CESSA - Region 2 Committee Meeting Approved Minutes 12/11/2024

Community Emergency Services and Support Act (CESSA) Region 2 Advisory Committee

Meeting Minutes- December 11, 2024 - 1:00 pm via Teams

Meeting Minutes - Approved by Members 01/08/2024

• Call to Order/Introductions
  • Call meeting to Order by Dennis Duke at 1:06 PM
  • Attendees:
    • Via MS Teams: Dennis Duke, Sarah Scruggs, Jodi Mahoney, Zachary Gittrich, Jamal Simington, Rhonda Flegel, Brandon Miller-Gus, Brian Murphy, Gene Seaman proxy for Latricia Seye, Julie Lewis, Michael Daley, Luke Tomsha, Meghan Moser
  • Absences
    • Darren Gault, Travis Noyd, Donald Miskowiec, Latricia Seye, Sarah Stasik, Michael Barr, Christopher Watkins, Allen Haeffner, Steve Delis, Anthony Walraven, Imad Khan, Matthew Jackson
  • Guests:
    • Brenda Hampton, Bobby Leebold, Amanda Jennings, Jessica Atassi, Mike Epping, Samantha Herrell, Marita Landreth

• Open Meetings Act - Read and notified meeting is being recorded.

• Approval of Minutes
  • September 11, 2024 Minutes - were tabled due to lack of quorum.
  • November 13, 2024 Minutes - were tabled due to lack of quorum.

• Next RAC Region 2 meeting will be January 8, 2025 at 1:00 PM

• State Updates - Brenda Hampton
  • Brenda Hampton shared state updates as follows:
    • Comments impressive of how many people participate in RAC 2 meetings. Some RACs have difficulty getting 5-6 people there and RAC 2 always has a great turn out. Thank you for your contribution to moving this agenda forward. Also, Happy Holidays to everybody since this is your last RAC meeting for this fiscal year.
    • Power Phone we have word that Power Phone pilot is going to start in January. It has been delayed as it goes through understanding some of the challenges from the pretest and then moving the agenda forward in the time frame forward for the other pilots. We anticipate that Power Phone and APCO pretest will start soon (late January or early February). All the pilots Power Phone, Priority Dispatch and APCO will start by April. There's a mandate to have all the pilots completed by the end of June. Now the momentum is moving forward.
    • LeeAnn Reinert who works for the Division of Mental Health. Leeann is the Deputy Director of Policy and she has been very instrumental in moving the agenda of assessment forward is retiring at the beginning of February.
    • Dennis Duke commented I too want to recognize our members who choose to participate on a regular basis. We appreciate your support and your interest in this and I think today with our agenda there's not a lot of new updates from the state and our agenda will be checking in on a few items and reminding folks of a few things. With regards to the pilots are there any updates to share.
    • Brenda Hampton responded there have been no pilots implemented yet.
    • Dennis Duke responded I thought there was something happening from the LaSalle area.
    • Sarah Scruggs responded I recall discussing from our hyperlocal meeting we had discussed the pilot at that point with Brandon and apologize for wrong impression, but we've had great enthusiasm for the design and implementation of that pilot.
    • Dennis Duke responded thank you for that clarification.

• Mandatory State Trainings - Reminder:
  • Dennis Duke shared a reminder to complete the mandatory state trainings that are due by the end of the year, December 31st. These trainings are not for subregional committee members. These are for our RAC members. Just wondering how we're doing with them and if there are any questions. None noted. Further inquired how are we tracking RAC members completion of the trainings.
  • Angie Clark responded we do not have to track them, the state tracks it. The only thing I need to know is the certification for completion of the OMA training, which is a one-time completion.
  • Brenda Hampton commented that is correct.
  • Dennis Duke inquired from Brenda Hampton how are we doing with our completion of these.
  • Brenda Hampton responded I can give you a general overview of what the trainings have been collectively for all 11 RACs. It's not been broken down individually by RACs. Out of all the RACs 100 members out of 177 have completed the Ethics training, 76 have completed the Harassment training, 90 have completed Security Awareness, 73 completed HIPPA, 83 completed Diversity and 80 completed LGBTQ. Unfortunately, we don't have the information to break it down by RACs.
  • Dennis Duke thanked Brenda Hampton for the information and inquired if there were any questions related to the mandatory trainings. None noted.

• RAC 2 Meeting Schedule 2025
  • Dennis Duke shared we're going to hold off on this and discuss it in our Next Steps agenda item in terms of what our month or terms of what our meeting frequency will be.

