1 LIGHTLY EDITED FILE VRS Community Partners + VRS Staff Forum DEED VRS Remote CART June 6, 2023 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. * * * * * 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. 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. * * * * * CART Provided by Jayne Carriker, RPR, CRR, CRC Paradigm Reporting & Captioning, a Veritext Company 612.339.0545 captioning-paradigm@veritext.com CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 2 >> Janeen: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning at our VRS staff and community partnerships forum for June. I know the reminder went out a little bit late yesterday. I was waiting for the presentation PDF. Anne, I don't think you're on mute. I was waiting for the presentation PDF to get posted to our website to share, so I'm glad all of you could register and make it this morning. Thank you. So we are going to take just a few moments to let people in. I'm going to be making our ASL interpreters cohosts, and they will appear at the top of your participant list. If you need any kind of ability to multipin, please e-mail Jess Outhwaite or myself. And again you can change your name on Zoom. We would really like to know, you know, who is here today and enjoy that, so please change your Zoom name to reflect your first and last name and maybe your agency if you can. And I'm going to go on mute for just a second and make our -- make our ASL interpreters our cohosts for this morning. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 3 But again welcome, everybody. We appreciate you all showing up today. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our VRS community partners and VRS staff forum. Again we just really appreciate everyone being able to make it today. If you want to go to the chat, you will find the link for the closed captioning today and also the forms where you can submit your questions and your comments throughout this forum today. You can submit more than one, so feel free to get on as often as you want and to submit as many questions as you want. Thank you. Okay. Good morning, everyone. I want to make sure that both of our interpreters have pinned themselves. If you need the ability to do that, let me know. Otherwise I can pin you as well. Just a reminder again today closed captioning is available. There's a link in our chat, and so I know Jess will keep CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 4 throwing that out so that you can handle that. And then also we would appreciate it if you would change your name so we can see who all is joining us today. There's directions on the slide on how to do that, so thank you. This session will be recorded this morning, and so just be aware of that. We're going to post it later to the VRS website. You currently can find the presentation there, but we will add the closed captioning transcript and the recording from today. So thank you. Again, Jess has just popped into the chat, there is a Q&A form. Please submit any questions or comments you have throughout the meeting. You can submit more than once. Thank you. Sara, if you want to -- yeah, thank you. So our agenda for today. I'm doing the welcome. Thank you all. I'm Janeen Oien. I'm currently the interim vocational rehab services director of community partnerships. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 5 We are going to have some legislative updates today. Both myself and Michelle Basham, who is the deputy direct of service operations and partnerships, will be presenting on that. And then Chris McVey, our deputy director of disability employment services, and myself will be talking a little bit how to manage open encumbrances or those open authorizations for VRS and community partner budgets. Then just kind of a silly fun thing for June, but since we have added a new extended employment specialist and we know we haven't had a chance before to formally introduce Michelle Basham, we would like to do a few slides on meet your community partnerships team so that anyone new here can get to know each other, and we will enjoy sharing some fun facts about ourselves. Then all of those questions you are submitting through the Q&A form, Anne Paulson will be joining us from off mute to share, you know, kind of go through your questions and help find answers for those, so we will share that at the end of the time. Okay. So looking forward to this. Thank you. I'm going to quick it over to Michelle Basham, our deputy director of service operations and partnerships. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 6 Thank you, Michelle. >> Michelle: Thank you, Janeen. And I'm going to give a quick, quick update too on the CP director if I could. We are so, so lucky that Janeen Oien is serving as our interim deputy director. She is highly capable of that and doing a great job. If you have questions you would have sent to the CP director, please direct those to Janeen. She is fielding all of that. The position is posted. If you haven't seen it, it closes, though, on June 8, and we're going to be starting first-round interviews later this month with the goal of a new CP director starting in probably sometime in August, maybe early September. So we had a historic legislative session this year with quite a bit of money that's going to be coming to DEED to administer. As some of you might be aware, we have launched for the first time in state history a paid FMLA program which we're really excited about. DEED will be administering that and bringing on over 150 employees to do that. In addition, and I think the CP team is going to cover CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 7 this later, but marijuana has been legalized for recreational purposes, which will create a lot of opportunities for our economy as well. But we'll also post some interesting questions in terms of conflicts between state and federal law, and Janeen I think is going to cover that later in this presentation. Perfect. Specifically related to VR services and the amazing work that so many of you do and that our team at VRS does out in the field, we had a couple of exciting things, just a couple of really high level updates. We were able to get a CILs increase for the center for independent living providers as well as an extended employment provider increase and IPS increase. Unfortunately, that does have a tail, so while we don't have a guarantee that that increase will continue, we will continue to stay on top of IPS issues, and I anticipate that will be in our legislative priorities in the future. That's it. Thank you. >> Janeen: Thanks so much, Michelle. So kind of moving on to our next slide. As Michelle mentioned, the centers for independent living got the largest increase in 30 years, so CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 8 definitely quite the bonus or good news for CILs. For state fiscal years 24 to 25, our centers for independent living services will receive $7,011,000 each year, and then the base for this appropriation is that $3,011,000 in state fiscal year 2026 and each year thereafter. And as Michelle also kind of alluded to, our individual placement and supports or IPS is a program that's a state grant funded program that provides critically needed evidence-based supports to people who are living with serious mental illness. And as a result of VRS and community advocates really working diligently on that, IPS will receive $2,555,000 -- excuse me, $2,555,000, okay, I said that as best as I could, each year for fiscal years 24 and 25, and that increase will be for both of those years, and then we will work diligently to consider how to continue to fund that higher base, so that's some excellent news there. Thank you. And then we also have a bill that has positively impacted our extended employment services. The EE base will continue to be $6,995,000 from the general fund and then our $6,830,000 from the workforce development fund for fiscal years 24 to 25. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 9 In addition $4,500,000 has been appropriated from the general fund, and that's for each year to increase rates for providers for extended employment services for persons with sever disabilities. So, again, extended employment is an excellent program that Minnesota funds as well, and it's just really exciting that we have some -- Oh, sorry, Sara, can we go to the next slide again please. It's really exciting that we have some increases and can increase rates to providers. I appreciate that. And I want to give a little shout-out for state fiscal years 24 and 25. $1 million was appropriated each year from the workforce development fund for employment services for persons, and that includes our transition age youth or Pre-ETS who are deaf, deafblind or hard of hearing and that grant application opportunity is also posted on the grants and contracts page for DEED. Thank you. Next I am going to -- oh, nope, I have one more legislative update. This is interesting and exciting. So Minnesota legislature did pass a bill that realized CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 10 the recreational use of adult cannabis. That means that use is legal here in Minnesota, but again it remains illegal at the federal government level. The bill allows for expungement of past offenses, criminal records related to marijuana use or distribution, and that's going to be so impactful for our job seekers, so that was definitely a win and some good news. Vocational rehabilitation services received substantial funding from the federal government. Our federal funding agency money comes through the Department of Education, and it is through an agency referred to as the Rehab Services Administration or RSA. So VRS cannot support any employment plans or small business plans within the adult cannabis industry. That messaging did go out to our VRS staff, but we just wanted to share it again here because I think it's also impactful for our community partner staff to understand as well. We will not be accepting placements within any thing related to this new, you know, industry that is about to take off in Minnesota. DEED, however, while the overall Department of Employment and Economic Development will have funding CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 11 for three state programs that provide financing for workforce development, small business loans, and technical assistance related to the cannabis businesses and workforce. They're called CanStartup, CanNavigate and CanTrain. And I'm sure more information will be coming out from DEED about that, and we can pass that on to community partners. So that's a different route for anyone that is interested in working in that industry, but VRS itself cannot support that. With that I'm going to move on to our next topic, managing VRS and community partner budgets, and I am going to ask Chris McVey to come off mute and share with us her thoughts and information. Thank you, Chris. >> Chris: Thank you, Janeen. Hello everybody, and I know it's so exciting to have both our vocational rehabilitation services staff joining this meeting as well as our community partners. What we want to be able to do is provide information to both our VRS staff and our community partner staff regarding VRS's budget and the encumbered funds that are already encumbered that we are looking at and encouraging our staff to cancel authorizations that can CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 12 be canceled or should be canceled in order to free up funds to deliver more services to VRS participants. I know Janeen is going to speak to our community partners on what you can do, but I just want all of our VRS staff to know is that on a daily, weekly basis we've got our fiscal folks, our field operations specialists, our regional directors and I as well as others taking a look at open encumbrances, and what that means is that once VRS funds are authorized for, those funds are sitting there encumbered, and they're waiting for providers to provide the services and then for the providers to invoice for those services. What we find is that many of the authorizations that are authorized, many of them are funds that will never get utilized for a variety of reasons. It could be due to the participant and their availability and it doesn't work out to perhaps partial provision of services so that there may be part of an authorization that just sits beyond the provision of services, and those funds remain encumbered and unavailable to be freed up until either that authorization is -- the invoice is invoiced and VRS has paid those dollars or those dollars -- the invoice can be canceled the remaining amount, the authorization can be canceled the remaining amount, and then what we're CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 13 able to do is free up those dollars to be able to put towards other services. We are -- the regional directors, myself, the FOSs, our fiscal team again are planning to meet with our rehab area managers this week and next week at our regional RAM meeting to talk about open encumbrances per team and to really take a look and ensure that every caseload is taking a look at the open encumbrances and considering what authorizations or encumbrances can be canceled. What's happening in fiscal language is that while authorizations can go forward and get encumbered, when they're fed into our SWIFT system, we're finding that the budget check does not align, and so it's at the time of invoicing that our VRS staff in many cases are not able to pay the invoice because we've got too many dollars that are kind of stuck in this place of encumbered. So while VRS has plenty of funds to be able to deliver the services, we're finding ourselves in a place where we're called -- authorizations bombing out essentially is what our internal term is, and what we want to do is free up dollars so that invoices can be paid in a timely manner. So I'm asking all of our VRS teams and it will be led by a conversation that starts at the regional RAM meetings CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 14 followed by some local level work with our FOSs, our regional directors, RAMs and our staff to ensure that all possible authorizations that can be canceled and should be canceled are canceled so that, again, we're not finding ourselves in a place where we're not able to pay an invoice for services that have been provided by our community partners. I'm going to hand it to Janeen now who can speak to the community -- >> Recording in progress. >> Partners and what we need from you. Thank you. >> Janeen: Thank you all. And I apologize. I forgot to assign someone to record this so I just now have pushed record on this meeting, so that first section will be cut off on our recording. However, again, the slides are available on our community partner website and what -- the rest of the portion of this meeting will also be available. Thank you. So, again, managing those budgets and those open authorizations is really a partnership activity. You know, at its core of course vocational rehab professionals and support staff are the ones responsible CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 15 for monitoring what's purchased from our community partners, and that includes cleaning up authorizations. However, it's about getting community partners paid, and also cleaning up those open encumbrances really helps particularly if you are a limited use vendor with maintaining an accurate budget count for your two-year $200,000 limit. And overall for any organization it's always good to know where you truly stand with your finances. So we really want this to be a partnership of great communication between both VR staff but then also community partner staff feeling free to take time to really keep a little bit closer eye on what payments came back, is there a problem, you know, should I double check on this invoice, just kind of make that a more frequent part of your business practices. One of the important things to consider is your contractual language as well around invoicing and reporting because, again, our number one goal is you are providing excellent services for the individuals we serve. We still want you to get paid for that, and so how we can support each other to make that happen in a timely fashion is essential. Directly from our contract language it talks about the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 16 invoice requirements, and again I encourage our VR staff to check this out too because sometimes we may have been trained like, oh, this is required on an invoice, but if you look at the technical requirements, it might not be. Or it's just a good place to kind of refresh your memory if you're not certain about an invoice. So this link is provided within your master contract but also on these slides. And it talks about that you have to submit an undisputed invoice. That means an invoice that has no corrections that need to be made or no questions from VR staff about the accompanying report. So, again, there are links to check out those details, and, again, a lot of times our invoices get hung up because there's a reporting concern, so a fast communication from VR staff out to the CP staff about what needs to be corrected on the report and a good responsive action taken by the community partnership staff will just really move that process along quickly. Okay? Yes, Chris McVey, thoughts on that. >> Chris: Yeah, thank you so much, Janeen, and really as we've been pressing into this because really the whole thing about our authorizations and what we call CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 17 that bombing out or we've maxed out on the amount that we've authorized and that we need to cancel open authorizations or, you know -- that is something that's been age old, but I think that what we have here is that need for both, as Janeen was talking about, that partnership between VRS staff and the community partners to ensure that we are paying for the services that have been provided but to do it in a timely way. So as I'm understanding, I've taken some time to look at the contract language, it's 90 days. So we really want our providers invoicing us and again as Janeen said for undisputed authorizations or invoices within that 90-day period and actually the sooner you can do that the better. What I want to avoid is that we're not able to pay invoices based on the fact that we've maxed out on what we've authorized. And I know our fiscal folks and working with DEED administrative fiscal services, we're working together but there are limits on what we can do. If we have reached that max internally within SWIFT, we're not able to pay invoices, and it gets to a point and where we are now is unless we cancel, we're not able to pay, so it's reached a critical mass I would say at this point. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 18 So again I just really encourage both VRS and community partner staff, once those services are provided, providers, please do bill us and invoice us so we can get that paid out, cancel any remaining balance, or if the services haven't been provided, please go back, VRS staff, look at your cancellations and let's get those unused authorizations canceled out. Thanks. >> Janeen: Excellent, Chris, and you gave us a nice hint of what our next slide is going to be, so I appreciate that. Just a reminder to community partners, your contract language clearly states that invoices, those undisputed invoices and the proof of service provided, that might be a report, that might be a time sheet for wages, etc., those need to be submitted within 90 days from the end date of a work authorization. We have had some flexibility around that because we just really want folks to get paid, but we are finding more and more that it causes, you know, fiscal year to fiscal year just this balloon of unresolved financial issues. So, again, in your contract it clearly states that they have to be submitted within 90 days from the end date of the work authorization. We will have less flexibility about that moving forward. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 19 It's really important we honor that contract language. So come to us if you have concerns like, hey, I did submit invoices, I'm not hearing back, I don't know if they're -- you know, come to us on the community partnerships team but also to your local staff if you would like a report pulled of your current open or partially paid authorizations, there's a really easy way for us to pull that report. Any one of us here in VR and I know the field operation specialists are going to share more with managers about that moving forward. And just check your own books and kind of clean up a lot of those audit things within that 90 days of the end date of a work authorization. We really appreciate that. With that I know we're going to have a lot of questions on that, and so just keep submitting them in that Microsoft form that Jess Outhwaite has popped into the chat. We do want to answer your questions. We didn't want to get too far in the weeds today because, again, there's a lot of great work happening on all sides to work on this, but it will require a little more dedicated attention. So we really appreciate all of you. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 20 Get those questions in about invoicing and billing and managing open authorizations. And with that I'm going to kick it over to meeting our community partnerships team. And I'm so excited because we're going to kick off again with Michelle Basham. Michelle typically doesn't, you know, come speak a lot at our forums, and so this is a great opportunity today to hear from Michelle about who she is, what she was hired to do here at VRS and just a little bit more about her. So Michelle, you can take the first slide. Thank you. >> Michelle: It helps if I unmute myself. I am Michelle Basham. I'm the deputy director for operations and partnerships, so our fearless leader Dee Torgerson, after she was hired as the director, she did some thinking about how she thought she could best organize VRS for the future, and one of the keys to that was hiring two deputy directors, so Chris McVey, who spoke earlier, is our deputy director for field operations and services, and I'm the deputy director for operations of partnerships which includes contracts. And partnerships the CP team as well as our fiscal team, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 21 our research and evaluation team, communications, equity, IT, fleet management, emergency planning, lease negotiations across the state and MOU IFA negotiations. Most of my experience is in the non-profit sector more specifically with youth experiencing homelessness and sexual exploitation. I'm very, very passionate about that as well as helping people with disabilities. I have a law degree, a masters degree and completed a fellowship at the Humphrey Institute where I did my group work on women and people of color in political leadership. When I'm not at VRS serving as our deputy director, I'm a part-time law school professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and also very passionate about animal rescue. I'm looking around because right now we're fostering four baby kittens who are everywhere. They just started getting the run of the house last week, so if you see one of them running across the screen, I don't know what to tell you. That's just the way it is. They will be up for adoption in mid of June through Second Chance Animal Rescue. We are a no-kill all-volunteer organization. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 22 And that's a little bit about me. Thank you. >> Janeen: Good morning, everyone. Again, I'm Janeen Oien, and I'm currently serving as the interim director of our community partnerships team. That includes 7 people total, the professional technical program specialists. We also have grant specialists, which include our IPS specialist Claire Courtney, Brad Westerlund, does so many grants I can't even list them all. I'll let him tell you more later. And then Meghan Hanson, our new extended employment specialist. So seven members strong, fantastic community partnerships team that I'm really honored to get to have this opportunity to learn more about all of our work and help move it along during this time of transition. Otherwise I typically am a professional technical contract program specialist. I serve as a liaison between partners and VR staff, and I typically cover southern Minnesota kind of pairing up with Sara Sundeen to do that and then part of the metro. And then I know you've seen my face on these forums and my voice. You've also seen me cofacilitate some other meetings, CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 23 and I'm working on some work groups that will impact contracts and VR services as well. Prior to this most of my professional career has been in special education. I worked for a school district out in Oregon and also day treatment centers. Before I started at Oregon Department of Human Services vocational rehab services as support staff. In Oregon VRS gets housed under DHS, and then I moved here back home to Minnesota, and we are housed under the Department of Employment and Economic Development, and I worked in Brooklyn Park as a VR tech starting April 2016 so it's been seven years now. And then joined the community partnerships team as a program specialist in April of 2021. I currently live in Crystal, Minnesota. An extra bonus fun fact not on my slide. I live within three blocks of two of my sisters, so not quite a commune but we're adjacent to commune living because we are so handy to support each other and I absolutely love it. I also have two dogs that are awesome, and I currently still have my 17-year-old daughter living at home. I then have two adult children, and every grandparent says this, but I might have the world's most awesome CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 24 granddaughter. She's a fantastic little human, and I absolutely adore here. One fun fact. I love living in the city, I love living in the metro, I love that emergency, but I actually grew up way out on the prairies of rural southwestern Minnesota on a dairy farm, a family farm, and I still occasionally go help my brother luckily just driving tractors and combine and grain truck. No more milking cows. So the scars of my teen years of getting up before 5 a.m. before high school to do that have slowly faded. That's a little bit about me and I'm going to pass it off next to Anne Paulson I believe. >> I think it's actually me. I think I'm the next one. >> Janeen: Oh, Jess, Jess Outhwaite. Sorry, I forgot my order. >> Jess: I was ready and waiting in the wings. Good morning, everyone. I'm Jess Outhwaite, and I am a PT program specialist with our community partnerships team, so I support both our community partners and our VR staff across the state. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 25 I work mainly with partners from northern Minnesota as well as the metro. I work collaboratively with community partners to ensure quantity services are provided within the guidelines of the PT contracts and then continued support and training throughout their contract. With VRS staff I work to support working relationships and training regarding partners and their contracts. I'm currently working on the Workforce One partner access. I would like to say pilot, but we're at the point of rolling now, so it's been slow going but it's happening. So I've been a huge part of that from the beginning. Anybody who has been around for a couple years. Sherry Hendrickson, originally started with Laura Cheney and Sherry has since left our team me and left me, Laura and Janeen to keep it going strong so we're moving with that. And I'm also working on developing a programmatic contract review process. We know we have CARF that reviews our CRPs, but we've also been charged with figuring out a way that we're going to continue to monitor contracts for our LUBs as well, so we're working on getting that moving. I live in rural central Minnesota, so the rest of my CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 26 team is all metro based, but I'm out kind of in the middle of nowhere. I'm closest to Rockville, Minnesota, but most people don't know where Rockville is. Colds Spring would be kind of the next closest. We are also animal lovers. We have a dog, a lizard, six cats, two goats and 13 ducks. And when I'm not hanging out with my big ole zoo on the home, I'm usually at a swim meet. So both of my kids swim competitively and we go to a lot of swim meets and enjoy our team cheering on our kiddos. Prior to coming to VRS I worked for one of our central Minnesota community partners, and I joined VRS as a counselor, a VR counselor in 2013, so I have ten years under my belt with VRS and this point, and then I moved to the community partnerships teams about two years ago. And my fun fact, I had a hard time coming up with a fun fact. I think most people already know, but I'm kind of obsessed with the color purple. This winter I had a purple winter jacket. I usually rock a purple purse, and I often have purple sunglasses. So I looked a little ridiculous I realized, and then I CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 27 got a black coat closer to the end of the season. Because I just can't help myself, I see these beautiful purple things, and I'm like, oh, I love that, and I then realize when I put them all on that I might look a little bit ridiculous, so I really love the color purple. And I believe I pass it off to Anne Paulson. >> Anne: Hello. Anne Paulson. Thank you, Jess. So I have been with the state of Minnesota as my employer for 20 years this month, which is kind of wild. 15 of those years I've been doing this work as a community partner program specialist. 12 -- for 12 of those years I did it by myself, which is a little wild when I look back at how much work we have done throughout the state of Minnesota. The last three years we had the privilege of hiring on Sara and then Jess and Janeen to help out, so I now concentrate my work in the metro and then part of the north. I really team a lot closer with Jess but of course work with anybody anywhere anytime. I think I've just gotten used to that. Right now we are looking at posting our RFP. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 28 Over the last 15 years we've been able to keep it open, and now we've gotten some guidance -- I don't like the word "gotten" -- we received some guidance that we should be taking it down and reopening it up at different points in time, so that should be available pretty soon, shortly, hopefully today. Otherwise professional background, like I said, I worked for DEED for 20 years. Prior to living in Minnesota, I worked in Colorado. I've worked in Wisconsin just doing a lot of variety of different work that I've enjoyed. Right now I live in St. Paul. I just really enjoy the seasons. I bought a small house which honestly is kind of a hobby in and of itself. You're always doing something or have plans to do something, and I have two cats and a dog. I really want to get chickens this year. I'm kind of scared but I'm really interested in it. The neighborhood I live in has a lot of -- it's a very active neighborhood that I really enjoy. Some of my neighbors have chickens so right now I just kind of walk by and ask them some questions and talk to them a little bit more about it. Otherwise I feel like I really am excited about this CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 29 next period of time with VRS. We just have a lot of great staff on board, our partner staff. I've really enjoyed working real closely with and watching them grow and expand. It's really been an interesting time, and coming out of the pandemic I feel like we're still all getting back to some basics just getting to know each other again and what we're doing and try to support the system. With that I believe it's Sara who's next. >> Sara: Hello, everyone. I'm Sara Sundeen, and like Janeen and Jess and Anne, I'm a program specialist on community partnerships team. Some of the projects that I work on specifically is helping to cofacilitate the metro Pre-ETS community of practice and our community partner conversations. I went to UW-Madison, and I'm over 20 years in the field. I've worked both on the provider and the state side, so kind of a fun position that marries all of my work experience to serve as a liaison between both our contracted partners and our VR staff. I started as a counselor in the north, the northeast Minneapolis offices, and I worked there a couple years, and then I did a short stint with the staff development CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 30 team helping to implement person-centered practices across the state of Minnesota, and I've been a contract specialist since May of 2020. I switched over during COVID, and it's been really fun. So in addition I live in Robbinsdale. I don't have any pets. I'm allergic to a lot of animals unfortunately. I wrote I have two children, but my son just graduated high school yesterday, so maybe I should say I have a child and an adult now. Kind of a weird transition but it's super exciting. He's going to be going down to Iowa State University in the fall, so very happy for him. I enjoy gardening and reading. I cheer on my kids at a lot of sporting events unlike Jess who sits at a pool with flip-flops and tank top. My kids are runners and Nordic skiers so I spend a lot of time bundled up when we have like negative 20 below wind chill but it's still fun. I love to travel. I love being creative and doing a lot of different creative craft projects and baking. So my fun fact is that traveling is one of my favorite things, and so I have a lot of travel things in my bucket list. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 31 But one of them is going to be as a spectator only going to the Olympic Games. Right now our plan is to go to LA in 2028. I'm really excited about the idea of being a spectator in 2028. So I will pass mine on to Claire Courtney. >> Janeen: And I am actually going to share for Claire because as usual she is on the road doing some IPS fidelity reviews. She's a busy, busy lady. She covers just so many things, so I'm really excited today to tell you more about what she does. Claire Courtney is our IPS program specialist and also the behavioral health specialist for VRS. She does a lot of training and technical assistance to VR staff who serve persons with serious mental illnesses. She's the contract manager for individual placement and support state grant programs. She leads that state team and she is the lead reviewer for all fidelity reviews, hence being on the road fairly often now that we have opened up more since the pandemic. She develops and provides training and technical assistance to IPS programs and partners including those CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 32 mental health treatment providers and VR staff members. She does the legislative reports and is the liaison to the international IPS learning community. Such a busy woman, such an accomplished woman so we are very lucky to have her. You can read more about everything that she reps our agency on, a lot of councils. She does a lot of guidance around evidence-based practices for employment services to people with serious mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders. And just, yeah, does so much for all of us. She's also a CARF surveyor and provides training and technical assistance on that, so she's been invaluable to our professional technical contract team as we assist partners with looking into CARF. So Claire Courtney is amazing. And if that's not all enough like if you're just not tired enough after reading through her list of what she does in a day, she also does Bavarian or German folk dancing. She has the full costumes. She and her husband and two adult sons they go to all sorts of fun events in the Midwest but she also just got back from Germany where they were at a large folk dance festival. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 33 So she is an amazingly accomplished person, and again she's a great asset to our whole team. She makes the rest of us feel a little tired I believe, but that's what's fantastic about the work she does and the passion she truly has for supporting individuals who are experiencing serious mental illness. With that I want to hand it over to another fantastic member of our team, Brad Westerlund. >> Brad: Good morning, everybody. My name is Brad Westerlund. I'm also a program specialist within our community partnerships team. I have worked for the state for I think it's been over 25 years now, 20 of them working primarily managing grants for VRS which include grants to our centers for independent living, to our deaf and hard-of-hearing programs as well as extended employment providers statewide. I also -- Minnesota also serves as a liaison to the federal government, the administration on community living, which was our federal funder for independent living services and programs, and so we have fiduciary as well as programmatic compliance responsibilities for those programs and services and for the eight centers for independent living within Minnesota. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 34 I also serve as ex officio member to the governor-appointed council, statewide independent living council which is very similar to the SRC or the State Rehabilitation Council. One of the differences is that they receive direct funding for the services and the responsibilities they have, one of which is to develop and implement the state plan for independent living, which is essentially kind of a map of or a blueprint of how independent living services are structured within the state. I reside in the north metro. I have a wife. I have a 13-year-old daughter, and I have twin 10-year-old boys, coming up next week they will be 10. So very busy. We play a lot of hockey, all of us do as well as lacrosse, so there's not a whole lot of free time, but in my free time I enjoy golf, tennis and fishing probably the most. Nice to see you guys. >> Janeen: I'm going to ask Meghan Hanson now to come off mute. She is our brand-new extended employment specialist but not brand-new to extended employment, and we are so excited to have her join. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 35 Thanks Meghan. >> Meghan: Hi, thank you. Hello, everybody. I'm very excited to be here. As Janeen said, I'm the new program extended employment specialist, and I have worked in non-profits for about 20 plus years, 15 of that in one of my former providers I was part of the EE program. I provided direct services and then for about 8 years managed the program in one capacity or another, so it's a program I feel very passionate about and very excited to be involved with again. I currently am living in Monticello. I have three boys. I have twin 7-year-olds and a 9-year-old, and we have our dog that's like the center of our world right now. And then for anybody that knows me knows that my boys live and breathe motocross so right now we're spending all of our weekends at race tracks and camping and just kind of doing all things related to dirt bikes. When I'm not doing that, I actually prefer to be on the lake reading a book or just, you know, attending live music events and different things like that being outside. My fun fact, and I had a hard time coming up with this CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 36 that didn't relate to dirt bikes, but I love trivia, and so I really enjoy music trivia, and I used to be a trivia DJ at a local place here in town. So that's just something I like to do in my spare time that I don't get to do much of right now. So I'm very excited to be here, so thank you. I've had a very warm welcome. It's been very fun. >> Janeen: I'm just going to pass it directly, Anne, to you then. Again we ask folks to keep sending in your questions, and Anne will moderate this portion of the meeting. Thank you, Anne. >> Anne: Of course, of course. And I am going to be reading questions to the group here. I will answer as much as possible, and the team can chime in at any point to help out. The first set of questions I'm going to review are the legislative updates. One, let's see, when our new providers -- when can new providers apply to become LUV with VRS? Many providers are into sub minimum wage and want to become dually enrolled and are asking when this process will open up again. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 37 That is my responsibility, and I can tell you I'm working hard on it. It should happen I continue to say shortly. I can't give you an exact timeline but very quickly. The last pieces have been nailed down to get the final approval to get it posted, and we'll be back in business to start processing applications again and start looking at bringing new providers into the system. And you can reach out to me personally if you want to make sure that anybody is on one of our list serves to make sure they understand that that's available. Once again, we were asked by other organizations that are responsible such as fiscal and the office of procurement to not let it sit open for five years like we have done historically, so we will be taking it down again so it's important to look at the end dates if you know of any other organizations that want to apply, and then we will be reopening it up again of course for 2024 at some point. And back to some legislative updates. With IPS funding increased, how does the county obtain those services within VRS? And then there was also a general question about helping to support funding in the future for VRS I believe. Is there anybody who is willing to -- okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 38 >> Janeen: So I -- this is Janeen again. Regarding how the county accesses the funds, I think that is a question we need to put to Claire Courtney. So we will research that and get that included in some fashion with our transcript or that type of thing when we get everything posted to the community partner website, so we'll clarify that. I do believe the current IPS contracts that went out were reflective of the anticipated increase, so I don't know that there's any huge changes, but, again, I'll have Claire Courtney -- if you left your contact information with the question, I appreciate it. If not, you can also resubmit that, but we will somehow post the answer to that to make that available. And then, what was -- I'm sorry, what was the other question, Anne? Oh, how to help advocate for IPS. Again, that's a great Claire Courtney question, and I apologize she's not here today, but I know there are several legislative action groups around supporting mental illness services in Minnesota. You can check out Claire's slide in the presentation because I do believe she had a lot of those organizations listed. And she does send out to our IPS providers constant CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 39 updates on ways that everyone can network and support and advocate at the capitol for better funding. Thanks, Anne. >> Anne: All right. Thank you. One more quick little -- not little. Quick question about IPS that we know will belong with Claire's, just that someone indicated they're interested in what opportunities there are for IPS training and how to become an IPS provider. So once again, that sounds like a question that we can get to Claire. >> Janeen: Yeah, and I'm going to have Jess pop in the chat, if you don't mind, Jess, Claire Courtney's e-mail address. Again, I know she shared it on her slide, but we're going to put that in the chat now too because again some of these questions in process, you know, she has brought me alongside her in the funding and the contracts, and that's what I'm supporting as a director, but, again, she's just kind of the guru on all the technical details of how IPS programs work, and that's not necessarily something I want to take a stab at without her support, so I appreciate if you just e-mail her directly as well with some of these questions. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 40 That will be really helpful. Thank you. >> Anne: Great. Thank you. I am going to move to some other questions regarding the legalization of marijuana. So there's a little confusion about DEED's relationship with legalized marijuana. There's an organization that's been promoting it during the legislative process, yet due to federal limitations we don't seem to be embracing it as a potential workplace for our participants. I know you explained that a bit on the slide, but if there's any other further information that could be provided, that would be helpful. >> Janeen: Yeah. Oh, sorry, go ahead, Anne. More to those questions? >> Anne: No, no, you can go for it. >> Janeen: Okay. So, again, the distinction is that the state of Minnesota overall, state agencies and in particular the Department of Employment and Economic Development absolutely was supportive of this legalization of recreational use for adult cannabis, and they have the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 41 funding and the ability to support this new industry, and that's through those three programs that will be posted again on the DEED grants and contracts opportunities. There will be just so much more communication coming out about that. Specifically in our federal grant, which is our primary source of funding, if you look at the last slide on today's presentation, we always share a breakdown of where we get our funding from, but they are our primary funding. And in there they specifically state that we cannot use any portion of our funding, again, what we get from the state is considered a match to allow for that federal grant, so it really all complies heavily on our federal regulation, and we specifically state within our federal grant guidelines that we cannot support anything that is illegal at a federal level. So Minnesota as a state has made adult cannabis legal. That's great. And again the expungement is going to be so impactful on the individuals we serve, and I think all of us are happy to see that, and we can certainly talk about some technical assistance maybe moving forward on, you know, supporting individuals to work through that expungement CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 42 process. But when it comes to actually using VRS dollars on an employment plan to get services that support an individual either in a placement for work or a small business plan, we are prohibited from spending any of our funding on that. It's really going to take getting adult cannabis recreational use legal at a federal level before this industry opens up for VR participants in particular. Again, there might be other employment services, programs through DEED that also have federal funding. They'll probably be putting out similar messaging. It's a weird situation when you're in a state that's legal but you're receiving federal funding, and VRS is heavily reliant on existing because of federal funding, so we have to follow federal guidelines with our funding. >> Anne: Great. All right. Thank you, Janeen. There's just one other -- I'm going to read the question, but I know that you answered it. I just want to make sure people are heard. So can we support a job placement when a job seeker wants to work in a retail job that is hired at a CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 43 dispensary such as a cashier or merchandiser. We know that we cannot support small businesses related to cannabis work. At this point it sounds like the answer is no, we cannot support an individual to be working in a retail shop. >> Janeen: Correct. If it is a THC or cannabis dispensary the answer is no. If it's a CBD only dispensary, those are legal at the federal level, but again those are already present in Minnesota, and so not any great news there. >> Anne: There's more questions coming in about the legalization of marijuana. Does the restriction on supporting employment related to cannabis extend to the Minnesota medical cannabis program given it's a state administered program. Probably something we don't know a ton about. >> Janeen: That is an interesting question. You would assume similar restrictions apply. It doesn't matter if the state runs a medical dispensary. It is also I believe illegal for medical purposes at the federal level, but that's something we can research and get you more clarification on. >> Anne: Yes, yes, that's great. There are more questions coming in. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 44 Lots of interest. Do you anticipate the federal law will change in the near future? 23 states and counting so far. I think that's probably something we can't really predict. We'll just keep a close eye on what's happening. >> Janeen: Absolutely, Anne, thank you. >> Anne: Can you discuss CanStartup or CanTrain and CanNavigate funding program more. I personally have no information to provide on that. I feel like I watched it unfold a bit, and now that they went ahead and passed it, there's a lot of stuff we need to learn. I don't know, Janeen, if you have any information on CanStartup, CanTrain or CanNavigate funding. >> Janeen: What we would have is very limited at this time because, again, DEED has received the appropriation. Now they have to develop the mechanism and the team that will work in this area, so I think we are in very early days. They have put out a proposal of how they will use that money. The training obviously will be related to that workforce CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 45 development, and then some of that other funding goes to startup and technical assistance. So I think we need to give it a little bit, and as we get updates from DEED, we will pass those on to our communities partners and VR staff as much as possible because, again, that might be not so much relevant to the individuals we're serving but just an overall knowledge base of the market and labor information out there and just options for folks who maybe decide, okay, if I can't do a small business through VR, maybe there's a way I can get support through DEED, etc., and that sort of thing. So we can certainly share that as like helpful community service information, but it's not going to be very relevant to what we're able to do within our employment plans here at VRS. >> Anne: Thank you. There's a couple more questions coming in. I think that it might be helpful for us to look at these as a team outside of this meeting and wrap those up because we have a half hour and many other questions regarding some authorizations and some budget information. So regarding open encumbrances, it's my understanding that vendors have 90 days to invoice after the CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 46 authorization is ended but VRS is asked to close after only 60 days. These dates should align so parties are on the same page. And I think that's wonderful feedback and something we should consider. Thank you. >> Janeen: Yeah, and just a reminder polling the open 60-day report for vocational rehab services is because vocational rehab staff have an obligation to continuously monitor where they're at in terms of spending money on individuals that we serve. So again if you know before 90 days after the end date of an authorization that the community partner has done a great job saying, hey, we sent you our last invoice, we're not going to use the last ten hours of job coaching on this authorization, clean those up, right? Like keep on top of that. So the idea honestly, 30-day reports are fine. You know, that 60 days is thrown out as a generous like hey, staff, we know you don't always have the time to do this, but at least check your 60-day report. But ideally if you check your 30 days report and just kind of keep communicating with community partners, that makes a great different. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 47 And Chris, I saw you come up and off -- back on camera, so I'm going to let you speak more to this. >> Chris: Yeah, so I'm really just backing on what you just said, Janeen. So we get -- we have the opportunity at VRS to take a look at the number of days since an authorization was encumbered, and so we're not saying an authorization has to be canceled within 60 days, no. But we are looking at, as Janeen is saying, 30 days, 45 days, 60 days, and it's really just a way to connect our staff, counselors, VR techs in each office, managers to say, okay, well, this authorization is 60 days old. So where is this at? Have you had communication with the provider? Have they invoiced us yet? So for me it's not a matter of 60 days and 90 days. The provider has the 90 days to invoice. It's on your contract. For our staff we're asking them to be looking regularly at their authorizations and taking a look and considering which can be canceled. There's not like a max end date that we're holding our staff to, so it's really that close connection to services provided, are they being invoiced, if not, why not and then if they can be canceled, cancel those CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 48 authorizations that are just sitting out there. Thanks. >> Anne: Thank you, Chris. To continue on the authorizations, what is the best way to go about getting a report of open authorizations and have you considered a cost/benefit of creating operations that separate services and have a shorter timeline, one month question mark. The best way to go about getting a report of open authorizations, we have had some discussion with our field operations specialist and our Workforce One system. We can access reports. There was a time period when that was a little bit more challenging. There was a time period when we were also posting all of the authorizations and services as a wrap-up for our partners on our external website, and we don't have the capacity to do that anymore. So I think there's a couple ways. One is whether you feel comfortable contacting your local office. You can also contact your CP liaison, and we can work on that information for you. Is there anything else I'm missing on that? CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 49 >> Janeen: I would just add, yes, just to clarify for VRS staff internally, you can run an open authorizations or an authorizations masters report and really set some specific parameters for dates and information for each of our community rehab partners. That report is found in the reports portal, and, again, check with your FOS, your field operation specialist if you're not sure how to do that and they are ready to go helping, so thank you. >> Anne: Yes, thank you, Janeen. I'm going to move on here. Can you please address gaps in authorizations. What can VRS do to ensure there are no gaps between year end, fiscal year end, quarter end, etc., and the start of new authorizations. For example, as June 30 comes, what is VRS doing to ensure that authorizations are dated July 1 and not Monday the 3rd? CRPs know that we need to continue supporting and providing services on the weekends too, so they're just -- it sounds like some -- it says that authorizations are being done. >> Janeen: Again -- I'm so sorry, Anne. I didn't mean to cut you off. Again Chris McVey can certainly weigh in on this as CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 50 well, but what I would say again if VRS staff are monitoring their 30 days or 60 day reports, you can again pull a full report as a VRS staff and kind of go through and work together as a team. This is really where there should be strong communication and collaboration between everyone. As community partners, you know, please feel free to think about who do I need these authorizations for July 1 and send out some helpful reminders to the offices that you're working with. But then on our side again, too, it's kind of an ongoing review process that the vocational rehab counselors or reps and our support staff should be collaborating two weeks or so before the end of the year, possibly sooner looking over all the open authorizations for their caseload and thinking about who is going to need those authorizations. We do around fiscal years always have a weird thing where our budgets load kind of at the last minute. Sometimes it's a matter of we are willing and ready and we know what we're going to put in. We're just waiting to hear from fiscal that the actual money has been loaded and is ready for the new fiscal year for us to create those authorizations ahead of July 1. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 51 So it's not an issue, you know, that -- it's not an issue of, oh, they could be doing it now and they're not. It's a matter of we typically don't get the funding until just a few days before the end of the fiscal year, but having all the information and being ready to go makes it a smoother process. So great communication all around and keeping that on our minds as VR to start that process several weeks ahead of the fiscal year is fantastic. Thank you. >> Anne: Thank you. Got a couple more questions. Once again, if you want to obtain a partner report on open authorizations, if you have a great working relationship with a field office and they're willing to do that, can you also contact us, your liaisons, and we can help out with that as well. And staff will be reminded to be sure to check those authorizations. This is interesting. Is there any discussion of increasing Pre-ETS funding for providers? There are a few providers who are moving away from Pre-ETS due to authorized amounts. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 52 I have not -- I have yet to hear feedback about rates or what's being authorized so much with Pre-ETS. I don't have a really great touch point on that. I know after we get this RFP published after the new director is hired on, there will be a lot more concerted efforts looking at services and rates, and that will include both our partners and our staff, so we are very -- it's going to be a great time to have this team available to help support those processes, but I don't have much to offer in terms of what I see right now. >> Janeen: Anne, this is Janeen. I'm just going to add I'm curious if the question relates to maybe there's only 20 hours allowed to support a work experience, that type of thing. So Chris, again, I welcome you to come off mute if you want to share anything about that. I don't believe there's work in process to reconsider those hours. They were just recently -- >> Anne: The hourly rates. >> Janeen: I'm looking at you like this was my -- For example, we just had a contracting cycle where everyone got to set new rates, but if this is related to how many hours you're getting to serve students if there's strict guidance around like say work CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 53 experiences, I'll let Chris speak to that. If it's a concern that I'm not getting enough hours to support the student through some other type of hourly service, that can be a question with the voc rehab professional or perhaps their manager or RAM about if there's a conflict of understanding of what it's going to take to support a student. But at this time, Chris, if you want to speak about the work experience hours or any concerns there or thoughts. >> Chris: Yeah, it would be helpful to know some specifics from the question, so if that person would be able to reach out to the CP team and give us some specifics around that. I am encouraged that, you know, our providers did have the opportunity to indicate the hourly rate that they were seeking to be paid for delivering services including Pre-ETS. I do agree, Janeen, that as a new CP director comes on board that there will be opportunities to take a look at, you know, what we fund for services and be able to take a fresh look at that. I know that we are encouraging our own VRS staff, especially those that are serving students, to provide, you know, and work with communities partners on those paid work experiences. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 54 And so in my mind I don't see that we've got the limitations, but it would be helpful to know a little bit more about what that person is talking about. Thanks. >> Anne: Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry, I'm moving between screens, so sometimes I'm not getting the visual cues of when it's time to move to the next question. But once again, please reach out to your specialist. There's four of us. We can help at least ensure that you're being heard properly, and then we can have those questions and information available. Okay. So future, what -- we want to talk a little bit about the future, if there's going to be an update on contract changes, update on when our -- how you'll be responding to requests for increase in PBA rates. >> Janeen: That's a great question, Anne, and thank you. I could tell you kind of paused and looked at me, so I'm assuming I got that right over Zoom. So we have talked extensively about a contracted services work group. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 55 This is a work group that would be led by the professional technical contracting team, but it would really include individuals across VRS and then also extensive feedback opportunities from our community partners to look at what are the definitions of each contracted service, are there ways we can redefine or add new services, remove unnecessary services, that type of thing and then also rate setting, so that would be really key to those increases, looking at what other state VR agencies are doing and following some of our technical assistance that we receive from our federal funder. Our professional technical team had the amazing -- I think Anne said it was the first time in her experience of 15 years opportunity to just go to a national conference, CSAVR out in Washington, D.C., where a lot of our federal grant funding guidelines were discussed, so we just came back with just a wealth of new information that will also be really helpful to these conversations. That being said, I am the interim director of community partnerships, and so even though the ground work has been laid, the research has been done, we've got kind of a template of what we're going to do, this is something that really needs to be led by and spearheaded by a CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 56 permanent community partnerships director. So just unfortunately based on this transition time, we are going to be pausing our rollout and our moving forward of that work group, but that's where the PBA is going to be extensively looked at. Again, you have been well heard, and we take very seriously that rates have not been reviewed in a very long time. It's not keeping up at all, and we understand that. So we are going to continue to really take an in-depth look at what's included under PBA, what's required of the providers that we contract with, and then also what are the rates going to be for that moving forward. This will be a continuous process, so it's not the last time PBA will get talked about. Two to three years later it will PBA time again. Because that's the idea is that we want to always be improving and responsive and relevant to what's actually helping and happening in our service community. So that's the concept. That's the plan for that work group, but it is something that given the scope of it need to be shelved until we have a permanent director. I appreciate your patience, though. I understand it's been some time, and we've been getting CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 57 feedback ever since I joined this team, so I'm sure longer than that, so we totally understand that it's yet another delay, but thank you. >> Anne: Yes, thank you. We had one other question just pop in, a point of clarification with the invoices after 90 days. So if we receive an invoice after 90 days, we know the services have been provided, and we do not pay the invoice, correct? Once again, the guidance that we're giving is based off of 90 days after that authorization ends so that's another date to consider. The services may have ended within, you know, a week or two before that authorization has ended. Just want to take a look at that authorization end date, and then we ask the partner to invoice us within 90 days of that, the invoice and reporting process. >> Janeen: As far as -- Anne, I'll share just as far as the hard line on that, I think it's always helpful to just discuss with your RAM or as a team, but the contract language is very clear, and we just want to be clear to the entire group here today that that is the contract language is that there is kind of that hard stop on billing on undisputed invoice and report. Again, VRS staff, make sure you restart the clock when CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 