of it.
3 DR. MOGK: Great. Thank you very much.
4 I had originally indicated that each of them would give
5 their presentations and we'd ask questions to both, so
6 we'll delay they questions for Mr. Chaney.
7 MR. CHANEY: Okay. Well, when I first
8 became the chair, when I first came into the program, the
9 one thing that I did see was the intimidation and I saw
10 the disconnect from both sides, the operators as well as
11 the Agency; no one was talking, it was like a bad
12 marriage, and I had to come in and try to be the
13 counselor, because nobody was listening to each other
14 talk. It was, the Agency was doing their thing, the
15 operators doing their thing, and no one was listening.
16 So what I wanted to do when I got with Greg and the rest
17 of the board was to try to mend that gap. And when you
18 do that, sometimes you get told that you're an Agency
19 person or told that you're a selling out and all this,
20 but the thing is that you're trying to do what's good for
21 the whole. See, it's not about taking two pieces and
22 pulling them apart, you want those two pieces to come
23 together, and that's all we ever been trying to do is to
24 get the Agency to listen to us and us to listen to the
25 Agency, and to work together as one.
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1 Now, I'm not saying this just because Ed
2 and Mike is here, I'm saying this because I say this to
3 them in their face, when they first came to me and asked
4 me what did we need, I told them honesty. We need for
5 you to be honest. Whatever you going to do, put it out
6 there. Just be honest. Treat the operators like adults,
7 they're grown. We are entrepreneurs, we're not poor
8 blind people. Oh, those poor blind people. No, we're
9 not that. We're entrepreneurs. Treat us as such. And
10 that's one thing that I can say that Ed and Mike have
11 came in and done, they treat us like adults. It's this
12 way and it's this way, it's black and it's white, and I
13 can deal with that better than I can deal with somebody
14 behind closed doors telling me one thing and then walking
15 out that door and doing something different. So I want
16 to thank them for that part of it, because that's the
17 part that they listen to me on.
18 Now, do we agree with everything they do?
19 No, you never going to do that. You could be married
20 years and never agree with everything your wife or your
21 husband saying. Right. But we agree to work together.
22 And that's the one thing that I appreciate with them,
23 they do listen, and they make everybody accountable, the
24 operators, as well as his own staff, and that's all I can
25 ask for, it's accountability.
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1 Now, if you ask me what we need, we need
2 continuous training in this program. And the only
3 problem that I'm seeing is this; you've given us tools,
4 you've given us computers, but no software or no
5 training. It's got to all go hand-in-hand. You can not
6 give a surgeon -- you can not tell your surgeon to
7 perform a surgery without a scalpel. You wouldn't put a
8 police officer on the street without a gun. So why would
9 you give us a computer with no software and no training
10 of it? It's not so much Ed and Mike and them fault, they
11 came in at the -- they came in when you have operators
12 that wasn't required to come up with the 25th century,
13 they didn't have to have the technology. Now we're
14 trying to move this thing forward. You got the iPhones,
15 you got the iPads, you got the iNotes, the Braille
16 Notetakers, you got all this stuff that is, that is
17 coming out that will make this program move along a lot
18 faster and further, you given us the technology, but
19 you're not giving us the training. We're asking for the
20 training. It should be written in automatically, when
21 you get this computer, 30 hours of training automatically
22 comes with it. Now, if you're person that computer guru
23 like we have some that's in our program, then you turn it
24 down, but automatically these people should get this
25 training. Because you got to think, 25, 30 years ago
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1 when some of them came in, it wasn't required. Now
2 they're lost. Some of them don't even know how to turn
3 it on. So I'm pleading to the Agency to get these people
4 this training. Let's not hold it up. And if it's Voc
5 Rehab that's got to pay for it, stop worrying about how
6 much money we're making, worry about that we continue to
7 make money, because as long as we're making money, we can
8 continue to hire people outside of the program, we can
9 keep working and offering jobs to sighted people, as well
10 and non-sighted people. This is a program that is a
11 giving program. Let's continue to give.
12 MR. KEATHLEY: And can I add to that for
13 a second, James. I think what James is saying is
14 mandatory, because an operator can request training and
15 will get that training, and some, like we said, just
16 don't have the drive, so if it was mandatory, maybe some
17 of these operators would get out and get that training.
18 MR. GAYNOR: Should you have to test out
19 of the training?
20 MR. CHANEY: Yeah.
21 MR. GAYNOR: You said some people don't
22 need it. Could you test --
23 (Multiple speakers.)
24 MR. KEATHLEY: Sure, sure, I think that
25 would be great.
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1 MR. CHANEY: What I'm saying is, you
2 know, when we first came into the program, we were told a
3 computer is not necessary for you to run your business.
4 Well, now it is. So you got to remember somebody -- I'll
5 just take you back to when we had John (inaudible) here
6 as a trainer, he said when he was in the program in the
7 '70s and '80s they just threw them in a room and threw
8 the parts at them and say, here, figure it out. Well,
9 you still got some people that still come from that era
10 that's still in the program. They didn't have to have
11 computers. Now we're throwing them in the room and
12 saying, here, here's the computer, figure it out. You
13 can't, you can't do that. And I don't -- and I'm not
14 saying that it's the Agency fault, it's we have to get on
15 the same page if we going to do all this.
16 MR. KEATHLEY: A lot of it could be fixed
17 right at the Training Center itself or wherever we have
18 our class, because there is a -- you have to be able to
19 demonstrate that you can use a computer to even be
20 accepted into the class, but it's very, very minimal
21 skills, basically turning it on and show that you can
22 save a file I think, at least what it was when I went
23 through. So I mean, yeah, testing out would be great and
24 probably save a lot of time and money and effort for a
25 lot of people. If somebody could pass that test, yeah,
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1 they would be good to go, but mandatory for those who
2 couldn't, and it would be a good thing to start I believe
3 in the classroom to get better training right from the
4 get-go, that way we don't have to worry about people
5 coming in later and having this problem.
6 MR. CHANEY: And the communication
7 throughout the program, it would be excellent for that.
8 You know, a lot of operators are getting these iPhones,
9 and if Ed puts out something, say he wants to put
10 something out, most people don't listen to the deadline.
11 You put it out through somebody's e-mail that comes right
12 up on your iPhone, you can read it right then and stay in
13 touch with whatever's going on in the program.
14 DR. MOGK: There are some operators who
15 are successful and others who are not. What do you think
16 the key ingredients are that make that difference?
17 MR. KEATHLEY: Well, drive is the number
18 one thing. I think most of the operators that aren't
19 successful are just not willing to do what they need to
20 do to be successful. A lot of them just let their
21 facilities go downhill, they won't ask for training; even
22 when offered training, they don't accept it, you know,
23 they know what they're doing and that's it, until it gets
24 to a point where unfortunately a lot of times, you know,
25 their license has to be revocated [sic] or other measures
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1 have to be taken. But I think that successful operators
2 are the ones that are hungry, that are true
3 entrepreneurs, that get out there and, you know, they
4 have goals and they have that drive and they're willing
5 to do what it takes. You know, they stay up on what's
6 new and fresh in the industry and what demographic
7 they're shooting at and what they want to sell, what's
8 trending, what's fadding, what's ever selling at the
9 time, they change product, they don't same stay with the
10 same products for 20 years without ever -- you know, they
11 bring something new to it. And also a lot of, a lot of
12 operators have a problem with customer service, you know,
13 some people just aren't people people, and unfortunately
14 that shows in a lot of situations. Some people aren't
15 willing to be a gracious host and to accept what the
16 customer wants, you know, they want to sell what they
17 want to sell and do what they want to do, and you're
18 never going to be successful that way.
19 Trust you me, we went to a lot of
20 operators and answered a lot of calls and tried to help a
21 lot of people that just, you know, you just don't get
22 through to them. Some you do, some you don't. But if
23 you want to be successful in this program, you can and
24 will be successful in this program. If you're willing to
25 do what you need to do to be successful, you will be
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1 successful. That's my opinion.