• Subregional Committee Representatives (SCR)
  • Dennis Duke shared this is a review and update. Sarah Scruggs you mentioned the Hyperlocal meetings that you had. We also have had our Hyperlocal meeting and the new term we are to use and adopt is the Subregional Committees. I would ask if anybody on the call today has any updates on the activity in their subregional areas where they've had some discussions with people who have generated interest. If you have anything to share it would be good to hear. No response from members so it doesn't sound like there's much activity at this point. Reminder to make sure we're working to identify champions in the different areas to help populate our subregional committee work.
    • Brandon Miller-Gus shared the last meeting we discussed the Illinois Valley Regional Dispatch and what we've been referring to as the Illinois Valley CESSA Workgroup and it pretty close to what we're now defining as a subregional committee. Formerly the Hyperlocal meeting so locally our meetings are occurring bimonthly. We actually have a meeting tomorrow. We set it up after this meeting so that with the intent of taking any information that we gather here back to our local group and present that to them. Other activities that are happening at that meeting, our 911 centers that fall under the umbrella of our 590s are all present at that meeting. We have the majority of them as Powerphone users and then IVRD as the anomaly of the group using priority dispatch. One of the things we're starting to do is we haven't started the pre-testing or piloting yet, but the IVRD system and what I'm being told is the Powerphone system they're able to start looking at data on calls that we would actually be passing over to 988. We started it at the last meeting. There wasn't a lot of information just some from IVRD. We also have the intent to start discussing some of the statistics from the two 590s which is North Central Behavioral Health and Arukah. We're having some discussions locally about what it looks like when these teams are out in the field. Some of them are already going out. How did they maintain contact with the 911 center without over burdening us as we're not technically their dispatch center, but we would be sending help if they needed it. I don't know if Sarah and or Jodi have anything to add.
    • Sarah Scruggs responded Brandon covered it well. We will have our specific providers there to be able to talk shop and create that clear understanding of kind of a day in the life of the 590 worker as the service is currently implemented. I just want to acknowledge the logistical challenge of being a rural 590 provider. We cover 3000 square miles with our 590 service. There's a lot of logistics that go into being able to honor those 30 - 60 minute response times. I'm really excited to both give rural more visibility in the eyes of the state through these CESSA implementation and also work collaboratively with our stakeholders to refine those work flows so we can streamline and get people the care they need as quickly as possible.
    • Luke Tomsha responded Brian this is Luke with Perfectly Flawed, we are not a 590 in the area, but can you send me the invite to those Hyperlocals? We do work a lot of people that go through Arukah and North Central just so we're kind of into what's going on at the local level.
• Brian Murphy entered the meeting. One away from reaching quorum.
  • Dennis Duke thanked Brandon for providing an update. Sarah and Jodi sounds like there's a lot of good activity going on there so kudos to you and look forward to hearing some of the next steps with you guys. Anybody else have anything they'd like to share or have questions for Brandon or Jodi or Sarah. Then a reminder again that the subregional committees do not need to comply with OMA and the members do not need to take the mandatory trainings which have already been clarified. Brenda I'd be curious to hear you speak to this last bullet point that the subregional committees must be convened by the RAC majority vote and what that means for us.
  • Brenda Hampton responded it means subregional committees cannot evolve on their own. The RACs are based upon the PSAPs readiness to evolve into a subregional committee vote on approving that subregional committee to exist.
  • Dennis Duke responded so the committee to exist and it's not necessary to have the members approve. It's just the committee itself once it's formed at the subregional level. Thank you for that clarification. Anybody else have questions about the subregional committee requirements?
  • Zachary Gittrich inquired since we already have a couple subregional committees that are convening, should we schedule for our next meeting to vote to approve them.
  • Brenda Hampton responded the subregional committees need to be anchored with the PSAP. They just cannot exist. I don't know what your configuration is or what you're specifically making reference to. We wanted the subregional committee to start first with Powerphone. We understand that some PSAP's like Brandon just talked about Illinois Valley. They are convening themselves together, but he will be anchored with the priority dispatch once that pilot evolves. As long as it's connected with a PSAP and that PSAP is really ready to move forward with the work that going to come down in the pilots. All the PSAPs are not involved in the pilot so we wanted to be connected with the PSAP that will be involved in the pilot. Does that answer your question Zachary.
  • Zachary Gittrich responded yes I think some of these subregional committees are connected to PSAPs though. McLain County has Rhonda who's kind of our main PSAP person and it sounds like from what we've heard so far, at least one other is connected to a PSAP. If we're waiting to make sure the subregional committees are connected to a PSAP, then the ones that are, I think it would be a good idea to do what we can to get them moving. If that's a requirement that we have to approve them.
  • Dennis Duke inquired of Brenda Hampton does the information that Zach speaks to if that at a point where it should be brought forward for approval by the RAC or do we still need something to develop before it moves to approval by the RAC.
  • Brenda Hampton responded need to look into the structure to understand what's already there. I know what the structure is for Illinois Valley and I know what that has involved in terms of bringing people together. I don't know what other entities Zach is making reference to. I would suggest that's a conversation that the two of you have. Then if you feel that is acceptable then the RAC can say that you know these other entities and can evolve into subregional committees.
  • Dennis Duke responded ok. Rhonda do you want to take a moment to describe what's in place at this point in time.
  • Rhonda Flegel responded we have not had one of the meetings since the subregional committees has come about. We were waiting on more updates, but McLean County is not currently part of the pilot because we are priority dispatch here in McLean County. So currently we we're not moving forward with a subregional committee here.
  • Brenda Hampton shared if you want to be in the and work in the pilot we're looking for priority dispatch administrations to be part of the Priority Dispatch pilot. We know that Illinois Regional Valley has clearly expressed interest, and so that's one that we have identified. You're the Bloomington Police Department right?
  • Rhonda Flegel responded no we are separate. My Center dispatches for all of McLean County except the city of Bloomington. City of Bloomington is separate and I do know that their pilot their director actually is piloting priority I believe and they held a meeting that I was not invited to. If their still looking for somebody McLean County Metcom would be happy to be one of those.
  • Brenda Hampton responded can you send that information to Dennis and he can send it to me and then I can add your PSAP to the list.
  • Rhonda Flegel responded absolutely.
  • Dennis Duke inquired if Chief Simmington had anything to sort out of speak to with regard to McLean County. No ok, any other questions related to this subregional committee work. None noted.
• Next Steps:
  • Next meeting: Dennis Duke recommended to keep the meeting schedule as monthly and feels next year there's going to be more information flowing and a bit more progress. But I'd open it up for discussion just to make sure we're all thinking along the same lines. Ok stays on same course.
  • Subregional Committee Representatives will be driven by the group of people that are on this call. We are the champions of this, and we are recruiting other champions that represent different areas to contribute to this. I encourage you all to keep reaching out and driving forward with identifying those individuals that can help us move this work forward.

