3. Overview of Process with Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority

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1 AGENDA January 11, Welcome and Introductions 2. Approval of and meeting minutes 3. Overview of Process with Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority 4. Review of FY17 Process 5. FY18 VOCA Funding What We Know 6. FY18 VOCA DV Services Funding RFP or Continuation 7. Civil Legal Services RFP Yes or No 8. FY18 VAWA Funding Continuation 9. Schwab Lapse Dollars EVAWI Conference 10. Meeting Schedule 1

2 ATTENDANCE January 11, 2017 COMMITTEE MEMBER VOTING DELEGATES AGENCY/LOCATION PRESENT ABSENT Co-Chair Amirrah Abou-Youssef Guardian Angel Community Services, Joliet X Co-Chair Angela Bertoni Sojourn Shelter and Services, Inc., Springfield X Yesenia Maldonado Between Friends, Chicago X Joyce Coffee Family Rescue, Inc., Chicago X Kate Keating by phone Sarah s Inn, Oak Park X Amy Milligan by Go To Meeting Family Shelter Services, Wheaton X Addie Chattic by phone YWCA of the Sauk Valley, Sterling X Margarette Trushel by phone Oasis Women s Center, Alton X Dona Leanard Crisis Center Foundation, Jacksonville X Estela Melgoza by Go To Meeting Mujeres Latinas en Acción, Chicago X COMMITTEE MEMBERS NONVOTING DELEGATES PRESENT ABSENT STAFF CONTACT(S) PRESENT ABSENT Andrea Wilson ICADV X Heather Beaufils ICADV X GUESTS GUEST AGENCY/LOCATION PRESENT 2

3 The meeting was convened at approximately 10:08 AM. It was determined that a quorum was present. MINUTES Abou-Youssef presented the 10/13/16 committee minutes for discussion. No changes. Abou Youssef called for a motion to approve. Maldonado made the motion. Coffee seconded. No objections or abstentions. Motion carried. Abou-Youssef presented the 12/13/16 committee minutes for discussion. No changes. Abou-Youssef called for a motion to approve. Chattic made the motion. Milligan seconded. No objections or abstentions. Motion carried. OVERVIEW OF PROCESS WITH ILLINOIS CRIMINAL JUSTICE INFORMATION AUTHORITY (ICJIA) Wilson reminded the committee that this is a meeting to determine how to handle the significant FY18 Victim of Crime Act (VOCA) Domestic Violence services funding increase. She began by walking the committee through ICADV s recent interactions with ICJIA. Wilson noted that she and Sarah Conlon, ICADV s Chief Operations Officer, attended the ICJIA Ad Hoc Victim Services Planning Committee meeting. Funding Oversight committee members asked who attended this planning meeting. Wilson noted it was attended by representatives of law enforcement, child advocacy centers, sexual assault, domestic violence service providers, public legal services, state s attorneys, probation and other members of the Ad Hoc committee. ICJIA provided an overview of their role as State Administrator of VOCA and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funding, the status of VOCA and VAWA funding, and their victimization research plan. Wilson then reviewed with members the Victims of Crime Act Webinar she attended on 12/17/16. The webinar intended to review the revised Act which went into effect on 8/8/16. Wilson noted that ICJIA stated it would fund services as broadly as possible within the confines of the law. Wilson took the committee through the slides that covered the expanded allowable services including: safety planning and safety-related property repair, limited emergency health care expenses, mental health counseling and care, transitional housing and relocation expenses, civil legal assistance, and volunteer training, among others. Members asked questions about the specifics of these expanded services. Wilson noted they did not have the opportunity during the webinar to ask questions, but she could follow up on the committee s questions. Trushel noted that domestic violence service providers will need significant technical assistance from ICADV regarding thinking about these expanded services and how to incorporate that into their budgets. She added that it is critical all programs have the equal opportunity to understand what is possible under this expanded VOCA and how much funding is actually available. Wilson then informed the committee of the lead entity meeting Vickie Smith, ICADV s Executive Director, attended at ICJIA on 12/15/16. She noted that leadership at ICJIA is committed to the lead entity process meaning qualified entities other than ICJIA administering the VOCA dollars. Wilson shared that ICADV will submit a proposal to be the lead entity for domestic violence services in Illinois. 3