2 MR. CHANEY: I want to say a word, I want
3 to say the word analyze. I think when we go in and
4 analyze some of these places, we need to evaluate them a
5 little better than we do and give the people the toolage
6 to be successful at the same time. If a person need to
7 make salads in his building, they got have a three-
8 compartment sink. If they need coffee, they got to have
9 a water line. So when we go in these places, we need to
10 evaluate them a little better and be honest with the
11 building. See, sometimes I think what's happening is the
12 building has this way of thinking that the things that
13 they want, but it's unrealistic, because then the health
14 department comes in and tells them, you can't do A, B, C
15 or D. Now, if we want -- if you want them to make that
16 money, they have to be able to do A, B, C and D. And
17 we're telling the buildings that they're going to do A,
18 B, C and D, but then the health department comes in and
19 say, you can't do A, B, C, or maybe not D. So we got to
20 start analyzing these places better and giving these
21 people the toolage to make the money. And we got to
22 understand in these buildings, also, that that's what
23 that operator is there for. He's there to tend to your
24 needs, he's there to provide these things for you. Get
25 the training to allow him to do that, but also let's
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1 analyze these buildings and be honest, because if they're
2 not going to be up to code to these things, then we can't
3 offer that, and we need to be honest with one another.
4 DR. MOGK: So it sounds like, from what
5 you said, that in terms of success or not, that part of
6 it has to do with the individual and the drive and the
7 people skills, and that would seem to rest on a selection
8 process?
9 MR. CHANEY: Right.
10 DR. MOGK: I mean that needs to be
11 discovered ahead of time.
12 MR. KEATHLEY: That is something we've
13 talked about for quite a while now. And it's my
14 understanding that now there is a, the screening is a
15 little more vigorous now than what it was in the past to
16 make sure we're bringing in the right kind of person
17 that's willing to do this type of work and be successful.
18 In the past, you know, you signed up, you pretty much,
19 you passed a test, you got in. Now we're looking for
20 people that are more driven toward, you know, to being an
21 entrepreneur, to go into, you know, what the program was
22 intended for, to becoming successful.
23 It's like James was saying, some
24 facilities, you know, your building population might --
25 your customer might want something that you can't
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1 provide, which I think doesn't necessarily bring it back
2 to a negative thing to say, hey, I got this, can't do
3 this, I think that goes back to your relationship with
4 your customer and your customer service and being able
5 to, you know, convey to them why you can't or can do
6 something and what you're willing to do. I think as long
7 as your customer base knows you're doing what you can and
8 you are about satisfying, you know, their wants and needs
9 in that business, I think customers are, the majority of
10 them are willing to work with you and still frequent your
11 establishment.
12 MR. GAYNOR: I'm pretty new to all this.
13 What role does the EOC play in the selection process of
14 candidates, you know, that will get businesses?
15 MR. KEATHLEY: We play no role.
16 MR. GAYNOR: Okay.
17 MR. CHANEY: Of which I wish we would.
18 MR. GAYNOR: And what is mandatory, just
19 the -- for an operator and you, it's -- are they, do they
20 have to come to the meetings or --
21 MR. KEATHLEY: No. The only meeting that
22 all the operators on the whole have to attend is the
23 annual workshop, unless it is, like a we've scheduled
24 this year, a mandatory training, and then it's mandatory,
25 and if they don't show up, you know, there's some sort of
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1 penalty for that, they're not allowed to bid out to
2 promote or --
3 MS. BUCKINGHAM: That's because of the
4 point system, they have a point system each meeting or
5 training session you go to?
6 MR. KEATHLEY: Right. Which kind of goes
7 back to your question, I mean that would be the role I
8 guess we play, we help them permit that promotions and
9 seniority program to help operators, you know, so I guess
10 that helps them bid, because, you know, they get points
11 for doing training, certain things you do, go to food
12 shows, you know --
13 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Could you explain --
14 MR. KEATHLEY: -- going to college.
15 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Excuse me. Could you
16 explain the point system so everyone has clear
17 understanding how you rate as far as your points and your
18 attendance and the, to bid on a new site and so on?
19 MR. KEATHLEY: Sure. You come into the
20 program and we got a points and promotions system where,
21 like going to the workshop every year, I think it's one
22 point now, one time I think it was two; if you go to like
23 a food show or some kind of voluntary training, you get a
24 point for that; being on EOC board is a point; being a
25 member of one of the subcommittees is a point; further
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1 education that has anything to do with your business and
2 knowledge of improving your business is pointable;
3 seniority is pointable; evaluation, you have an annual
4 evaluation, and on that evaluation, your score, like, you
5 know, how you're running your business, if you're keeping
6 your records, if you have all your appropriate licenses
7 and all that, so you get scored that way. And, you know,
8 some things are cumulative, some aren't. Seniority is
9 cumulative, you know, any trade shows or those type of
10 points. The only things that are cumulative is like your
11 annual -- your annual evaluation can change from time to
12 time, so it's not the same. It's whatever, whatever your
13 last score in that evaluation goes toward your points.
14 MR. GAYNOR: Who performs that
15 evaluation?
16 MR. KEATHLEY: Our promotional agents,
17 which is like the business consultant to all the
18 operators, they call them promotional agents here, but
19 they're basically business consultants.
20 DR. MOGK: You mentioned Blast and
21 Sagebrush, what are those?
22 MR. KEATHLEY: You want to take that?
23 MR. CHANEY: Yeah, those are like annual
24 meetings that like the NFB might have or the American
25 Council for the Blind might have each year, that you come
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1 together and -- it's a great, great farm system for
2 information and gathering knowledge. Every year I go I
3 learn something different. It's blind entrepreneurs
4 across the country that all come together at one time in
5 one spot for that one weekend or week, and they share
6 their experiences, they share different ideas about how
7 to better your business, they share customer service,
8 they do some training, some training, and then they also
9 have food shows that also offer you and show you
10 different products to bring back maybe to your state and
11 talk about to your fellow operators and stuff. I think
12 it's something excellent that we should continue do,
13 because every time I go, I come back with just a glass
14 full of knowledge, and it just, I come back feeling good
15 about this whole thing every time I go.
16 MR. RODGERS: For example, Lylas, last
17 year's conference -- and, James, correct me if I'm wrong,
18 it could be last year, the year before -- they brought in
19 a tax expert --
20 MR. CHANEY: Yes.
21 MR. RODGERS: -- who gave an hour and a
22 half presentation on tax issues that the BEP operators
23 might run into.
24 MR. CHANEY: Yes.
25 MR. RODGERS: So it's educational, too.
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1 It isn't just, you know, go and sit around and talk,
2 there's actually presentations by different experts in
3 different areas.
4 MR. CHANEY: And training.
5 DR. MOGK: Is this something that you
6 foot the bill for, taking yourself to the conference?
7 MR. KEATHLEY: I have in the past footed
8 my own bill, but the Agency, they recently have started
9 paying for the chair and vice chair to go. And as a
10 matter of fact, I think the whole --
11 (Multiple speakers.)
12 MR. KEATHLEY: -- the whole EOC was able
13 to go.
14 MR. CHANEY: Yeah. And they also, I did
15 go to Ed and ask him that if some people of the board
16 that couldn't go out of the eleven of us, can we
17 substitute it for operators that would want to go, and he
18 graciously said yes, so we had a few operators that was
19 not on the board that were just in the program that got a
20 chance to go because some people on the board just, you
21 know, passed up on it or just couldn't, you know, it
22 couldn't -- it didn't fit around their schedule. But the
23 ones who went came back glowing about it, because they
24 had never been. And that was one of the things that when
25 I went for the very first time, they were just sending
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1 the chair and the vice chair, and I came back and I said
2 to Ed and Mike that we got to spread this wealth because
3 it's so much wealth of knowledge, a lot of people need to
4 know what's going on and get that camaraderie and find
5 out that it's -- every state has their problems and every
6 state has their good. This is an excellent, excellent
7 program throughout the country, and I'm glad to be a part
8 of it.
9 MR. RODGERS: I think we sent 15 last
10 year, Lylas.
11 DR. MOGK: Yes.
12 MR. HUDSON: James, you talked about
13 software issues. Tell me more about the software need,
14 and what does that software do, and is there a product
15 that is already available, or does it need to be
16 developed?
