Personal Care Attendant Quality
Home Care Workforce Council
600 Washington Street, 5th Floor
Boston, MA  02111 

DEVAL L. PATRICK
Governor

TIMOTHY P. MURRAY
Lieutenant Governor

JUDYANN BIGBY, M.D.
Secretary

Tel.:  617-210-5715
www.mass.gov/pca

		

Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council
 
One Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108

Council Meeting – Executive Session

Minutes	October 15, 2009	4:06 P.M.	21st floor, Room 1 	
 	
coUNCIL
 members in attendance	Joe Bellil, Liz Casey,  Paul Spooner, Denise Harvey	
 Staff attending	Jack Boesen, Michelle Byrd	
 chair	Jean McGuire	
Note taker	Michelle Byrd	
agenda setting	No issues were added to previously-issued agenda	

The executive session began at 4:06 p.m.

Jean McGuire informed Council members that further 9C budget cuts are expected. Additional Information will be provided to members regarding the impact to related Council activities.

 The Council engaged in a discussion of collective bargaining related items.  The discussion is to clarify the Council’s position prior to the next collective bargaining session.

The Council discussed the proposed methodology for calculating PCA hours for benefit accumulation.  Jack Boesen informed the Council members that he reviewed the benefit accumulation process in other states and that the Bargaining committee’s current proposal, combining the hours worked for different consumers, is in line with those practices.  Paul Spooner suggested lowering the threshold for calculating the paid time off benefit.  Council members expressed concern that if the threshold is lowered too far, the actual dollar amount paid as a benefit could be so small as to be considered meaningless.

The council agrees that the wording of the current proposal is acceptable for purposes of collective bargaining.

Liz Casey asked that members discuss what position the Council should take on the issue of Emergency and Backup PCAs.  Council members agree that this is an important issue for the Council to address, however, due to time constraint; it was tabled until the next Council meeting to allow for adequate discussion time.

A motion was made to leave executive session and was passed unanimously. The council came out of executive session at 5:00 p.m.