58 we finally get the undisputed invoice in kind of in your mind. But it's just important to get that all handled and done and going 90 days -- within 90 days after the end date of a work authorization. >> Anne: And we know that contract is dense. There's a lot of information in the contract. That 90-day piece has been in all of our contracts since 2012, so it's nothing new. It's just something to revisit as we're getting back to business. I feel like we got a lot of new partners on board and a lot of new staff, and so we're really trying to help the system continue to move forward with as little bumps as possible. [No audio] >> Anne, you're muted. >> Anne: Sorry, I couldn't see myself. I was looking at the questions and talking about them. There's one other quick question about if a VRS staff member worked -- if a VRS staff member worked at a cannabis industry job for a second job, would we be looked down upon or penalized in any way for that? I don't know how to answer that. >> Janeen: That seems like a question that even goes CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 59 beyond the scope of our deputy directors, although either one of you are very welcome to respond. I think that is a question for DEED HR, but if you're concerned about your internal prospects within vocational rehab services, maybe, Chris, I don't know if you even want to take a stab at that. >> Chris: I think what I would say is it comes down to personal choice. You know, we are person-centered at DEED VRS, and certainly I'm hoping and believing that our community partners are as well. So an individual that we're serving and supporting who is very adamant about like, hey, I want to be in the cannabis industry, I want to -- the bottom line is VRS can't support that goal or the services that lead to a person becoming employed and maintaining employment. But we're not in control of a decision someone makes about where they want to work. They could be in a PBA, and they may be at that -- they accept that position. Honestly they -- that person has the right and the ability to work where they want to work. VRS cannot -- we would not be able to take a successful placement on that and say at 6 months post and 12 months post they're still working in the cannabis industry. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 60 We can't take the success on that. We can't take that outcome. And I think it does get down to, you know, we'll have some more conversation about, you know, whether we're able to make milestone payments on that. If someone knows from the get go that they want to work in the cannabis industry, our VRS counselors need to be able to talk to that person and let them know our limits. We cannot endorse that. We're in a strange situation with the differences between federal funding and state funding and what's legal in Minnesota is not legal at the federal level. So it's not that we would be looking down on our VRS counselor or our community partner staff if a person takes a job in the cannabis industry. It boils down to what the VRS program can take as a successful outcome and also what we're able to pay that provider. So we'll have more conversation as this comes about, but certainly at the outset if we have someone who is saying they want to work in the cannabis industry, we would be saying that we're not able to support that goal, and hopefully that would lead that person to access resources in other places. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 61 >> Janeen: And Chris, I just want to clarify. I might have misinterpreted the question, but what I'm hearing is that it may be a potentially be a vocational rehab staff person saying, you know, based on the cost of living I have a second job. Is there a conflict of interest or is there some sort of like prejudice that will occur because my second job, my evening or weekend job is in the adult cannabis industry. >> Chris: Okay. So this is something I would say that it's been legalized in Minnesota. What you do outside of your work life in your role, if it's working in the cannabis industry, you know, I -- my first take on it is that it's not going to have a negative impact. It is something that the executive leadership team, myself and Michelle, we'll have some conversation with Michelle Basham and we'll look to bring it to an upcoming VRS all staff connections meeting. So thank you. >> Anne: Thank you both. I am just going to make sure everybody gets any questions here. I notice -- okay. CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 62 All right. So there is some -- another question that came in. Just seemed to notice that not all providers are on this meeting. We just want to make sure that this information about the 90 days in the contract is -- make sure everybody knows about it, and we will do that. We will look at different ways of making sure that's communicated, that 90-day period is in their contracts. >> Janeen: Within all the slides, the entire presentation, and most of the meeting that I remembered to record will be posted on our external community partner website. I encourage both vocational rehab staff and teams to have these conversations about what was communicated today from Chris McVey, and then we as community partner liaisons will also make sure that this updated information gets sent out in a communication. Again, it's not new. It's just highlighting the existing responsibilities, roles and contract language, so this -- everything -- I always encourage folks both internal and external to reach out to the community partners external website. We post a lot of great trainings and resources, contracted service definitions, all of that type of CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 63 thing. It's good for all of us to be checking that out, but we will make sure that that gets out. >> Anne: Thank you. That seems to be all of our questions. Do one more glance here. Yes, that is it. >> Jess: Anne, we actually just had one pop in, and I haven't been able to get it over to you quite yet, so I'll read it really quickly. Are there still plans for providers to move to using Workforce One to submit invoices and reports? Yes, I'm part of the Workforce One access partnership work group, and yes, that is a plan. Janeen, can I do a quick plug for our community partners conversations? So tomorrow at -- we're at 8:30 I believe, tomorrow we have our community partners conversation, which is our open office hour only for community partners. This is our way that we get to communicate with VRS staff and with community partners, but our office hours are only for community partners, and we will actually be discussing Workforce One access for community partners. So if you're available tomorrow and maybe one of my teams can look up the registration information or we can CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 64 get it out to partners, but I encourage you to join. There will be lots more information tomorrow. >> Janeen: Fantastic, Jess. I'm glad you -- I mean for anyone who was not visibly able to see me, I did a little happy dance when Jess offered to plug that information, so thank you. Okay. I'm going to wrap it up. I've been talking a lot, but I just really appreciated everyone that could be here today. Again, for just being a quick, you know, June meeting with some lighter topics like getting to meet all of your community partnership program specialists today and that type of thing, we definitely covered some pretty weighty topics. I think there's going to be some serious impacts mostly positive, which is nice, from the most recent legislative session, and just also too again a great refresher on how important it is that we're really partnering together on our budgets, those work authorizations making sure they're accurate, timely and then timely invoiced and billed. So I have really appreciated the discussion today. I've appreciated the thoughtful questions. We will be posting this recording and the closed CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 65 captioning transcript. Unfortunately, they're no longer merged through YouTube. We don't have access currently to doing that, but we will be posting our Zoom recording and then the separate transcript to our community partners website within a few days, and, again, I just really encourage all of you to continue to reach out to the community partnerships team, your team RAMs within vocational rehab services and our deputy directors, Michelle Basham and Chris McVey, although they may kick your questions back to other folks, they definitely -- you know, we all want to keep a pulse on what's happening, you know, how are these questions playing out for each of you every day as you serve individuals in Minnesota who experience disability. So thank you to everyone and have a great rest of your day. Take care. [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 CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT 66 facilitate communication accessibility, and this lightly edited CART file 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. This text may also contain phonetic attempts at sounds and words that were spoken and environmental sounds that occurred during the event.] CART captioning file NOT A CERTIFIED TRANSCRIPT