17 MR. CHANEY: No, I think it's already
18 developed, and I think me being an iPhone user, I was one
19 of those people that was not afraid of technology, but
20 didn't really understand how it was going to affect me,
21 because when I first came in the program, I was very high
22 partial, but as I went on, I lost more and more of my
23 sight, and I'll probably be total in another year or two,
24 but I didn't get discouraged because I loved to read
25 books; now I'm reading the books on my iPhone, I'm
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1 reading the books on my iPad, I'm looking up my
2 information from the Sam's Club on my iPhone. Everywhere
3 I go, I'm reading my e-mail on my iPhone or getting it
4 off the iPad, writing my letters and getting out my
5 e-mails, you know, even with assistance from, you know,
6 someone, but it's just still, the technology is there,
7 it's the training that we need to get more of, because I
8 think a lot of people wasn't getting the training.
9 MR. HUDSON: So it's not a business
10 process software you're looking for, it's not the
11 accounting, it's not the interaction system that you're
12 looking for?
13 MR. CHANEY: Yeah, it's all that, because
14 you got to think about it, if you need to make an order,
15 you can do it right over your phone or right over your
16 computer; if you need to change an order, you do it right
17 then; if you want to take credit cards for your facility,
18 you can swipe it over the iPhone. It's a lot of things
19 that's the technology now you can do, that's hand-held
20 that you can do it right then, right there.
21 MR. HUDSON: So it's not a need to
22 develop, but it's a need to assemble it, know what it is,
23 and get trained on it?
24 MR. CHANEY: There you go, that's the
25 proper way to put it.
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1 MR. HUDSON: Okay.
2 MR. KEATHLEY: It's as simple as I
3 think -- it's no specific software I don't think, it's as
4 simple as teaching some of these operators how to use
5 Excel, how to put together a spreadsheet, how to online
6 shop, how to put an order together, and believe it or
7 not, some is as simple as sending and receiving an
8 e-mail. So I mean it's no big piece of technology that
9 we need --
10 MR. CHANEY: Right.
11 MR. KEATHLEY: -- it's just getting
12 everybody trained to just have a general sense, at least
13 be able to put together an Excel spreadsheet.
14 MR. HUDSON: Now, Greg, one thing you
15 mentioned was your trips to national conferences and
16 conventions and so forth, one being Elected Operators
17 nationally. At those events, does the topic of
18 accessibility in the very vending machines that you might
19 be setting up places ever come up? I work at a
20 university, and we just had a big student project to
21 Braille label a bunch of machines, but it was labor
22 intensive and it will be outdated very quickly if the
23 vendors choose to put things in a different place on
24 those machines. So it seems like a big Elected
25 Operators' system nationally would have some sway on
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1 vending machine manufacturers so that we can get some
2 better accessibility in those things.
3 MR. KEATHLEY: That's a topic at every
4 one I've ever been to, and there's plenty of
5 presentations of new adaptive equipment and what's new
6 and what's coming new. But yeah, every convention,
7 whether BACB or NFB or whatever, that's been a part of
8 every --
9 MR. HUDSON: Good.
10 MR. KEATHLEY: -- one I've been involved
11 with.
12 MR. HUDSON: And from a user's
13 perspective of equipment, too, so blind people are well
14 understood by the vendors, then?
15 MR. KEATHLEY: Right.
16 MR. HUDSON: The vending machine
17 manufacturing?
18 MR. KEATHLEY: Right.
19 MR. HUDSON: But we're not getting any
20 closer to anything we can do, or do you think it's coming
21 soon?
22 MR. KEATHLEY: I think it's coming,
23 there's a lot of new things coming down the pipe that are
24 really exciting, and I think it's only going to get
25 easier for us.
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1 MR. SIBLEY: I want to compliment these
2 guys, I've known them for some years now, and it wasn't
3 that many years ago, like they said, that it was like a
4 real war zone between the operators and the Bureau, or
5 the Commission at that time, and I think these guys here
6 have been a central part of bringing it down to saying,
7 okay, let's talk to each other, let's be reasonable about
8 this, let's work together instead of fighting each other,
9 so I want to compliment them on that.
10 And I'm also just kind of curious --
11 totally changing gears -- I checked the bid line
12 yesterday, I think there's six facilities open right now.
13 Did some operators drop out, or what's the status of
14 that?
15 MR. KEATHLEY: Yeah, there's been a
16 couple operators that have stepped down, and I believe
17 there's a couple in the process of getting their license
18 revocated [sic] as well.
19 MR. RODGERS: As a followup to that, Joe,
20 unfortunately yesterday I had to summarily suspend the
21 license of an operator. That's one example of what
22 fluctuates and causes that.
23 DR. MOGK: What is the term of the EOC
24 board and president and vice president, is it a set
25 number of years or --
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1 MR. KEATHLEY: Two.
2 DR. MOGK: Two years.
3 MR. KEATHLEY: There's eleven members,
4 and it's offset, one year five are up, the next year six
5 are up.
6 MR. CHANEY: It's sort of a two-year term
7 each time you're elected, but the chair is voted on each
8 year by his fellow board members.
9 DR. MOGK: Is there a limit to how many
10 years you're allowed to serve?
11 MR. KEATHLEY: No.
12 MR. CHANEY: No.
13 DR. MOGK: Okay.
14 MR. CHANEY: Which I think is a good
15 thing, because like with this year, we -- if we didn't
16 have some -- and it's not knocking anybody else on the
17 board -- but if we'd have put somebody new in there, they
18 would have had to go all over with trying to build what
19 me and Greg had built far as knowing, knowing the
20 operators and knowing the Agency and knowing where we're
21 at in certain positions in certain things. They would
22 have been trying to come in, come into a situation really
23 not knowing where we were at with certain operators on
24 certain things, and it could have disrupted some things.
25 And not saying that they couldn't have did a good job,
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1 but sometime when, you know, when you come in and do
2 somebody else's job, that person has to try to get you
3 trained to understand where we're at, because the
4 slightest little thing can chip the paint right off.
5 DR. MOGK: I agree, a one-year term is
6 short for -- so yeah. Any other questions?
7 MR. GAYNOR: I'm just curious, if it's
8 appropriate, what type of operations do you have?
9 MR. KEATHLEY: What type of what? I'm
10 sorry.
11 MR. GAYNOR: Your personal operations,
12 what do you run?
13 MR. KEATHLEY: I have a vending route in
14 southeast Detroit, vending route that includes the Walter
15 Reuther Psychiatric Hospital, some DHS offices, the post
16 office garage in Detroit, I have a customs office, an
17 immigration office. So it's a lot of driving for me, lot
18 of on-the-road time. James actually has the one that's
19 pretty much the same --
20 (Multiple speakers.)
21 MR. CHANEY: Yeah, he have the -- what,
22 you have the south?
23 MR. KEATHLEY: Yeah.
24 MR. CHANEY: And I have the east side of
25 vending, which I have the customs, I deal with a lot of
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1 custom officers on the bridge, I have a lot of the
2 immigration, I have the immigration building, a lot of
3 DHS offices, a lot of FIA and CPS office, which Child
4 Protective Services. I love my customers, I do, and they
5 love me, and I like to see them every day, every day they
6 make contact.
7 MR. HUDSON: I just want to say it's
8 great to see you guys shining in your work, you're
9 obviously excited about what you're doing and having some
10 fun at it.
11 MR. CHANEY: I'm excited -- Joe, I'm
12 excited about the program. I know everybody's not, and I
13 know everybody's kind of upset with some of the things
14 that's being done, but I see the one step ahead. I don't
15 think for today, I think for tomorrow. I think where are
16 we going to be the next day, and I kind of see some
17 things that Mike and Ed are trying to do that some people
18 might not see. Now, do I think some of the stuff is
19 political? It's very political. We all expect that,
20 you know, we can accept that, but I do love the honesty
21 and the upfrontness, I'm glad that the operators are not
22 intimidated anymore, they're willing to stand up for
23 their own and speak out. I hate that we're going to lose
24 a great operator in Hazell, but she has to do what she's
25 got to do, but she was a strong point of this program,
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1 too. And, you know, I think Ed and them are going to
2 leave this thing in a strong and straight way, and when
3 they do step down, I hope that we as operators and the
4 program can keep what they set as an example, and if I'm
5 still here, I'm going to make sure we keep it, because I
6 don't want to see this program go away.
