1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE Vocational Rehabilitation Services VRS Staff/CP Forum February 6th, 2024 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. * * * * * This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled, and the text may also contain environmental sounds that occurred during the event. 2 CART Provided by Megan Stumm, RPR Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, Inc. 612.339.0545 Caption@paradigmreporting.com >> Janeen: Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the VRS Community partners and Staff forum. And just a second. I'm going to go on mute and make our other ASL interpreter a cohost so that they can pin themselves for our recording. So just a moment. Okay. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our VRS Community Partners and Staff Forum. We're glad you all could be here today. We will take just a couple more minutes to let everyone join in, and then we can get started. We do have closed captioning, and the link just got put in by our captioner Megan, so thank you, Megan. You can click on that link if you require closed captioning. Also, this is a great time to rename yourselves if you do not have the correct naming on your Zoom. And you might want to go ahead and open up our Microsoft Form. I know Jess is going to pop that in the chat soon, but just be ready to submit your questions as they come up throughout the forum. Welcome, everybody. Make sure to keep your chat open too because a lot of times we're sharing forms or messages to the group throughout that. And just a reminder, I'm fixing it for our other 3 interpreter, but both of our interpreters are here. If you need the ability to multi-pin, please contact me via chat. And interpreters should go ahead and pin themselves when they are interpreting. For our recording, so thank you. Just one moment. Go ahead and read the slide if you would like while I take care of a couple behind the scenes things. And then we will start our meeting. Thank you. All right. Good morning, everyone. This is Janeen Oien, and I am a program specialist on the Community Partnerships Team for Vocational Rehab Services. Just a reminder again in chat there is a closed captioning link if you require that. We also have two ASL interpreters on our meeting today, so if you need the ability to multi-pin interpreters [ recording in progress ] Please chat me directly and I will take care of that as soon as possible. We have kind of a light but interesting agenda today. I will be briefly touching on earned safe and sick leave, which has already been rolled out in a message in a training video by Lori Thorpe, but I'm just going to do a little bit of review. Then Anne Paulson, my colleague is is going to be talking to us about the July 1st 2024 contracting process and timeline. I'll be giving us a few updates on the contracted services and RFP workgroup and then Anne has a couple other updates for you all today and then we can do some question and answer time. So I'm going to go ahead and start recording. Oh, looks like somebody's already recording the meeting. So we'll just move into our first slide. Thank you. So earned safe and sick time leave was -- and I apologize, I might be turning and reading from another screen. But it was basically a law that the Department of Labor and Industry here in Minnesota rolled out for effect for all Minnesota employers. 4 And that started on January 1st, 2024, of this year. Earned sick and safe leave time or earned sick and safe time, ESST, does apply to all employers and employees in Minnesota once somebody has worked at least 80 hours in a job here in Minnesota. And it doesn't, you know, it transfers between be different employers, that sort of thing. So just a whole new process. About the end of January, January 22nd, Lori Thorpe, our director, send out an e-mail with a recorded video that details that process of how Voc Rehab Services will reimburse partners that have wages and serve as our payroll agents on their contract. But these changes only apply to those wages services, so no one else needs to worry about it. Essentially -- we can go to the next slide -- between January of 2024 and June 30th of 2024, VRS will have one process, and that is authorizing an additional hour of wages for each 30-hour wage authorization that goes out. Because that is going to cover that ESST requirement of our community partners. And, again, the video lays out in detail what that looks like. Beginning on our contract starting July 1st, however, anyone that offers wages rather than having wages plus a 50% administrative cost will now have wages plus 60% administrative cost. That additional percentage is to cover ESST in addition to other rising payroll costs. And that's really it, it's a very light touch on this topic. You can always view Lori's e-mail and the video by going to our external community partner website, looking under VRS News, and then clicking on Messages and you will find the message on earned safe -- sick and safe time. So now I'm going to pass it over to my colleague Anne. >> Anne: Hello! This is Anne Paulson. We're going to talk a bit about the new contracting season coming up. So all of our contracts are expiring 6/30/2024. And there's going to be a couple different options if 5 you are community rehab provider, CRP, we are going to meet with you and extend contracts. If you're a limited use vendor, you will need to reapply and that RFP will be posted shortly. So with the CRPs, I know that I had met with a couple and some coming up this week, what we'll be doing is amending the contracts to not only extend at the end date to 2027, which is very nice, we'll look at putting in a larger budget, we're going to talk about fees and services, and then have the amendments ready to start 7/1/2024. Limited use vendors, once again, if you had a contract beginning 7/1/2022, a reminder those contracts are for two years. They will full on expire and you'll have to reapply with a new RFP that will be posted. And I think that's it. >> Janeen: Thanks a lot, Anne. So we had sented out an e-mail awhile ago and I know we've all been aware, a saw a lot of partners at our last partner feedback session and we've been getting a lot of great engagements