November 9, 2011 Planning and Grants Sub-Committee Meeting

Audience

Open to the public

Date/Time

November 9, 2011
9:00 to 11:00am

Location

• 823 E Monroe - Springfield, IL
• 401 S Clinton, Think Tank - 7th Floor
  Chicago, IL

Agenda

1. Call to Order
2. Roll Call
3. Approval of Minutes
4. Status of Funds
   1. Title II
   2. Title V
5. Report from OJJDP Conference
6. Training and Technical Assistance Contract Update 
7. Reentry RFP Update
8. Committee Updates/Motions for Consideration
   1. Communications
   2. BARJ
   3. JDAI
   4. DMC
9. Youth Engagement
10. Other
11. New Business
12. Adjournment

Minutes

1. Call to Order: The meeting was called to order at 9:10 a.m.
2. Roll Call: Chairman Lisa Jacobs, Chairman George Timberlake, Commissioners George Hill, Randell Strickland, Gene Griffin and Rod Ahitow by phone. Staff present: Rob Vickery, Karrie Rueter, Julie Stremlau, Lin Ferguson. Quorum present.
3. Approval of Minutes: Lisa announced that the Committee has nothing to vote on at this meeting and it is a check-in meeting, and she would like at the end of the meeting to discuss who wants to help work on the three-year plan.
   July minutes - Commissioner Hill asked what the term "silo" refers to in his comments that are documented in the minutes. It was explained that "silo" refers to lack of sharing information, resources, etc. Commissioner Hill made a motion to approve the minutes of the July 13, 2011 minutes. All in favor, none opposed. Motion passed.
   September minutes - Commissioner Hill made a motion to approve the September 14, 2011 meeting minutes. Commissioner Griffin seconded the motion. All in favor, none opposed. Motion passed.
4. Status of Funds
   1. Title II - New funding tables have neither been created nor updated since September. Karrie and Chairman Timberlake discussed a way to better present funding information to the Commission. She will work on a new format and ask for suggestions from Commissioners to better reflect how funds are being spent and on what programs. The budget revisions will give Commissioners information on how we are spending the money in program areas and depict by state fiscal year which federal fiscal years the funds are coming from and where contracts are going. Chairman Timberlake added that he wants to be able to see what funds are being expended in what program areas to assure the legal use of funds. Karrie said that she currently groups funding expenditures but she will develop a much more detailed report of funds. Commissioner Jacobs requested that the report remain on letter size paper. Commissioner Hill asked if the Commission approved a Systems Improvement allocation of funds as part of our yearly plan. Karrie reported that the Commission approved two. One funds JMIS and ICJIA. The second funds DJJ. We can develop a spread sheet for each fiscal year's goals to provide a fiscal update or as the Commission recommends.
       The Senate Judiciary Committee is making a final decision on OJJDP budget for FY12. Earlier this week a decision was made to cut our funding. It is going to the House next, but money can't be added. Second Chance is under review. Karrie will draft letters for Chairman Timberlake's signature to be sent immediately to the Committee and Illinois Senators and Representatives asking that funding be maintained. The letter will be forwarded to Commissioners for their review and use.
      Karrie further reported that there is a new OJJDP ruling on expenditure of funds on food at meetings. Currently, we cannot spend any of our money on food for conferences, trainings or meetings. Any expenditure for food has to be are-approved by OJJDP. A letter is going out to providers explaining this rule. The only time this rule is not in effect is when there is a contract in place for these services.
   2. Title V - No change
5. Report from OJJDP Conference - Staff training for compliance monitoring and program training occurred prior to the conference. Commissioner Griffin added that he attended a presentation on brain development which had mis-information. The slide presentation was correct but the presenter didn't understand the information he was presenting. Karrie added that pulling the DMC coordinators aside and having separate meetings was opposed by the JJ Specialists. She added that she felt the DMC compliance staff felt uneasy about this, since they answer to the JJ Specialists and in some states the JJ Specialist is the DMC coordinator. Commissioner Jacobs asked if this is indicative of a DMC reduction. Karrie agreed and said that this aligns with them using a new DMC monitoring system and core component. Karrie also added that she feels a lot better about where we are with DMC monitoring in comparison to other states.
   Commissioner Jacobs added that we need to look at what OJJDP is prioritizing and be attentive to it in the next three-year plan. Karrie added that the feds are pushing for data in all nine decision points and we currently have three decision points. Commissioner Griffin agreed with Karrie's summary. His presentation was part of a panel and consistent with the Macarthur Foundation curriculum. 
6. Training & Technical Assistance Contract Update - The contracts have been approved. Currently we are obtaining the internal signatures and hope to have the contracts sent to YNC by the end of this week. The date YNC signs the contract and returns it to us is the date the contract will begin. We are planning on Monday, 11/14/11. YNC has not had a contract in place since 9/30/11 and they paid for our staff to attend the OJJDP Conference in Maryland. They will not be reimbursed for that expense. The contract will be renewed for 3.5 years. The only cause for interruption of this contract is if there is a contracting/State budget interruption.
   Karrie added that the funds for the research are located in the CPRD contract, due to the lack of Youth Network Council Contract. She questions having two separate fund sources for the same purpose. Funds at YNC were used out of convenience and there was money available that was not assigned to another program. Chairman Timberlake added that this emphasizes the need for financial reporting and the work group will take that up.