7 MR. KEATHLEY: My goal is to leave a
8 better program than what I came into, because, you know,
9 this program came into my life at a time where it was
10 very well needed and I certainly appreciated the
11 opportunity it gave me, and I want to make sure it's here
12 in the future for, you know -- I'm a big get off to
13 college and do what you want type guy, but some people
14 sometimes get in circumstances where, especially in
15 today's job market, you know, and being considered
16 handicapped, it makes it even harder, so it's nice to
17 know that this program is here to help those who may need
18 it, and I just want to make sure it exists in the future,
19 and if I can leave it better than I found it, well, then
20 I've accomplished what I've set out to do.
21 MR. CHANEY: And thank you guys for
22 listening to us, because that's very important to the
23 operators to know we are being heard.
24 MS. DUNN: James and Greg, this is
25 Marianne Dunn. I just had a followup question. You both
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1 made several references to wanting be sure the program is
2 here in the future. What are the concerns?
3 MR. CHANEY: That one day the legislature
4 is going to go behind closed doors and try to ax us off,
5 but we're not going down like that. We're not going to
6 take it sitting down. I'm not. I'll turn my light on
7 and stay up 24 hours before I let them do that. And
8 that's not a threat, it's a plea to say, we need this.
9 No other where or place can you go where they're going to
10 give blind people this type of opportunity. And there
11 are some excellent, excellent operators in this program.
12 Now, there's nothing going to be perfect, nothing. The
13 earth's not perfect. You put a hundred people in one
14 room, you're going to get 5 or 10 that's not on the same
15 page, but do you get rid of the other 90 because the 10
16 don't want to listen? No. And that's how I feel about
17 this program. We have some excellent, excellent
18 operators that do a hell of a job and bust their butts
19 every day to try to not just make a dollar, but represent
20 this program, and they carry they self as such. They
21 have put their kids through college, they have paid off
22 mortgages, they have gave jobs to sighted people. We
23 matter. Don't just sweep us under the rug.
24 MR. KEATHLEY: That's my biggest fear,
25 too, a legislative that -- not that it will disappear,
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1 I'm afraid it will be combined in house with another
2 program that will eventually dissolve the entirety of
3 this program and what it stands for and what it offers
4 blind persons. And that's why I'm so concerned, like I
5 said, about people with, outside the program coming in
6 with the rumors and personal attacks and just so many
7 unwanted accusations and attacks that, you know, that got
8 inside for a minute, people started passing that along,
9 and we've been working so hard to shut that down and show
10 the positive side of this program and show people what's
11 real and what's, what is exactly that, just a rumor. And
12 I'm afraid if, you know, if they hear too much of that up
13 there, the legislators are going to say, well, this
14 program isn't working, it's bicker, bicker, bicker and
15 back and forth, and, you know, that's really what we're
16 trying to take out of the equation right now. We want to
17 show the positive parts of this program and really get
18 some positive press out there on what it does for people
19 and what it accomplish and what it means to us, the
20 people that are involved inside of it.
21 MR. RODGERS: We spend, just for the
22 committee's reference, we spend approximately, and I
23 can't give you exact figures, but it's over $4 million a
24 year in support of this program to employ approximately
25 70 people. So as you can imagine, I periodically get an
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1 inquiry from the legislature that says, where is all this
2 money going, why are we spending $4 or $5 million to
3 employ 70 people. So what these fellows have helped do
4 is to present exactly what they're talking about today, a
5 positive image and how the program can grow rather than
6 be canceled.
7 DR. MOGK: Okay.
8 MR. KEATHLEY: That's exactly right.
9 MR. SIBLEY: Do you feel that the
10 training right now, the people that are coming out of the
11 training as it exists right now are pretty much ready to
12 go? Put you on the spot.
13 MR. CHANEY: You want me to take it
14 first?
15 MR. KEATHLEY: Go ahead.
16 MR. CHANEY: I think it could be better,
17 the training could be better, and I'm just going to be
18 honest, it could be better because of the simple fact I
19 think some of the things you're not going to get in that
20 classroom that maybe we can offer you, because it's just
21 like if your mother comes in and tosses you your blanket
22 and sheet and say, here, make up the bed, son, you never
23 made up that bed before, you're not going to know where
24 to start or how to get the wrinkles out; but if somebody
25 comes in and shows you a couple of times to give you the
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1 hands-on training, I think it's a lot better. I think it
2 should be more hands-on than books. You can read and
3 learn that stuff, you can't learn customer service, you
4 can't be taught how to think on the fly, you have to go
5 through that. And when I train people, I'm the booby
6 trap king, when I train you, I'll go unplug a pop
7 machine, I'll go loosen something up, and they run to me
8 go, James, the serve is not dispensing (inaudible), well,
9 what would you do. And you need to -- that's what you
10 have to do. You have to take the register -- I take the
11 register tape out, you know, they come in, there's no
12 register tape, because I want you to think on the fly,
13 because there's not going to be anybody there to teach
14 you that and tell you that. You have to learn that
15 instinctively. And those are the type of things I try to
16 get them prepared for.
17 MR. KEATHLEY: I agree a hundred percent.
18 And that's the main thing we hear from operators that
19 have been through the training, including ourselves, is
20 more on-the-job, because that's where you learn.
21 Certainly you need some classroom, you know, you need
22 your Serve Safe and you need to know, you know,
23 legalities of it, but hands-on, yeah. Like right now we
24 have I think, what is it, ten weeks of classroom and then
25 two months of on-the-job. I would like to see the whole
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1 class based around on the job. Or we did discuss, here
2 in the last couple years we've been discussing, matter of
3 fact, is maybe getting one of our facilities as a
4 training center, you know, where the class actually is
5 inside a facility running a facility. That hasn't
6 materialized, although, you know, they have started a new
7 department that helps train blind individuals, not in
8 this program, but they come to Voc Rehab, and I think
9 that's a great thing, but I would love to see us succeed
10 in that goal one day to have a facility that is nothing
11 but a training facility for the people coming in the
12 class. I mean they would learn so much more and it would
13 alleviate so many problems, you know, like James is
14 saying, things that come up that aren't going to come up
15 on that pencil and paper, you know, just real life comes
16 up.
17 MS. BUCKINGHAM: This is LeeAnn. They
18 basically can think for themselves.
19 MR. KEATHLEY: Exactly.
20 MS. BUCKINGHAM: They're learning to not
21 ask the questions, taking ownership of what they're
22 doing.
23 MR. KEATHLEY: Right.
24 MR. SIBLEY: Is there adequate followup
25 training, like when an operator is -- like you're doing
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1 that intense training, you're not going to remember
2 everything. If an operator needs more work in a
3 particular department, do they have decent followup
4 training available or is --
5 (Multiple speakers.)
6 MR. KEATHLEY: Well, the Agency is
7 willing to give you any training that you need at any
8 time. It's -- the biggest problem is operators are
9 asking for that training or being -- willing to admit
10 that they have a problem. And a lot of that goes back, I
11 hate to go back to this again, is the negativity from
12 those rumors, a lot of people were afraid in the past to
13 ask for help, afraid that, well, they're going to suspend
14 my license because, you know, I don't know how to do
15 this. And that's one of the things we've really been
16 working with the operators with, you know, if you got a
17 problem, let us know, that's the most important thing. I
18 mean they look more responsible as a business person
19 asking for help on something you don't know than just
20 letting it go to it's a point to where, you know, you
21 cost yourself a job or you run a facility down that might
22 take years to fix.
23 MR. CHANEY: And one of the things that I
24 would want to see is, you know, and I'm not saying this
25 because he's here, like Hazell went to culinary art
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1 school, and she's a blind person; you have a lot of blind
2 people in the program that technically are scared to make
3 a sausage sandwich or a McMuffin or to bake a baked
4 chicken or anything in their facilities because they just
5 don't, they never had to face that, because we have what
6 we call newly blind people. See, I been blind since I
7 was six. Now, some people that's been blind six years,
8 six months, so I call them newly blind, so they're still
9 adjusting. But you could have took someone like Hazell
10 and put her in a position where she could have went to
11 these facilities and taught these people how to make
12 sausage sandwiches or make salads, and they're being
13 taught by their peers, somebody they feel comfortable
14 with, somebody that's not going to judge them, that can
15 take their hand and put it in the oatmeal and say, this
16 is how it's supposed to be done. And I think that's
17 where we're lacking, right there, that connect, because
18 some of the people are asking for some of this stuff in
19 the building, and it's not that the operators don't want
20 to do it, they just don't know how, because some of them
21 are newly blind. They're still adjusting themselves.