and feedback from VR staff to your peers. But just wanted to talk again about the contracted services review workgroup. This workgroup was started the final quarter of 2023, and thank you so much to everyone who gave feedback on the intake for hourly services under general services. Our workgroup worked together and we updated the definition very slightly and submitted that along with a sample report and a best practices document, and they all went up to VRS executive leadership and were approved. So I will be doing a web update later today so that our community partner website is the most accurate for everyone. It's going to be updated to show all of that and then these resources are for both our VRS staff and our community partner staff, so the best practices document has suggestions for both staff from community partners and VRS, and it's just a nice picture of what the ideal intake should look like. Any feedback that we received that wasn't really in the scope of our workgroup, so anything related to rates or 6 behaviors or concerns around that, referral concerns, that sort of thing, that all went to the appropriate other workgroups or VRS staff that could handle those ideas and feedback so again, we kind of kept it within our scope of working on the definition and offering more resources to everyone, which includes that updated definition, a sample report that we can all view, and then a best practices list. Coming up, we have our first quarter topic, which is the OCSS differential, currently on a performance based agreement only. And then the topic of social coaching. These are both very specific skill required definitions and we've already talked quite a bit with our internal VRS specialists that focus on both of these areas. OCSS primarily impacts our deaf and hard of hearing and DeafBlind consumers or individuals, and then social coaching is kind of specific to anyone with a social communication disorder. VR staff, you all have received e-mails that lined out the opportunities you have to give feedback to your peers. And I would love to have community partners join me on Monday the 12th of February. I've sent out Zoom link for that, just show up at 12:30. We will meet for about an hour and if this is something you're curious about or directly impacts your contract and your staff, then please do come and share your feedback on how things are currently going, what are some pain points, what are some excellent parts, and then any suggestions to improve the way these services work. And I will be looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 12th. Anne, I'm going to pass it to you. >> Anne: I'm going to do some reminders and updates. So we work internally with both VRS staff, we work with our partner staff and managing authorizations for budgets continues to be a challenge a bit. So just a reminder that's vital to accurate budgets for all of our LUV and CRP contracts. We want accurate authorizing and the budgets for Voc Rehab Services, it's just essential for our fiscal management and financial forecasting. 7 VRS staff, they have the primary responsibility to authorize and manage the open encumbrances. There are 30, 60, 90-day reports that is internal to VRS, so they're taking some time, slowing things down a bit and just checking those authorizations and making sure they're still accurate or in use. Community partner agencies can help manage those authorizations by requesting accurate hours, billing in a timely fashion, notifying VRS staff when remaining hours can be canceled. There's from time to time it's a bit of a surprise to everybody that everything is maxing out towards that budget, and that's what can really help us all is really watching those authorizations, if you have unused hours, go ahead and request that those be canceled out. The system we use to manage looking at those budgets will always just consider what's been authorized in that lump and that will impact the budget. Next. So right now we have 178 community partners with active contracts. We are very grateful for each of them, dedication and providing quality services, and we have four program specialists, including myself and Janeen and Jess and Sara. And we meet with a lot of new applicants for contracts and it's really an exciting time to bring in a lot of partners with a lot of diverse experiences. Several of our new partners have received no or very few referrals. We would love to help out if there's some areas that we can help make some connection points, so please reach out to us specialists if you would like to learn more about these partners and we can help make some connections. And that is it. >> Janeen: Yeah, thank you, Anne. Just one more point about that. You know, if you are a referring counselor or rehab rep and your individual is going to have to be on a waiting list somewhere, there's really no reason, as you can see, like we have such a robust pool of partners, that 8 being said, if someone of course chooses individually that they want to go to a specific partner, they're, you know, certainly given that choice, but just a reminder if you're looking for a service, we can probably find you someone that can help out with that. Okay? So this is kind of a light touch February -- I would say we're tired of winter but we didn't really have winter so I hope no one's tired of it. But we're open to questions and answers and so far I have gotten no questions. Which I understand slightly because we've had such a light meeting, but if anyone has questions or comments to share, please throw them in the chat. Okay. I did get one question. Hooray! Is the 60 -- why don't I read them better. Okay. So is the 60-plus percentage administrative fee only for work experience wage authorizations, or does that include services? No, typically it only applies to wages. So for any service hours, what you charge for the service hour is to encumber or encompass all of your costs. Wages, we reimburse different community partners that are willing to serve as a payroll agent for those services in the event that an employer paid work experience is not found, and those administrative costs are added on to cover the cost of things like worker's comp and, you know, payroll taxes, et cetera. So, yeah, that just applies to our wages. Not just for work experiences, we have wages for internships, on the job evaluations, and other things. And then I think I saw another question. If vendors are not being used -- okay, partners, just to clarify -- partners are not being used or underutilized how about sending an e-mail out to the staff with a list of those partners? That's a great suggestion. Sometimes too many e-mails go out from the community partnerships team so we've struggled to figure out the best possible way to support our staff in knowing all the resources that we have available. 