4 FY18 VOCA FUNDING WHAT WE KNOW Members asked if ICADV knew how much money would be available for domestic violence service providers. Wilson noted that we do not know that information at this time. She indicated that the current VOCA dollars administered by ICADV is approximately $4.7 million. ICJIA communicated to Smith that they wanted to at minimum increase that amount to $10 million. Wilson stated that when ICADV applies to be the lead entity for administering those funds, it will ask for $17 million. Members asked how ICADV arrived at the $17 million. Wilson noted that ICADV considered: 1. Providers original FY17 budgets a. When providers submitted these budgets, they were told a significant increase in VOCA would be available b. Technical assistance had been provided to programs helping to think about how to spread VOCA funding across staff and effectively absorb this increase 2. VOCA Services Survey a. ICADV asked programs to complete a survey which included information on how much additional funding is needed to meet current service demands b. In addition ICADV asked if programs needed satellite offices to meet current service demands and, if so, how much annual funding would they need to maintain that/those offices 3. ICJIA s direct grants a. ICJIA currently provides grants for domestic violence services directly to some providers in Illinois b. ICADV also funds some of those programs, but not others c. ICADV would be administering these grants as well Maldonado noted that when programs completed their original FY17 budgets, they were operating under the old VOCA and would not have considered the expanded allowable services. They weren t considering the direct client assistance which is now allowable. Similarly, she noted, those were not considerations when completing the VOCA Services survey. Members agreed and noted that, considering these points, $17 million may not be enough. Members asked if we would be continuing with the same priorities for funding as were in place for FY17. Wilson noted that ICJIA is taking guidance from the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) directives: 1. Stabilizing core services 2. Increasing salaries 3. Building capacity 4. Civil legal assistance Members again noted that providers were not in a position to really grasp what could be done with this level of an increase and that we must consider recommending that ICADV ask for more than $17 million. Members proposed that we consider doubling what providers originally asked for in FY17. Providers asked for nearly $7.8 million, so double that amount would be $15.6 million. In addition, ICJIA directly funds programs for approximately $2.5 million. Members suggested doubling that amount as well, so $5 million. This brings the total to$20.6 million. Members discussed whether this would be enough for what we re 4

5 asking programs to consider. They suggested that we need to consider that there could be new programs funded in FY18 and those amounts are not accounted for in the $20.6 million. Additionally members noted the concern with service provision in the southern part of the state and indicated that this area might need a significant increase in funding to effectively serve victims in the south. Finally members considered the OVC priorities and noted that this is the time to provide living wages to advocates. They added that the providers may be stuck at this FY18 level of funding for quite a while so now is the time to ask for all that they believe than can use, especially in light of increasing staff salaries and expanding services. Coffee noted she agreed that this is the time to ask big. She also expressed concern over providers capacity to absorb such a huge increase. Leanard noted some programs don t currently have the capacity to grow right now. Members again suggested providers will need significant technical assistance around how to think about using the money, the expanded VOCA, and potential match waivers. Coffee expressed concern over the possibility that ICADV asks for an extreme increase and providers aren t able to spend it. ICADV s credibility could come into question in that scenario. After discussion, some members suggested ICADV ask ICJIA for between $23-25 million. Other members supported asking for $30 million based on the $20.6 million plus $10 million based on the above considerations. Wilson noted that the committee was empowered to recommend an amount to ICADV, but ultimately ICADV would decide the amount that made the most sense. The committee agreed to recommend ICADV ask for $30 million in FY18 VOCA DV Services funding. FY18 VOCA DV SERVICES FUNDING Request for Proposal (RFP) OR CONTINUATION? Wilson noted that ICADV s Policies and Procedures for Grant Administration (Policies) define our VOCA and VAWA grant cycle as three years. The first is competitive and the next two are continuation, assuming contractual obligations are met and funding is available. The committee needs to decide if it will work within the current policy, in which case all or part of this increase will be administered through continuation materials; or, if it will step outside of process and release a competitive RFP for the VOCA increase. Wilson noted the committee would need to obtain approval from ICADV s Board of Directors to step outside of the Policies. Members discussed maintaining our current three year grant cycle, continuing the same award amounts for current funded programs and then opening a competitive RFP for the remainder of the VOCA increase. The concern noted with this approach was that this then requires two budgets and double the reports and monitoring. Members agreed that ultimately this did not make sense. Members discussed whether they should use all of the increased VOCA award to support currently funded programs through the standard continuation process. This has the benefit of being within the Policies current process. Members noted this is what programs are expecting that, as long as money is available and they are meeting their contractual obligations they will submit a revised budget and objectives along with a brief narrative and should receive at minimum what they have now. Looking at what that means practically committee members stated that the normal continuation requirements are brief and the budgets generally don t look much different. With this significant increase in funding, programs will be looking at restructuring how they do the work, adding positions, possibly offices. A simple narrative and revised budget/projections is not going to be thorough enough for the amount of money they will be receiving and for which Funding Oversight will be responsible. Members concluded that even if we 5