22 DR. MOGK: The classroom training that
23 you have, is that done at the Training Center?
24 MR. KEATHLEY: It is now, and it was in
25 the past, but for a couple years they wanted us out of
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1 the Training Center and we moved out. They were actually
2 doing it in a hotel in, was it Farmington Hills I think
3 it was?
4 MR. CHANEY: Yeah.
5 DR. MOGK: Doesn't the Training Center
6 have the sort of equipment or close to what some
7 operators would need to learn that?
8 MR. KEATHLEY: Yeah, and they do use the
9 kitchen there. The reason that they were, you know, even
10 slow to go back to the Center is they felt that it
11 enabled them too much, made it too easy, you know, they
12 wanted them to learn mobility and being on their own and
13 having to do those things. So it's a different setup at
14 the Center now compared to what it was five, ten years
15 ago. I mean things -- anything you ask for five years
16 ago, you know, they were at your beck and call. Now
17 pretty much if you're there, you're pretty much sleeping
18 there and using the classroom and their kitchen, you get
19 hardly any assistance from them, which is great. It's
20 actually helped a lot of people become a lot more
21 independent rather than asking, there it is, you know.
22 DR. MOGK: But my question is sort of
23 directed toward the need that you've expressed for more
24 on-the-job training integrated with classroom training.
25 Could that not be integrated at the Training Center and
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1 do --
2 MR. KEATHLEY: I don't think so. I think
3 they would have to be put into, like I said, into a type
4 facility that actually is ran and open to a customer
5 base, you know, to get the customer service part of it
6 down, to be able to interact and even just make change,
7 you know, a lot of them, a lot of training on the cash
8 registers alone.
9 MR. CHANEY: Right. To what Greg said,
10 to mimic the real-life speed of it. Because if I put you
11 in a kitchen and you have no timing, yeah, you'll make a
12 beautiful sandwich because you'll take, you're taking
13 your time, but if I got four people, five people in line
14 saying, hey, where's my sandwich, you know, it's going --
15 you going to get a lot faster and a lot better and a lot
16 quicker, you know, with that intense training. It's
17 nothing like hands-on. But it can be done. It can be
18 done.
19 DR. MOGK: And it takes more than the two
20 months I'm hearing?
21 MR. KEATHLEY: I would think so, to
22 actually -- and that's what -- see, our on-the-job
23 trainings are done with other operators. The people that
24 finish class go to an operator that's run a facility and
25 they do like four weeks with somebody that's doing a
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1 vending route, and then they do four weeks with somebody
2 that's either doing a snack bar or a cafeteria, but it
3 would be nice to see an experienced cafeteria, a snack
4 bar, vending, what have you, so when they do bid, you
5 know, their options were more open, they can go into
6 something they've been into, because they might go into a
7 snack bar and not a cafeteria and a cafeteria might come
8 up on the bid line and they would go in there not knowing
9 the first iota.
10 MR. CHANEY: Right. And then the
11 employees, see, it's different from going to no employees
12 to having six employees, and if you're -- if you're not
13 used to dealing with different personalities, oh, Lord,
14 you're going to go -- it's different. I mean people that
15 have children, you know each one of your child has his
16 own personality and you have to deal with that as such.
17 But when you have some operators that go from zero
18 employees to six employees, and I think they need to get
19 that and toss that in, too.
20 MR. HUDSON: I missed the detail of where
21 the classroom experience is held today.
22 MR. KEATHLEY: It's in the Kalamazoo
23 Training Center.
24 MR. HUDSON: It is in the Training
25 Center. Okay.
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1 MR. KEATHLEY: Training Center. Yeah.
2 We just went back there this year I think.
3 (Multiple speakers.)
4 MR. KEATHLEY: We been in Farmington
5 Hills for the last couple of years in a hotel. But
6 previous before that, it was in the Training Center all
7 the time. My training was at the Training Center,
8 James's was at the Training Center.
9 MR. CHANEY: Yeah, mine was at the
10 Training Center, too.
11 DR. MOGK: Anybody else? Okay. Thank
12 you, gentlemen, very much.
13 MR. KEATHLEY: Thank you. Appreciate it.
14 MR. CHANEY: Thank you. Thank you.
15 Hopefully we answered all your questions.
16 MS. DUNN: Very helpful.
17 DR. MOGK: These last few minutes, we
18 just have three updates from the various subcommittees.
19 So the Training Center, Marianne or Mike, if you have
20 anything you want to share with the rest of the
21 Commission or the --
22 MS. DUNN: I think that I sent around
23 kind of a synopsis of the (inaudible) meeting that we had
24 (inaudible). You each got that. So I don't really have
25 anything more to add. Do you want to add anything?
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1 MR. HUDSON: I think I'm still in a
2 sensing stage of watching and understanding, there's been
3 ample change there, and yeah, that's what I can add right
4 now.
5 DR. MOGK: Okay. Good. Anything, Joe or
6 LeeAnn, that you wanted to add?
7 MS. BUCKINGHAM: Well, I did go to the
8 Training Center a few weeks ago, and I was able to listen
9 to James Hall with two or three clients that are
10 potential operators, and they read through the manual, or
11 part of it, it's quite lengthy, and James was answering
12 the questions for the clients in detail, and I found it
13 was very helpful, I thought the clients that were in
14 training were excited and they had good questions, and he
15 was very thorough. It was good experience.
16 DR. MOGK: Okay.
17 MR. GAYNOR: Did you get a tour?
18 MS. BUCKINGHAM: I did not get a tour,
19 but I am going back for one.
20 DR. MOGK: Anything you want to add, Joe?
21 MR. SIBLEY: Nothing much more to add. I
22 thought these guys were terrific (inaudible). I thought
23 these guys were terrific today with the information that
24 they shared and their insights, because they're in the
25 pits, they're doing what needs to be done. So some of
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1 the things we can't really analyze because of the changes
2 in the policies and such are still pending. So really
3 nothing much new today.
4 DR. MOGK: Okay. Gary, do you want to
5 say anything?
6 MR. GAYNOR: I guess I would start out
7 with the same thing that Joe just finished with, that
8 we're still waiting on the policies, which I thought was
9 April, we still don't have the date on when those would
10 be finished, so it's hard to evaluate policies and
11 procedures based on what we've accumulated when we know
12 that it's changing, but we're still looking at that. And
13 then also in doing needs assessment, which was part of
14 our directive, that we'll be working on the demographics
15 for what groups, age groups, how many blind or visually
16 impaired are in different age groups throughout the state
17 and evaluating how the Bureau is servicing them and/or if
18 they are reaching them, or if people even know about the
19 Bureau's availability for services.
20 MR. RODGERS: Madam Chair, comment on the
21 policies and procedures. We received -- there was a date
22 in one of your e-mails where there was the statement that
23 I had received a policy manual on April 1, I believe?
24 DR. MOGK: No. It was that you had said
25 to your staff that you expected it back two weeks from
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1 the time of that e-mail, and the e-mail was like April
2 2nd I think.
3 MR. RODGERS: Oh, okay. Appreciate that
4 clarification. I have received part it, and I hope my
5 answer to your inquiry, in particular, Gary, following up
6 on your question, there is a policy manual and a
7 procedure manual that are a package together. The policy
8 manual, as I understand it from the committee, the draft
9 has been done; the procedural manual part of it has not
10 been completed yet, and quite frankly, I'm not going to
11 review their work until both pieces are done. So, and I
12 can't give you a date other than they're -- they are
13 working, they're meeting diligently to -- the procedure
14 part of it is very lengthy and very detailed, and they're
15 working on that and trying to get that done for me soon.
16 MR. GAYNOR: As a followup to your
17 followup --
18 MR. RODGERS: Okay.
19 MR. GAYNOR: -- who is on that rev -- the
20 committee that's formulating it, and what are you using
21 at this point to evaluate performance if you don't have
22 policies and procedures?
23 MR. RODGERS: Well, the old manual is
24 still in place until the revised one has been completed,
25 along with the procedures. Lisa, are you on that
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1 committee?
2 MS. KISIEL: Yes.
3 MR. RODGERS: Who else is on that
4 committee, please?