• Questions from the Committee
  • Zachary Gittrich inquired about some members being removed from the RAC because of unable to participate and we're looking for new ones. Can we get a list emailed to us of slots that are open and what positions need to be filled.
  • Dennis Duke responded we can do that. There is actually a review of that list going on right now, not just for the people who are being removed because of lack of participation, but also for members that are being recommended to be part of it to ensure that we have balanced representation. We'll get that out to the group prior to our January 8th meeting. Angie Clark will make note and we'll work with Brenda to get this done.
  • Zachary Gittrich inquired if we could create a subcommittee to look at how much the costs are going to be. I still think that's critical for us that are working with the legislature directly that we get permanent funding for this so that we can make this process as smooth as possible. It's basically unfunded right now and for the 590's they're funning on things like grants and Medicaid money. If we want this to be successful, we need to get permanent funding and we need to put the pressure on the legislature. If we could talk about this in the next month or two creating some type of subcommittee so we can figure what those numbers look like. I think it would be helpful not only to the RACs but for the entire state.
  • Dennis Duke responded thanks Zach for the recommendation. If there's a way to do it without forming a committee, example making it an agenda item for our RAC. Brenda is that an option to have those issues part of our RAC 2 agenda. We could have input from the 590s and from the PSAPs to the extent they want to participate.
  • Brenda Hampton responded you can make anything part of your agenda that you think would be relevant to the work at hand and the work that's needed.
  • Dennis Duke responded I don't want to speak for the 590 providers that are on here. Robert Young Center is one of the 590 providers on here and I do think that our trade associations and or our lobbyists are very tuned into this issue and the funding and the cost as it relates to Mobile Crisis and the consideration of the CCBHCs and things. I think we're in a good place moving in the right direction but I don't want to speak for all 590s. I'm not against having it as an agenda item. I think it's probably something we can talk at a high level, but I do think things are moving in the right direction in terms of how we're going to be able to sustain this for a 590 perspective. I can't speak for the PSAPs, Sarah or Jodi or anybody else that's on here if you want to comment on that today or just hold off.
  • Jodi Mahoney responded I do think we are definitely our trade associations are aware of our challenges from a fiscal standpoint concerning the requirements that are being requested from us through an existing 590 grant that originated four years ago. However, I do know that it supposed to be coming out for rebid against this year so we will see what those requirements look like. I'm not sure us, as a committee, would have much influence as much as out trade associations would that represent all the providers that is what I would like to add.
  • Dennis Duke responded in light of our discussion we can put it to our agenda to provide an update from the 590 perspective and then if the anybody representing the PSAPs that would like to speak to that issue today. Alright, Zachary thanks for bringing that forward and we will have that as an agenda item related to updates and status for our RAC.
  • Zachary Gittrich responded okay.

• Next Meeting Date
• Next Scheduled RAC 2 Meeting Date: January 8, 2025 at 1:00 PM.

• Open for Public Comment - No Comments Noted.

• Meeting was Adjourned at 1:42 PM by Zachary Gittrich and Jamal Simmington