6 maintain the continuation process for FY18, programs are going to have to do nearly the same amount of work as they would if they were writing a competitive RFP. Members added the RFP would likely be essentially the same as last year s, so many programs would have the opportunity to simply improve upon what they had already written. The Committee then discussed the challenge of using the continuation process as it relates to the programs who currently receive VOCA funding directly from ICJIA. A continuation process would leave those programs out of the VOCA funding stream. This includes approximately five service providers who would simply lose their grants with no opportunity to apply with ICADV. Members agreed this approach does not seem like a fair process. Finally, the committee noted that the concept of a continuation process is based on the idea that the next year s budget and services are going to be substantially similar to the current year. One doesn t typically work in a continuation context when you re dealing with this significant of a funding infusion. This increase is an expansion, not a continuation. Coffee asked what approach the former Services Committee took when it determined whether or not to let an RFP for increased funding. Wilson noted that the Services Committee agreed that when the increase in funding returned programs to their FY08 funding levels PLUS an additional 5%, that would be the threshold at which they would release the additional funding through an RFP. Wilson noted that in FY08 the total VOCA pot administered by ICADV was $3,866,261. Five percent of that pot is $193,313. Applying the standard of the Services Committee, ICADV would need to have at least $4,059,574 before it would consider releasing an RFP for new or increased funds. ICADV is currently administering $4,691,331. The committee discussed the potential size of the VOCA increase and what that means for monitoring and oversight. Members agreed that a continuation process is not sufficient for such an increase. They noted again that much of the work of a new RFP has been done by members. Members stated that the only transparent, fair and inclusive approach would be to release a competitive RFP. Trushel noted that the Committee needs to make sure that it sufficiently communicates to currently funded programs these reasons behind opening a competitive RFP. Programs are expecting that, barring contract violations and funding issues, they will be funded in FY18. She asked that the committee be clear that it is now saying that is not the case. Rather, programs are going to have to compete as they did in FY17. The Committee agreed this is important. Bertoni made a motion to release a competitive RFP for FY18 VOCA funding and offer the opportunity for continuation in FY19. Coffee seconded. Committee voted unanimously to uphold the motion. RFP DETAILS Wilson referred the Committee to previous conversations about the FY17 RFP process and in what areas it wanted to improve or change its approach the next time ICADV had a competitive process. Areas of note include the amount of space provided in the RFP document, some questions seeming repetitive, ensuring consistency in scoring, more direction to readers in the scoring process, letters of intent, and the reader process. After discussion the Committee agreed to the following: 6

7 Balancing the values of holding applicants accountable to following RFP non-substantive instructions and doing everything it can to support programs providing qualifying services Not to have applicants attach their previous site visit/monitoring reports Make the Executive Summary a brief section indicating who the agency is, what it is asking for, and describing its presence and credibility in the local community. The remaining questions in the original Executive Summary will be included in a separate narrative form. All eligibility questions will move to the Domestic Violence Agency Description and Eligibility section. The following sections of the RFP will be made into attachments rather than included within the narrative form: o Geographic area applicant intends to serve o Addresses and locations of all sites where domestic violence services will be provided o Source funding for domestic violence program o Source funding for agency No letter of intent will be required. Wilson reminded the Committee of the number of challenges applicants had with following instructions related to the Letter of Intent. In addition, she noted the Committee already has an idea of how many applicants there are likely to be. Wilson noted this change will likely require approval from ICADV s Board of Directors or their Executive Committee as it is outside of the process indicated in the Policies and Procedures for Grant Administration. Merge Service Delivery and Evaluation sections of the RFP Increase space allowed for content Provide space in budget and/or narrative to clearly indicate how salaries will be increased Reading and Scoring RFPs Wilson stated that the Committee had noted how challenging it was to read so many proposals last year. She added that because the funding recommendations only need to be approved by ICADV s Board of Directors, the Committee may have two weeks longer than last year to review proposals. She asked if the Committee had other ideas on how to bring in more readers. The Committee noted that reviewing and scoring all proposals was part of this committee s job and that it should follow procedures and take responsibility for reviewing them all. Members noted that scoring proposals for FY17 was challenging as it seemed more subjective than they thought it should. Wilson noted that a level of subjectivity was useful and ultimately tempered by having three readers for each proposal. The Committee asked that the reader training be more specific on what the most important aspects of the proposals are and for what deficits points can/should be deducted. Wilson agreed that a more detailed training would help readers feel more comfortable about their scoring decisions. Coffee suggested that it might be helpful to have a score sheet that includes a yes/no option for each narrative requirement. Wilson noted concern that this would result in only needing one reader per proposal because an application would either meet the requirement or not. Coffee stated that there would still be subjectivity among readers on whether or not applicants did meet the criteria. Members suggested reconsidered point values per section since some information is being pulled out of the RFP narrative into attachments. Committee members also stated it is critical that readers come prepared to the reader group conference calls. Proposals should be read and tentatively scored so that the call is useful and efficient. One member 7

