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COMMISSION FOR REHABILITATION SERVICES Commissioners Theresa Flannery, Wes Hilliard and Jace Wolfe Regular Meeting June 14, 2021 3535 NW 58th Street OKC, OK Empowering Oklahomans with Disabilities State of Oklahoma Commission for Rehabilitation Services June 14, 2021 10:30 a.m. Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services 3535 NW 58th Street 2nd floor Conference room Oklahoma City, OK 73112 Wes Hilliard, Commission Chair Theresa Flannery, Commission Vice-chair Jace Wolfe, Commission Member 1. Call to Order and Roll Call Wes Hilliard, Chair 2. Statement of Compliance with Open Meeting Commission Assistant Act 3 Public Comments. (Under Oklahoma Open Public Audience Meeting Laws, the Oklahoma Commission for Rehabilitation Services cannot respond to or discuss any public comment not on today’s agenda.) REPORTS PAGE # 4. Presentation of Longevity Certificates Wes Hilliard Chair 5. Presentation of Certificates of Appreciation. Melinda Fruendt Executive Director 6. Executive Director’s report with possible Melinda Fruendt 2 Commission discussion. The report includes Executive Director Executive Director’s participation in meetings; submission of the RSA-911 PY 2020-Q3 report; updates on Process Improvement including AWARE, Case Review and Program Standards. Her report includes the current Legislation Report. 7. Priority Group Updates with possible Tracy Brigham Commission discussion. Report includes status Administrator of of all Priority Groups I, II and III. Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired 8. Financial report with possible Commission Kevin Statham 11 discussion, FY 2021 as of April 30, 2021. Chief Financial Officer 9. Personnel Activity report with possible Tom Patt 19 Commission discussion, as of May 31, 2021. The Director activity report has current FTE status. Human Resource 10. Vocational Rehabilitation Services Report with Mark Kinnison 26 possible Commission discussion. This report Administrator includes a report on Transition Services by Vocational Renee Briscoe, the Manager. The report also Rehabilitation includes updates on the Business services Team; services provided by VR Staff; relocation of some offices; audit with SSA; division statistics; and Assistive Technology. 11. Oklahoma School for the Deaf report with Chris Dvorak 29 possible Commission discussion. The report will Superintendent include information on deaf teacher certification; retirements at the school; Robotics Champions; work with Policy Development and Program Standards Division; OSD Foundation Golf Tournament; Staff awards; end of year events and summer camp. ACTION ITEMS 12. Review and discussion with possible vote for Wes Hilliard 32 approval of the May 10, 2021 Commission for Chair Rehabilitation Services regular meeting minutes. 13. Review and discussion with possible vote for Kevin Statham 37 approval for FY2022 Expenditure Limits and FTE Chief Financial Budgetary Limit and FY2023 – FY 2030 Capital Officer Outlay Requests. 14. Review and discussion with possible vote for Rita Echelle 48 approval of the April 2021 donations to the Superintendent Oklahoma School for the Blind. 15. New Business (“Any matter not known about or Wes Hilliard which could not have been reasonably foreseen Chair prior to the time of posting.” 25 O.S. § 311). 16. Announcements Wes Hilliard Next Meeting: Chair June 14, 2021 at 10:30 3535 NW 58th Street 2nd Floor Oklahoma City, OK 73112 This will be an in-person meeting 17. Adjournment Wes Hilliard Chair Page 1 Oklahoma Department of Rehabilitation Services EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REPORT June 14, 2021 Executive May 11 - ASPIRE meeting. May 17 – DRS Executive Team meeting; the week of May 17 – CFO hosted Budget Appropriations meetings with division administrators and superintendents. May 19 – OSD Graduation. May 20 – OSB Graduation. May 21 – Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth (OCCY) meeting; Workforce System Oversight Committee meeting. May 24 – 31 – Director on Annual Leave. June 2 – Quarterly Assistive Technology/Accessible and Educational Materials meeting. June 8 – Cabinet Secretary Workforce Technology meeting. June 9 – Hosted the Special Populations Committee meeting of The Force. June 10 – WIOA Core Partners meeting. Process Improvement – Lyuda Polyun Federal Reporting RSA-911 PY 2020-Q3 was submitted before May 15th deadline. AWARE The AWARE Team finished data error corrections for the RSA-911 PY 2020-Q3 report and it was submitted this month. Conducted an Attachment Q&A follow up training and developed an Attachment Guide to assist field staff. In the process of forming an advisory group to consider suggested refinements to the Attachment protocol, to help streamline the process going forward now that the Knowledgelake migration is complete. Continue to work with the Training Unit to develop new training materials for use when we become hosted by Alliance, which will be in the near future. Page 2 Case Review The QA team is currently working on the May audit. 