9 And does ESST still apply if people are receiving wages as contractors? It does not, however, no VRS participant is considered a contractor. When they are being paid wages through the contract, they should be employees and have an employer of record. And, again, the employer of record might be the actual place of employment, or it might be one of our community partners serving as a payroll agent. And then does earned sick and safe time apply to job try-out wages or employee development services? Those are great questions. I think so far what we have determined is that if we are paying wages as a separate authorization line item, it does apply. I know within employee development services you might pay a wage but there isn't a wages, you know, extra portion to that, so in that case I think you have to refer to the Department of Labor and Industry for more guidance around whether or not those individuals count as employees and need to be earning their safe and sick time. So we have another question. Referral of people with high needs requiring like a personal care assistant for pork experiences and other services happens without funding to actually pay for that personal care assistant. How are VRS staff being guided to make the decision about whether someone is appropriate for a referral for service or not? Anyone else can jump in with an answer if they'd like, but I would say typically if someone requires a personal care assistant, they should have that hired through like, for example, a Medicaid waiver or some other funding or through their school, if they are a transition age student. So I'm not sure how it's occurring that we're having referrals where someone should have a personal care assistant on-site but doesn't come with that. Jess or -- >> Jess: -- for a moment. I think I would need some clarification if it's a question coming from VRS, I would say that would be a question for your supervisor to kind of talk through 10 what those services might look like. If it's coming from a partner, if you're, as a partner receiving a referral for PCA services let's have a bigger conversation about what is being asked because PCA obviously isn't a service -- contract, oink so I think there's just a little bit more thinking to -- around that question. >> Janeen: Yeah, follow up with any one of the four of us and we can find out more about this. For work experiences services is earned sick and safe leave time for students that participate in our independent contractors? Again, I want to clarify, and you can check with Alyssa Klein about this, but none of our students should be paid under a 1099 as an independent contractor. Everyone that is receiving wages through the Voc Rehab contract are employees and should be employees and not independent contractors. So if you have some experience where students or other individuals are being paid as contractors, you might want to follow up with one of us and talk through the scenario with us, or talk to the local RAM, rehabilitation area manager of the office where that individual is coming out of and just work through that. Okay? I think that was some clarification I want to say, Sara, went out maybe last year about students not being paid as contractors, so. Okay. Any more questions? >> Jess: Janeen, I did have a direct message also sent to me wondering where they could find the information about the sick and safe time. I did put that in the chat but I just wanted to point out that that's where that came from. So there's a link to our community partners page where you can find the training and it's under the Messages tab. >> Janeen: Okay. Cassie in the chat, is there a way to find out what personal of eligible VR participants are referred to and how many follow through and engage in EE services, so our Extended Employment services for long-term 11 support? Kassia, that is a great question. I imagine there is a way to check who was referred for Extended Employment. As far as whether they follow through and engage, that might require pulling some data from the Extended Employment providers themselves or from our program. That's something I can talk to Meghan Hanson about later and perhaps we can talk to our data team and see is there a cohesive way to track those. But that serves as a great plan or reminder for everyone that Extended Employment exists and if you have individuals who are not on a Medicaid waiver but still require some level of long-term support not only to retain their jobs but also perhaps to consider how they might advance within their career later, that sort of thing, we have Extended Employment providers across the state and you can reach out to Meghan Hanson for more information on that. And then Darcy, I see your question about what is the exact date for the RFP. We are not technically allowed to share the exact publishing date until it's published. It is soon. Okay, so check the website within the next one to two weeks. Everything is on track with that, it will be up in time, so just keep an eye out for it. But until it's actually posted, equitable contracting requires us to not disclose what date we're planning to put it up. And thanks, Meghan. Meghan Hanson threw her information into the chat. She does answer all her e-mails very quickly, she does a great job, so anything about Extended Employment both internal staff and external staff, I do highly recommend you reach out to her. Okay. Just real quick I'm checking the form. Because I think I got another response. Maybe I didn't. Okay. It's crickets, so does anyone have something they want to throw into the chat here or put into the form? 12 >> Anne: Just part of the reminders that we're given about