5 MS. KISIEL: The management team, so that
6 would be Leamon and the five regional managers and
7 myself. There is a counsel -- let's see. Let me this
8 about this. There is two counselors that are -- three
9 counselors in addition who are also on committee.
10 MR. RODGERS: Do you remember the names?
11 So it's you and Leamon?
12 MS. KISIEL: Yeah. And then Beth White,
13 Gwen McNeil, Shannon McVoy, Debbie Wilson, Dan Ferton,
14 Nicole Wright and Danielle Smith.
15 MR. RODGERS: Two of them being
16 counselors out in the field, which would be Nicole and --
17 MS. KISIEL: Nicole, Danielle and Dan.
18 MR. RODGERS: Dan, three.
19 MS. LUZENSKI: Is Wilda Haney on that as
20 well?
21 MS. KISIEL: Oh, yes. I'm sorry. Wilda
22 is new to us. I forgot her.
23 MS. LUZENSKI: Is Wilda --
24 MS. KISIEL: Wilda Haney from Detroit.
25 MR. GAYNOR: So is there a target --
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1 MS. KISIEL: Actually, we've completed,
2 Gary, we are going through the edits and grammatical
3 spelling, making sure everything is where it needs to be.
4 So we're -- the target is -- it's --
5 MR. RODGERS: Soon.
6 MS. KISIEL: -- very soon. It's we're
7 done.
8 MR. RODGERS: Well, you're not done,
9 Lisa, don't put your boss on the spot, in the sense it's
10 not ready to hit my desk yet.
11 MS. KISIEL: No, no, it's not.
12 MR. RODGERS: Okay. Thank you.
13 MS. KISIEL: I'm saying we've reviewed,
14 we've done the work, and now we're editing it and making
15 sure that it, you know, it looks good and make sure we
16 put all the finishing touches.
17 MR. GAYNOR: Is that separate from or
18 will that include the BEP manual as well, or is that
19 separate?
20 MS. BUCKINGHAM: It is separate, isn't
21 it?
22 MR. RODGERS: Yes.
23 DR. MOGK: Is the BEP manual being
24 updated?
25 MR. RODGERS: My understanding from
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1 Constance was that she had started that process, but I
2 don't know the stage at this point. They are reviewing
3 it.
4 DR. MOGK: Okay.
5 MR. SIBLEY: So if I understand, you are
6 tightening some of the regulations in the BEP --
7 MR. RODGERS: That's correct.
8 MR. SIBLEY: -- to make the operators
9 more accountable?
10 MR. RODGERS: In fact, we did last May,
11 we held one of our mandatory meetings, and as the people
12 from the EOC told you, we changed their reporting
13 requirements and we told them that these were effective
14 January this year, which they were. They now have to
15 make sure that their year-end inventory is in before
16 February 1. One of the motivations for that was when I
17 was at the meeting last year, an operator of many years'
18 experience raised his or her hand and said, I haven't
19 turned in my inventory yet. Now, this was in May. And I
20 asked the question, why haven't you turned in your
21 inventory; the response by that person was, you didn't
22 remind me.
23 MR. GAYNOR: Gosh.
24 MR. RODGERS: I then asked what happens
25 on April 15 every year in this country; the person said,
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1 well, that's tax day. I said, I don't know about you,
2 but the IRS has never reminded me. There's requirements.
3 There's now also monthly requirements, and in conjunction
4 with that, we're in the process of completing an RFP that
5 is going to be a data collection system that will allow
6 them to easily do their monthly reports with the use of
7 computers, and we're starting by implementing that just
8 with vending routes to start, because it's easy to hook
9 this up with the vending machines. It's going to be more
10 difficult, for instance, to do cafeterias, we're going to
11 get there eventually. That's a long-range goal. So
12 those are requirements that we have.
13 The other thing that's happened is,
14 before I took over the successor agency, I don't think in
15 the previous ten years we had ever suspended a person's
16 license for imminent danger to the public health, safety
17 and welfare under the APA; we've done it about six times
18 since I've been there, and it was necessary. So the word
19 has gotten out to the operators that you must be doing
20 your job. And the committee has done a great job of
21 educating their members, and they agree that the
22 standards needs to be raised, and I appreciate the
23 cooperation that they -- they have stepped forward and
24 done a great job by saying to their members when Rodgers
25 is not in the room, if you guys don't step up and improve
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1 this program -- because I keep telling them my worst fear
2 is that this inquiry I get once in a while from the
3 legislature grows. And every two years in this state we
4 face what is a political issue, and that is lame duck
5 sessions, and one never knows what's going to happen.
6 Michael, being in a university, can give you probably war
7 stories that the university worries about the lame duck
8 session, things they might be doing to MSU. So, and lame
9 duck is when they just introduce bills, they don't do any
10 committees, they do voice votes, and they ramrod stuff
11 through, so we don't want that happening to this program
12 obviously.
13 DR. MOGK: All right. I think we now are
14 open for public comment. If anybody else besides those
15 of us sitting up here would like to say anything to
16 anybody, you're welcome to do so.
17 MS. BROOKS: I have a public comment.
18 I'm Hazell Brooks. Thank you, Mr. Chaney, for those
19 shameless plugs. Thank you so much.
20 This has been an amazing journey for me.
21 I was able to go to college, to meet people there, get a
22 culinary degree, and also have a food service
23 certification through this program. I've kind of
24 stretched and limited myself in terms of being here
25 anymore. I've accepted an unbelievable opportunity in
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1 Washington, D.C. to impress those folks with what I've
2 learned here in Michigan. And I'm now waiting, you know,
3 for Mr. Rodgers and Leamon to sign off so I can actually
4 go.
5 Today was the day I was supposed to have
6 been going to sign my new lease, and I can't do it, you
7 know, and I'm at a quandary. And I know you're going to
8 tell me what you told me in the hallway, it's in Voc
9 Rehab hands, but I have say, I'm at your mercy, I really
10 am. I am ready to expand my wings and take my training
11 and do some of these extraordinary things that we've done
12 in the program with not only other operators, but just to
13 go to another market and shine and say that I came from
14 Michigan, you know. Those people are very excited about
15 me coming. I mean they've spent a ton of money on
16 technology and stuff that I'm just like excited about,
17 like a kid in a candy store, and I'm ready to hit the
18 ground running because they have the type of facilities
19 that's best suited for my skillset, you know. And
20 they're going to be going online here in a minute with a
21 lot of cafeterias that have different types of cuisine,
22 Asian cuisine, Mediterranean cuisine, Mexican. I'm
23 trained in all of those. And so I'm looking forward to a
24 wonderful transition to the Washington, D.C. area, I just
25 need Mr. Rodgers, maybe Mr. Pemble, because see, you're
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1 the numbers guy, man, you're the guy that knows the
2 numbers. I shouldn't be saying this to you.
3 But anyway, just I didn't say bye at the
4 workshop because I'm not, I'm not good at that, you know
5 what I'm saying, but I will say I'm ready to go here
6 and --
7 MS. LUZENSKI: Thirty seconds.
8 DR. MOGK: -- it's been a great journey
9 here in Michigan, and I can't wait to get to D.C. and
10 shine for Michigan.
11 MR. SIBLEY: Congratulations to you.
12 DR. MOGK: Anyone else?
13 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Hello.
14 DR. MOGK: Yes, on the phone.
15 MS. LUZENSKI: We can hear you on the
16 phone. Can you speak up?
17 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Okay. This is
18 Wanda. This is a question, but I don't know if you all
19 answer it or if I missed it. In the -- Rob, I heard
20 you -- I heard this Rob Essenberg division. Within that
21 Rob Essenberg division, is there any other opportunities
22 for positions in his division (inaudible) that's the way?
23 From the time I been on the phone that's all I kept
24 hearing, Rob division. So I'm (inaudible).
25 DR. MOGK: As I understand it, the
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1 question is, is there any other opportunity besides what
2 comes through Rob Essenberg's division; is that correct?
3 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Is there any, yes,
4 any other opportunity in Rob's division, yes.
5 MR. RODGERS: To work for it?
6 DR. MOGK: To work in it, you mean to be
7 employed by the Bureau?
8 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. Yes. Yes.