8 suggested that readers could submit their tentative scores the day before the conference call. Members stressed that there should be consensus on what is most important in each section of the RFP. FY18 VAWA STOP FUNDING Wilson noted that ICADV staff suggested keeping the FY18 VAWA award as a continuation grant, on the same cycle as it is this year. There is no increase expected in VAWA dollars. If we maintain the current schedule for VAWA and the two-year schedule for VOCA, both will be ready for the next competitive cycle at the same time in FY20. Members agreed. FY18 VOCA CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES RFP Wilson asked the Committee if they wanted to continue with what they started in FY17 releasing a civil legal services RFP. She noted that from the VOCA Services survey conducted by ICADV it overwhelmingly was a need identified by programs. Members discussed whether ICJIA would continue to administer civil legal services VOCA funding. Wilson noted her understanding was that all the VOCA dollars would flow through the Lead Entity and ICJIA would not continue to administer some, but not others, of the VOCA dollars. Members agreed that now is the time to ask for those dollars and that they should release an RFP specific to legal services. Members discussed whether they would maintain the same approach as in FY17. They agreed that yes, stand-alone legal services entities could complete a separate VOCA Civil Legal Services RFP and domestic violence programs who wanted to hire or contract with an attorney could include those civil legal services within the regular VOCA RFP. Wilson asked the Committee if they wanted to set aside a specific amount for the civil legal services RFP. Members discussed the idea and determined that 10% of the total VOCA award could be set aside for the VOCA Civil Legal Services RFP. Bertoni noted that 10% of $30 million seemed reasonable to set aside, but that it is a completely different situation if the increase is only $10 million. Members discussed how much it might cost to hire and house an attorney or contract with an attorney. The Committee agreed to set aside 10% of the total FY18 VOCA award for civil legal services. In addition, they noted that any portion of the set aside pot not used for civil legal services would be moved back into the larger VOCA RFP pot. Members then discussed whether or not the 10% set aside pot should apply to domestic violence service providers who decide to hire an attorney or contract with one. After discussion they determined that civil legal services through a domestic violence program would be part of the larger VOCA RFP rather than the 10% set aside pot and, therefore, would not be capped. SCHWAB LAPSE DOLLARS EVAWI CONFERENCE Wilson reminded the Committee that as a result of Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital losing its FY17 VOCA grant, ICADV has $23,251 in lapse dollars to spend. In previous conversations members noted spreading the money amongst currently funded programs would not yield any significant benefit to those providers. They also had attempted to find resources that ICADV could purchase for programs, but Wilson reported it was difficult to spend down that amount on resources alone. Wilson suggested offering VOCA-funded advocates scholarships to the End Violence Against Women International s (EVAWI) International 8

9 Conference on Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, and Systems Change. ICADV used lapse dollars in FY16 to send over twenty advocates to EVAWI s annual conference and all reported that experience as invaluable to the improvement of their direct services and advocacy. The Committee agreed that this would be an excellent use of funds and that it falls within VOCA guidelines. ADJOURNMENT Maldonado made a motion that the Committee adjourn. Bertoni seconded. No one opposed. Motion carried. The meeting was adjourned at 2:55PM. 9