AGENDA and MINUTES - Pillar 1 subcommittee meeting May 9, 2024

Illinois Commission on Poverty Elimination and Economic Security

Subcommittee on Pillar 1: Ensure IL is Best in Nation for Raising Families

Meeting Agenda and Minutes

Thursday, May 9, 2024, 2:00-3:00 PM

Recording

Members:

Appointment Member Affiliation
Chair Sophie Milam VP of Policy and Advocacy, Greater Chicago Food Depository
Commission Member Representative Jeff Keicher Illinois State Representative
Commission Member Kate Maehr Greater Chicago Food Depository
Commission Member Senator Kimberly Lightford Illinois Senator
Commission Member Audra Wilson President and CEO Shriver Center on Poverty Law
Commission Member Annie Hewitt Office of Senator Neil Anderson
IWGP Member Tyler Bohannon Illinois Department of Agriculture
IWGP Member Krish Mohip Chief Education Officer - Operations, ISBE
IDHS SME Stephanie Bess Associate Director, Office of Family Wellness, FCS
IDHS SME Lisa Cohen Program Manager, SUPR
IDHS SME Patricia Rooney Associate Director of Child Care, DEC

Agenda:

  1. Welcome/Roll Call
  2. Public Comment - subject to written comment in advance
  3. Approval of Meeting Minutes: February 28, 2024
  4. Review of Goals and Collective Input
    1. Goal 1 - Design an advocacy strategy toward the continuation of funding for the WIC food package prescription (federally funded) at a level of $25/month per child, to purchase fruits and vegetables thus securing increased purchasing power towards a healthy diet
    2. Goal 2 - Analyze the findings of the year-long study (also here) conducted by the Commission to End Hunger identifying points of collaboration across commissions to reduce barriers that prevent families from taking advantage of WIC and other benefits
  5. Discussion
    • FY25 Goal Planning
  6. Next Steps
  7. Adjournment

Minutes

Subcommittee members in attendance:

  1. Sophie Milam - Chairperson
  2. Annie Hewitt - Commission member
  3. Stephanie Bess - IDHS-SME

Administrator: Priya Khatkhate, IDHS-Chief Policy Officer

Facilitators:

  1. Matthew Rodriguez - Institute of Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP)
  2. Nancy Toure - IRRPP

Minutes:

  1. Welcome/Roll Call - attendees introduced
  2. Public Comment - subject to written comment in advance; none received.
  3. Approval of Meeting Minutes: February 28, 2024 - due to lack of quorum, approval of minutes was postponed for the next meeting.
  4. Review of Goals and Collective Input
    1. Goal 1 - Design an advocacy strategy toward the continuation of funding for the WIC food package prescription (federally funded) at a level of $25/month per child, to purchase fruits and vegetables thus securing increased purchasing power towards a healthy diet
      • 168,000 participants in WIC for the previous month which was the highest since WIC started
      • Grant awards were put up for FY25 which include a sufficient funding increase for local providers to allow them to staff up or better pay their staff so they can retain them
    2. Goal 2 - Analyze the findings of the year-long study (also here) conducted by the Commission to End Hunger identifying points of collaboration across commissions to reduce barriers that prevent families from taking advantage of WIC and other benefits
  5. Discussion - FY25 Goal Planning
    1. Focus area 1 - ensure access to high quality early childhood services, including early intervention, home visiting and affordable childcare
      • Support Pillar 4 around their early childhood goals if they need support
    2. Focus area 2 - find a method to replicate the federal child tax credit for families raising children
      1. Establish state tax credit in Illinois - support implementation of FY24 legislation and/or prepare to advance legislation in 2025 session
      2. Support expansion of federal child tax credit - develop advocacy strategy for federal expansion
    3. Focus area 3 - expand access to free and reduced school meals
      1. Eliminate copay and increase uptake of Breakfast After Bell (SB 2209)
      2. Support implementation of FY24 legislation and/or prepare to advance legislation in 2025 session
    4. Focus area 4 - increase participation in WIC by improving accessibility for those who are eligible
      1. Support early childhood and health systems promoting WIC awareness and retention - Engage stakeholders to share WIC materials and use WIC outreach talking points
      2. Ensure strong FY25 funding
        • advocating with federal delegation on appropriations;
        • encourage families to participate, make the community understands the advantages of WIC;
        • visits by legislators to local areas such as the local health departments might be a good advocacy strategy; local visits by legislators could be multi-purpose to potentially unify efforts in multiple pillars e.g. WIC, affordable housing, etc.; the subcommittee can partner with other subcommittees and Commission members to see how this strategy would look like; coordinating this strategy coupled with success stories from WIC families can be a topic to brought up with Commission Chair Audra Wilson
        • educate legislators to support funding, educating and showing legislators the value of WIC and make them to not just vote for WIC but talk about it with their colleagues in Congress
        • Ms. Hewitt shared that their district, the 47th senate district, is a food desert and that they are working with the University of Illinois Extension to see how to address the situation. She likes the idea of bringing in WIC to the district. Chair Milam also mentioned SNAP and the Summer EBT program which can answer the food desert issue.
        • One potential action item is to look at counties with high eligibility for these programs but with low uptake
        • Chair Milam also shared that in North Tulsa, there is a small corner store that accepts double up SNAP money and they do SNAP/WIC outreach to connect families with these programs.
        • As another example of merging multiple programs to support retail endeavor, Ms. Bess shared that a co-op in Southern Illinois put up a new grocery store that accepts SNAP and WIC in a food desert area. The Co-op reported to IDHS that they were having trouble selling certain food under WIC because the community is not buying them. The WIC and SNAP teams did cooking demos and taste testing to get people experience the different foods and eventually buy them so the store isn't losing money.
  6. Next Steps
    • Chair Milam volunteered to help lead the work around school meals
    • Chair Milam and Ms. Bess will partner around the WIC piece
    • Matthew will help make connections for Focus Area 1
    • Chair Milam will connect offline with Ms. Wilson and Mr. Malasi on the child tax credit piece
    • Ms. Hewitt could provide the expertise and perspectives on what makes a good legislator's site visit; Matthew to see if there is a larger interest outside pillar 1 on legislation site visits and what would it look like
    • For the next meeting, leads can help inform agenda in terms of what are actionable, provide updates
    • Matthew, Nancy and Priya are drafting the Commission FY24 report which should capture the work that's been accomplished in each of the pillars. The goal is to have the draft for each pillar by the end of the month and get it to the subcommittees to get feedback and have the whole report produced before the Commission meeting in July. Feedbacks from the subcommittees are needed early June.
  7. Adjournment - the meeting ended at 2:29 PM.