9 DR. MOGK: Mr. Rodgers.
10 MR. RODGERS: The answer is yes. We
11 posted and filled his first position, which was an
12 analyst position. That person is, that was selected is
13 now working full time. We posted a second position on
14 the civil service web page, which will be -- follow the
15 regs, it will be posted, there will be interviews, and
16 that position will be filled. And as we go along,
17 positions are starting to get filled. So there will be
18 other positions within that division. Like I say,
19 there's one that has been filled, we're going through the
20 process of hiring a second person.
21 DR. MOGK: Thank you.
22 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Joe (inaudible),
23 public comment. Can you hear me?
24 DR. MOGK: Yes.
25 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. I requested
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1 over and over again that this agency follow the Americans
2 With Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act, and
3 that includes all information, all information that you
4 folks have related to this meeting at the time of
5 production, and yet all these requests for information
6 get convoluted and turned into phony Freedom of
7 Information Act requests for which they want to charge me
8 for what you people already have in your hands, including
9 things like you referenced today, including the reports,
10 the responses, you name it. More -- I can't fight a
11 running battle to even get up-to-date directly
12 information. Mr. Rodgers talks about, you know, holding
13 accountable, you know, BEP operators, but does not
14 respond to requests for information about how our
15 thousands and millions of dollars worth of federally-
16 funded money goes.
17 One simple thing, the capitol has been
18 run for years, or now close to a year, by a non-operator,
19 and yet they put in untold amounts of new capital
20 expenses, they do not respond to how much they're
21 grossing, they do not respond to even whether or not
22 they're paying a sales tax. They do not respond to that,
23 or they want to charge me. And things are already
24 accessible and they're already available, they're
25 supposed to be made available to the public. Period.
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1 We've had -- we've had dozens upon dozens
2 upon dozens of student assistants who are hired. Not one
3 of them are blind. Not one. There's a Section 503
4 obligation (inaudible) all, all rehab programs that
5 requires affirmative action. And I'll tell you what --
6 MS. LUZENSKI: Thirty seconds.
7 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: -- we've got
8 219 -- we have 219 people going to college, you know, we
9 already have a pool. You folks have also -- you folks
10 have also heard parents of blind children screaming to
11 get some job experience, and yet this has been turned
12 into a pool for sighted, nondisabled people.
13 MS. LUZENSKI: Time.
14 DR. MOGK: Any other comments? Valerie.
15 MS. YARGER: Good afternoon. I'm Valerie
16 Yarger with the Statewide Independent living Council.
17 One of my first encounters with this organization, I told
18 you that one of my main concerns was that there was not a
19 lot of communication between BSBP and the Centers for
20 Independent Living, and I felt that the consumers that we
21 served were -- could benefit from it, and I'm here today
22 to tell you that there is major changes in that area.
23 BSBP and the CIL network are holding regional meetings
24 around the state, so far four of them have happened.
25 They're walking away from that day-long meeting with
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1 to-do lists, they're sharing information, they're more
2 aware of what the Centers have to offer, and the Centers
3 are much more aware of what BSBP provides and have taken
4 the opportunity to have the Department come in and
5 provide their staff with one-on-one training in blindness
6 issues. This last week I received a phone call that
7 said, I have been at this CIL for ten years and I have
8 received my first referral from BSBP, and I am so happy
9 because they're happy with what we're doing. So I want
10 to say thank you for creating the environment to allow
11 this to move forward, and I look forward to telling you
12 more about it as we continue to move forward.
13 DR. MOGK: Thank you, Valerie. I would
14 like to say that that is a perfect example of something
15 we might like to know about, because we might like to
16 attend one of those, but we had no idea that it was even
17 happening.
18 MR. RODGERS: You mean the Independent
19 Learning Center?
20 DR. MOGK: Yes, these regional meetings.
21 MS. YARGER: The regional summits.
22 DR. MOGK: The regional meetings.
23 MR. RODGERS: Oh, the regional meetings.
24 Well, I wasn't aware that they were held either, Lylas.
25 MS. YARGER: I can take care of that.
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1 Sorry about that.
2 MR. RODGERS: That's okay.
3 DR. MOGK: Anyone else?
4 MS. YARGER: I just wanted to make sure
5 you knew that we were having positive outcomes.
6 DR. MOGK: Well, we're happy to hear
7 that.
8 MR. RODGERS: With Leamon's employees, I
9 would assume?
10 MS. YARGER: Yes.
11 MR. RODGERS: Yeah. See, this is
12 something being scheduled by Leamon's division obviously,
13 and I wasn't aware of it.
14 MS. YARGER: Each one of the division
15 managers are working with the directors from the CILs in
16 each region. The CILs are hosting it, it's at their
17 location, you know. The costs are basically being split.
18 And it's been awesome. I mean the first one I went to, I
19 thought, oh, and it was great, it was like -- it was
20 really good.
21 DR. MOGK: Excellent. That's good.
22 MR. RODGERS: I try not to micromanage.
23 MR. HUDSON: Ed, a little out of public
24 comment, but, you know, this might be an ideal way to use
25 some of that student assistants. I mean that's what we
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1 do in our department for our internal -- in fact, we make
2 it external to a newsletter about what's happening.
3 Exciting new engagements might be a good positive
4 visibility thing that would really be good for everybody,
5 probably employees in the agency, boost morale, boost
6 communication and awareness. You know, just think about
7 that.
8 MR. RODGERS: Let me make a comment about
9 the student assistants, since you brought it up again.
10 We post the positions for student assistants, we go
11 through the civil service process. In the last year,
12 we've only had one blind student who was interested and
13 was on track probably to get hired, and then at the last
14 minute decided they were going to go to summer school
15 instead. So we're out there trying to bring in blind
16 student assistants but, you know, I can't go to the dorms
17 at MSU and go to the all the blind folks and say you got
18 to --
19 UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah, you can.
20 MR. HUDSON: I'd be happy to help
21 distribute that information and I -- that's a new
22 opportunity to me that I learned about through these
23 meetings, so I've never heard of it before, so I'll be
24 glad to help.
25 MR. RODGERS: Thanks.
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1 MR. HUDSON: And I have a network of
2 higher ed institutions that would help, too.
3 MS. DUNN: Are we talking, Ed, about
4 student assistants at the Training Center or throughout
5 the Bureau?
6 MR. RODGERS: Throughout the Bureau, we
7 use them in all the -- for instance, the Grand Rapids
8 office has one or two student assistants. In fact, that
9 was the office that we were going to hire a blind student
10 this summer, and at the last minute it went away because
11 they decided to go to summer school.
12 MS. LUZENSKI: Madam Chair, I actually
13 have a couple e-mail that came in.
14 DR. MOGK: Okay.
15 MS. LUZENSKI: I do need to ask, Hazell,
16 does your in-person public comment replace the e-mail
17 that you sent on Tuesday?
18 MS. BROOKS: Yeah. Listen, you know, I'm
19 a little antsy because, you know, I'm going to be out of
20 my primary residence, I'm out of work, and --
21 MS. LUZENSKI: No, I'm just asking, does
22 what you sent on Tuesday, did you want me to read that as
23 a public comment, or what you sent -- presented today, is
24 that sufficient?
25 MS. BROOKS: It's basically the same,
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1 isn't it?
2 MS. LUZENSKI: Okay. I just wanted --
3 (Multiple speakers.)
4 MS. BROOKS: It's basically just saying
5 that I'm out of work and I need to move on, I want to get
6 my transfer with BR's blessing and get going, because,
7 you know, I relinquished my facility, it was a great
8 facility. Boy, do I miss my customers. Boy, do I miss
9 them.
10 MS. LUZENSKI: Okay.
11 MS. BROOKS: And, you know, I'm not
12 garnering any money at this time. So I just want it to
13 be part of public record, you know, to let you folks know
14 that, you know -- and I mean -- and these transfers, you
15 know, we transferred a guy in, what was his name, Bill
16 Kenney, from Illinois not too long ago, and they happen,
17 you know, periodically, and I just, I'm just running out
18 of time now, you know, I'm getting a little, you know --
19 because deadlines are happening and I don't want to miss
20 my opportunity to go.
21 MS. LUZENSKI: Okay. Thank you.
22 MS. BROOKS: You can read it if you'd
23 like, though.
24 MS. LUZENSKI: Oh, that's fine. That's
25 what I was asking.
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1 Okay. This was received by Hazell Brooks
2 on Tuesday.