partners out there that are not being utilized, for VRS staff, we certainly can send out an e-mail, that is not a problem. We do keep an active desk aid available which lists all the partners, contact information, maybe some special skills that they offer such as language skill. And even if you see a partner on that list and don't know who they are, you can contact a liaison and we can help make those connections too. >> Janeen: It's interesting because there is just such an amazing breadth of experience and we certainly have a much more diverse, from a standpoint of more BIPOC providers and providers that support specific communities, that's not all the work they're willing to do, right, so if someone wants to serve, for example, the Somali community, that doesn't mean we limit our referrals to them to strictly Somali individuals, but it's definitely just exciting to be talking to a lot of great people who are doing great work around job related services out in the community and around disability. And they're just excited to partner with us too. Sheenah, you're asking do you track regional areas of where folks are able to provide services? Yes, we do. There has not been a great place to put that information outside of metro, north/south, but if you want information on specific counties, especially for our greater Minnesota providers, each of us has that information about our list of contracted partners, so feel free to reach out to anyone if you're looking for specific providers in a county. >> Okay, I'm just going to come off mute instead of keep trying to type. >> Janeen: Go ahead. >> I've gotten a few emails in the past and Christine usually handles them, our RAM, but they're doing outreach saying, hey, we're a new provider and I don't know why I get on the e-mails but it turns out they really can't serve anyone in Blue Earth County. 13 So it limits my ability to offer, especially like with transition, I really need providers to to be in-person, so even if they will do virtual, like then I have to come in with my computer because sometimes the Chromebooks will block students from using anything other than preapproved stuff through the district and I'm like if I'm here having to set up my computer to do online things with the students, that doesn't help me because then I can't do my job. You know, so I love the idea of more providers, I love being able to have flexibility in virtual services, but it's just logistically then really challenging. >> Janeen: Mm-hmm. >> To get that out to students and so I just need more in-person providers. >> Janeen: Well, we are adding -- I'm actually in the process of writing up contracts for a couple that will serve out your way, Sheenah, so, fingers crossed that that improves, okay? Two things with OJE evals, are clients now paid minimum wage versus starting wage that the employer would pay their new employees for the eval hours? This is related to our on the job training options, and I am not a specialist on those. That being said, I believe that most things including OJEs have asked to be paid at the prevailing wage. And I'm seeing lots of head nodding from my coworkers, so that's good. So, yes, we should be paying at the prevailing wage, not minimum wage, necessarily. And then we had another question, it would be helpful if it didn't just list the county but also the cities. Okay, that's good to know. And then we got a question in on the form. For the first 80 hours we don't need to authorize for ESST, correct? That sounds like it's maybe coming from one of our staff members, and I would really encourage you to watch the entire video that Laura Cheney and Lori Thorpe put together. When -- VRS is not going to track the 80 hours, that's the responsibility of whoever the employer is at the time. So we will send out one hour of earned safe and sick 14 leave time with our first wage authorization to any of our partners. Because we are not in charge of tracking if they've worked previously in Minnesota this calendar year, et cetera, or when they reach that 80 hours. Moving forward after that very first wage authorization, partners will request the additional hour as they see another 30 hours coming up. But just to clarify, it takes 80 hours to be eligible to start drawing the time, but the time is retroactive. So it really is for every 30 hours a person works for an employer in the state of Minnesota, they can earn one hour of earned sick and safe time. So please watch the video. Please go back and go through chat and grab that link or go to our Community Partner website, VRS News, Messages, and you will find the e-mail with the link. That has it all laid out for about how the authorizing should be happening. And, again, this is just through June 30th of this year 'til we can update contracts. Oh, thanks. Jess just threw it in the chat again. She is the chat queen. With that, I'm willing to give it another minute of uncomfortable silence, but it seems like we are not getting a fast trickle of questions. Again, this question and answer form will stay open, so feel free to submit something that you might think of later today, and we will try to -- if you include your e-mail address with it, we can reach out with an answer to that question. Or you can just reach out to any of us directly. But I can give you back an hour of your time. My goodness, this was so fast. Frank, yeah, smile about that, Frank, you're on my screen, so I need to see some -- yeah, thank you. Some cheering about that. All right. We will see you again in April, the very first Tuesday of April. 15 10:30 to noon. Be there or be square kind of thing. And we'll talk to you later. Have a great day. [ recording stopped ] DISCLAIMER This text is being provided in a lightly edited draft format and is the work product of the CART captioner. Any reproduction, publication, or other use of this CART file without the express written consent of the captioner is strictly prohibited. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings, nor should it be considered in any way as a certified document. Due to the live nature of the event, some names and/or terms may be misspelled. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken, and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.