   * George Hill requested that at the next Commission meeting it be explained to Commissioners what expenses we are paying for in relation to staff tied to contracts. Karrie responded that YNC provides her with a report every month of what expenses have been paid. YNC has the capacity to do things that we have not yet asked them to do, i.e., Youth Engagement funds are built into this contract, but we have not yet asked them to do it. We could ask someone else to do the Youth Engagement work and have YNC pay them or YNC could contract with another entity. Commissioner Jacobs asked how we should start this planning. Chairman Timberlake responded that it should begin in Planning and Grants by providing a summary of what our funding decisions have been and what they will be. Karrie will develop a reporting mechanism tool that explains what we have asked YNC and their subcontractors to do. It is questionable that all Commissioners have a thorough understanding of how and where funding is being expended. It is important to make sure this is explained at the Commission meeting. Karrie added that the people who have been laid off will have the capacity, to some degree, to make up time they missed by working extra hours. Commissioner Jacobs suggested and all agreed that we work beyond the November Commission Meeting and pilot this new expenditure of funds report at the December Planning and Grants meeting, then we can move forward to the January Commission meeting. Commissioners Jacobs, Strickland, Hill and Karrie Rueter will work on a draft for the pilot for December Planning and Grants meeting.
7. Reentry RFP Update - Karrie is working on getting the Reentry RFP posted by Monday, 11/21/11. The first step is a letter of intent, second is bidder's conference. Karrie will get issues Procurement identifies next week. The dates will then be updated in the RFP. She will work with Rob to move forward with the conferences for bidders. We will have to look at where the holidays fall in relation to our target dates and try to set dates to make them as accessible to potential bidders as possible.
8. Committee Updates / Motions for Consideration - No motions on the floor.
   1. Communications
      1. Reentry - The final draft of the report will be ready by Friday based on Commissioner's recommendations at September meeting. Chairman Timberlake added that the recommendations are to leave the decision making at the PRB with enhancements to both personnel and budget, move probation violation decisions to the courts rather than PRB, and build an effective case management and tracking system at DJJ. Revocation would only go to the court. All other decisions would remain at PRB. He dropped off a revised fact sheet to the identified legislators concerning the report. We hope to roll out the report by November 29, 2011.
      2. Juvenile Sex Offender Report - The work group leads have talked to the sponsor, Senator Milner about what he wants in the report and it will be a broader report which will take longer than anticipated. The plan is to get it to him by February, since we want it in the next legislative session. The Adam Walsh part, registration, has to be done by January 15, 2012. The more in depth Commission analysis, specifically on juveniles, will take longer than that, but we are making good progress with the help of CPRD and ICJIA. Commissioner Griffin is overseeing the clinical piece. The students have started to sort through and organize the literature. Practitioner outreach has also begun.
      3. Raise the Age report - Northwestern University staff is working on this and the target completion date is December 31, 2011.
   2. BARJ - No report
   3. JDAI - Working on the RBA informed plan and will report to us when that is complete. They are also in the midst of looking at the Transportation grants to determine the return on investment and whether they fit into the long-term systems improvement strategy of the Commission.
   4. DMC - Have been busy working on RBA plan and the Assessment.
9. Youth Engagement - Commissioner Jacobs asked if there was a charge to the Planning and Grants Committee about Youth Engagement or should we include it into the three year plan as part of our goals. Chairman Timberlake responded that it makes sense to include it, but the Commission on the whole needs to give the Governor's Office a decision on adding or replacing Commissioners and what we want. He asked that it be added to the agenda for the Commission meeting. Commissioner Jacobs asked if we should be focusing on the current youth members and whether they plan to continue on the Commission, and whether there is anything we can do to encourage their participation. Chairman Timberlake added that we have not respected the position of our current youth members and we should try to convene all of them via a conference call to discuss what their interests are and ask them if they want to continue as members of the Commission. Chairman Timberlake asked Karrie to contact each of the youth members and try to get a time to organize a conference call at their convenience. Karrie added that Arnetra Jackson was the only one who responded to the Ethics compliance request. Karrie added that in discussing this issue with other states' Juvenile Justice Specialists, youth members are on their SAG rosters in name only. When youth input is required they come up with a way to get feedback from them. We need to be more creative on how to get feedback as needed from youth, not necessarily our youth members. Chairman Timberlake added that we are talking about what we want to do in the future versus what we have right now. Commissioner Jacobs suggested that Commissioners from the communities the Youth Commissioners reside in contact them to find out what we can to do to increase their involvement. Julie Stremlau will send contact information for the youth commissioners to Chairman Timberlake and he will contact them personally.
10. Other
    Three-Year Plan - The full Commission meets only once between now and when they will meet in March to approve the three-year plan prior to submission. Commissioner Jacobs added that we need to get a plan in place including the data as a component and asked when the next set of data will be available from ICJIA. Commissioner Jacobs asked Chairman Timberlake if the Data Work Group, including Dana Weiner, should be detailing what the Commission should be focused on in the future. Karrie added that a ICJIA report won't be available before our report is due, so we will use the one released earlier this year. We can get more current data on certain areas from ICJIA, as needed or we can stick to the last ICJIA annual data report? We also need to consider data that is coming out of the three ongoing research projects. Commissioner Jacobs agreed.
11. New Business - None.
12. Adjournment: A motion to adjourn was made by Commissioner Hill. The motion was seconded by Chairman Timberlake. All in favor. None opposed. The meeting was adjourned at 10:48 a.m.