3 Would the Board of Commissioners discuss
4 why a licensed operator waiting for transfer to another
5 state with an open VR case is not being moved as promised
6 and is currently out of work? Secondly, why was a BEP
7 operator trained in Canada at the cost of $30,000 with a
8 franchise that was not awarded a contract in Michigan
9 with the BSBP? Finally, why is a blind law school
10 student being out of state on the BSBP budget, and yet
11 you give no explanation on moving an operator to a better
12 paying job within Randolph Sheppard? That was Hazell
13 Brooks.
14 And I received from Joe Hartz this
15 morning, it was a reissued -- from -- reissued May 1,
16 2014, to BSBP Commission as public comment, a letter that
17 he sent to Director Rodgers on October 21, 2013. It is:
18 Dear Mr. Rodgers: Link from page at
19 michigan.gov, go to LARA Accessible Meeting Policy, this
20 is what you get in the PDF file which I've converted
21 here. Start reading the policy. Effective date 9/20 --
22 or 9/12/2011, Policy Number GO1 supersedes 33105, Meeting
23 Accessibility.
24 The Department of Licensing and
25 Regulatory Affairs --
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1 THE REPORTER: Excuse me, Sue. Can you
2 just send that to me, because I can't write as fast as
3 you're talking?
4 MS. LUZENSKI: Oh, I'm sorry.
5 Well, basically he put the policy in
6 there, and then I'll get to the end of the policy. We
7 can send you the policy.
8 (Document not provided.)
9 MS. LUZENSKI: It says: Please note,
10 this is based upon Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
11 of 1973 and Title 2 of the Americans With Disabilities
12 Act 1990. Both are federal civil rights laws. Now, all
13 documents related to these meetings are to be produced in
14 accessible formats (inaudible) let alone upon request and
15 for free. No surcharge, Subpart (e) Title 2 ADA
16 effective communications. And it is an abuse of the
17 Michigan FOIA to use it as a means of extorting a
18 surcharge for all documents made, which I've informed you
19 of in the past. You, as an attorney and federally-funded
20 state official have persistently violated my and other
21 civil rights in these regards, then surely you must know
22 that you've acted with willful and malicious indifference
23 to known civil rights of myself and the entire class that
24 you are paid to advocate for in the first place.
25 Sincerely, Paul Joseph Hartz, Jr.
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1 Then there was also two other e-mails
2 from Joe Hartz this morning about the audio streaming,
3 first that it was not working, but I don't think it was
4 activated yet, and then another one a couple minutes
5 later saying that it was working properly.
6 MR. RODGERS: Can we send those to Lylas?
7 MS. LUZENSKI: Yes.
8 MR. RODGERS: Okay. We'll send you all
9 those e-mails.
10 MS. LUZENSKI: And that's all the e-mail
11 I have.
12 DR. MOGK: Can I just clarify that the
13 materials that are available here that were sent to us
14 ahead and the transcript, is that available to Mr. Hartz
15 and anyone by e-mail, electronically?
16 MR. RODGERS: It is available to
17 Mr. Hartz once you have approved it. The disagreement
18 that Mr. Hartz and I have is, number one, I don't control
19 this committee. He wants me to be accountable for the
20 Open Meetings Act when I don't control you, you're an
21 independent body, you're your own boss on the Open
22 Meetings Act, whether or not you believe you follow it,
23 whether or not you want to follow it, and whether or not
24 you want to prepare and give documentation to Mr. Hartz
25 before you approved the transcript. I told Mr. Hartz he
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1 can always get the transcript once you folks have
2 approved it and sent it to me. Until the document is in
3 my hands as approved, I can't be releasing it. We only
4 charge him when he makes FOIA requests, we have never
5 charged him to make things accessible, because that is
6 against the law. But we put your minutes up on the web
7 page, which he has access to, that's his preferred, as I
8 understand it, mode of receiving things so that he can
9 get it electronically that way, and as such, we've always
10 granted those requests.
11 DR. MOGK: Okay.
12 MS. LUZENSKI: And everything is archived
13 on our website.
14 DR. MOGK: Fine.
15 MS. LUZENSKI: So agendas, old minutes,
16 new transcripts, and everything as to -- everything
17 you've approved previously is on the website.
18 MR. RODGERS: Right. I get the same
19 weekly -- I get these e-mails weekly from him on the same
20 issues, 503, 504. In my opinion as a lawyer, he
21 misinterprets what 503 and 504 say. 503, for example,
22 deals with contracts only and deals with federal
23 agencies, and neither of which apply to us. He also
24 wants the minutes from the EOC. Until the EOC sends me
25 the minutes, I have nothing to give him. And again, I
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1 don't control the EOC, they're also independent from me.
2 I can't tell the EOC what to do.
3 DR. MOGK: Okay.
4 MS. DUNN: Could I just ask one more
5 quick question?
6 MR. RODGERS: Sure.
7 MS. DUNN: We became aware that a couple
8 of new positions were opened and are being filled in the
9 BADP. What other positions are going to be added?
10 MR. RODGERS: The 12, first 12 level
11 position was approved, there is a second one that is on
12 the web page, I can't remember what level it is. Do we
13 know -- here's where I put Mike Pemble finally on the
14 spot. Is that second position in BADP, is that closed
15 now, do we know?
16 MR. PEMBLE: The timing of that, it could
17 be closed, it might be up for another day or two, but I
18 think that went up about a week ago, so I really am not
19 sure, Ed.
20 MR. RODGERS: We usually post them for a
21 week.
22 DR. MOGK: What is that position?
23 MS. DUNN: Yeah, what are those
24 positions?
25 MR. RODGERS: That's a position that will
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1 assist -- and I haven't looked at the P.D. That's a
2 position that will assist Rob in carrying out his duties.
3 I'm not sure exactly what the focus will be in that
4 position. It's all on the web page.
5 MR. HUDSON: Maybe it's -- I feel a
6 little less than optimal in my performance if I don't
7 know positions are being posted. I don't follow the
8 state posting system, and I just wonder how -- I'd just
9 challenge you, Ed, to figure out how we can be apprised
10 of these things as they're happening. Maybe that
11 internal list is going to do it, because I imagine you
12 send it out to the staff that we've created this exciting
13 new position, tell your friends and consider applying if
14 you meet the qualifications.
15 MR. RODGERS: I think Bob sends out an
16 e-mail, doesn't he?
17 MS. LUZENSKI: He sends an e-mail out,
18 and it does go to --
19 MR. HUDSON: Good.
20 MS. LUZENSKI: -- other people outside --
21 MR. HUDSON: So that will --
22 MS. LUZENSKI: -- Agency --
23 (Multiple speakers.)
24 MR. HUDSON: -- be solving that issue
25 then. Okay. Great.
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1 MR. RODGERS: Now, with the student
2 assistants, I'm pretty sure MSU gets -- I don't know if
3 it's directed to you or not, Michael, but I'm pretty sure
4 MSU gets those postings --
5 MR. HUDSON: Okay. And I --
6 MR. RODGERS: -- because I think all the
7 colleges do.
8 MR. HUDSON: Okay. Yeah, it certainly
9 has never come across my desk.
10 MR. RODGERS: And I know the MSU Law
11 School gets that material, Noma, I can't remember what
12 her name is that's over there, so.
13 DR. MOGK: Okay. All set. Our next
14 meeting will be Thursday, October 2, and depending on the
15 agenda, it will either be at 9:15 or 9:30, similar
16 arrangement to this. And with that, I think this meeting
17 is adjourned.
18 (At 1:10 p.m., the meeting adjourned.)
19 - - -
20
21
22
23
24
25
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1 STATE OF MICHIGAN )
)
2 COUNTY OF MACOMB )
3 I, Lori Anne Penn, certify that this
4 transcript consisting of 175 pages is a complete, true,
5 and correct record of the proceedings held on Thursday,
6 May 1, 2014.
7 I further certify that I am not
8 responsible for any copies of this transcript not made
9 under my direction or control and bearing my original
10 signature.
11 I also certify that I am not a relative
12 or employee of or an attorney for a party; or a relative
13 or employee of an attorney for a party; or financially
14 interested in the action.
15
16
17 May 28, 2014 ______________________________________
Date Lori Anne Penn, CSR-1315
18 Notary Public, Macomb County, Michigan
My Commission Expires June 15, 2019
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
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