306 cases qualified for auditing, 239 were closed unsuccessfully, and 67 were closed rehabilitated. The quarterly FC/QA meeting was held on 5.19.21. Jonathan Cook was also in attendance to inform the QA team of how training was being conducted to address audit findings. o Review of the special transition audit results. o Discussion of new data validity questions being added to the QA instrument o Agreement concerning what date the field staff should use to meet data requirements for date matching on MSG and Credential Attainment. Field Coordinator’s will inform the field staff of the decision. QA Team identified training for the field staff concerning supplemental wage verification for individuals that obtain a self-employment outcome. Reference to Technical Assistance Circular RSA TAC 10-4 dated 6.1.2017 concerning the use of supplemental wage information when appropriate to assist in carrying out performance accountability requirements under the WIOA. Program Standards, Statistical Research The three Needs Assessment Zoom focus groups were held as planned and the research staff are working on a summary for agency management. The parent surveys were created for OSB and OSD and the links were provided to the Superintendents for distribution. The research team are working with the OLBPH staff on their bi-annual patron satisfaction survey. The staff have begun training on Microsoft Power BI. The results of the Client Covid-19 survey were presented to the ORC council at the quarterly meeting on May 20th. Legislative – Kevin Nelson BUDGET – On Thursday, May 13th, the legislature and the Governor jointly announced an $8.3 billion state budget for the forthcoming fiscal year, FY-22, that included tax cuts and deposit to the State’s savings account of over $800 million, for an overall budget increase of 7.62% from the current year. Under the general appropriations bill, HB 2900, education and health care lead the way with appropriations to the State Department of Education of $3.2 billion, a 5.72 percent increase. The Healthcare Authority got an additional $194.3 million, or 19.43%, the bulk of which went to fund Medicaid expansion. The remaining major increases Page 3 went to tax relief, including restoration of the refundability of the earned income tax credit and significant reductions in income tax rates. In Human Services, the budget was more conservative: Department of Human Services 0.53% Office of Juvenile Affairs 1.62% Department of Rehabilitative Services 0.00% Commission on Children and Youth 9.32% Office of Disability Concerns 8.58% There was no limits bill this year. We have reached out on any expectations on funding, particularly relating to the OSD capital funds. LEGISLATION –Sine Die was the 27th, with a flurry of bills passing. First and foremost were the redistricting bills (SB 1066 and HB 1198) setting the state legislative districts beginning 2022's legislative elections. Significantly, they were not able to set the congressional districts due to delays on in Federal census information needed to accomplish this. As such, it is expected that the legislature will have to come back into session in September or October to remedy this. Three bills were added to our watch list. First, was HB 2900, the general appropriations bill discussed above. There may be a snag as it contemplated implementation of the Governor’s Medicaid Managed Care plan, which was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against the Oklahoma Health Care Authority's (OHCA) impending transition to a third-party managed care system, finding the agency created the new program without legislative authority. This may become an additional subject of the special session. Another budget bill, SB1044, by Sen. Chuck Hall, Sen. Roger Thompson, Rep. Kevin Wallace, and Rep. Kyle Hilbert, transferred the responsibility to establish a program to broaden the availability of support service providers (SSPs) in the deaf-blind community to the Department of Human Services from the Department of Rehabilitation Services. The original bill, passed in 2018 as the “Jeri Cooper Act”, allowed grants to SSPs up to $300,000, subject to funding. DRS did not receive this funding prior to SB 1044, but it is funded for DHS at $250,000 for this coming fiscal year. Third, HJR1046, by Rep. Tom Gann, and Sen. Julie Daniels, approves proposed permanent administrative rules of Oklahoma state agencies filed on or before April 1, 2021, including those for DRS. This is the first time in many years that the legislature has approved agency rules. Surprisingly enough, though, the Governor has not signed it as of this report. If he does not, it becomes his responsibility to approve or reject agency rules. He has until June 11 to act on it. If he does not, it is pocket vetoed and the Governor will have to either approve or reject the rules by July 17th. Unfortunately, HB2644, extending virtual meetings to March 31, 2024 was not heard before Sine Die. There is still support for virtual meeting changes on the Senate side. In an article from ECapitol, Treat said he had hoped the Legislature would consider a bill that would modernize the Open Meetings Act and would include new language regarding virtual meetings.

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