Personal Care Attendant Quality Home Care Workforce Council One Ashburton Place, Room 1109 Boston, MA 02108 DEVAL L. PATRICK Governor TIMOTHY P. MURRAY Lieutenant Governor JUDYANN BIGBY, M.D. Secretary Tel.: 617-573-1600 Fax: 617-573-1890 www.mass.gov/eohhs General Council Meeting Minutes October 16, 2007 2:15 P.M. to 3:35 P.M. 21st floor, Conference Room 3 Committee members in attendance Larry Braman, Eileen Brewster, Liz Casey, Jean McGuire, Paul Spooner Committee members in attendance telephonically Joseph Tringali Committee Chair Assistant Secretary Jean McGuire Note Taker Rachel Richards Agenda Setting No issues were added to previously-issued agenda Agenda Topics Approval of Meeting Minutes The Chair made a motion to accept the July 19, 2007 minutes as written. Mr.Spooner seconded the motion. The motion was approved unanimously. Mr. Spooner requested a change be made in the August 14, 2007 minutes to reflect that the Statewide Independent Living Council was the “host” of the next PCA Quality Home Care Workforce Council meeting. Mr. Spooner made a motion to approve the August 14, 2007 minutes as amended. Ms. Casey seconded the motion. The August 14, 2007 minutes were approved unanimously without further discussion. Updates Ms. Casey provided a report from the Hiring Subcommittee regarding progress in the selection of potential candidates for the position of Director of the PCA Quality Home Care Workforce Council. Ms. Casey stated that resumes from fourteen candidates had been reviewed, and that four candidates were initially selected for further follow-up. Council members were asked to submit suggested interview questions to Ms. Richards by October 21st. The discussion continued regarding the qualities needed for the Director position. Mr. Spooner asked the Chair about the role of the Council in the hiring process. The Chair indicated that she would not participate in the first round of interviews, and may be the designee for the EOHHS Secretary in the final selection process. A determination was made that as many Council members as were available would meet the final candidate or candidates recommended by the Subcommittee. Ms. Brewster asked where the Director would be located, once hired. The Chair explained that a decision had not been finalized, but that the Director would most likely be located at One Ashburton along with any other staff hired by the Council. The Chair stated that obtaining an attorney for the Council is a priority, as a resource will be needed quickly to assist in collective bargaining, if a union is elected. The Chair asked if other Council members would be interested in participating in the review of candidates for this position, and Mr. Spooner, Ms. Brewster, and Mr. Noel indicated their interest. Discussion regarding Registry Ms. Richards reviewed the draft RFI for the Registry. Most of the language is boiler plate. The term Referral Directory will be used in the RFI (rather than Registry) as it more appropriately conveys the Council’s intention to have the use of the Directory be voluntary, and does not imply that individuals in the Directory have passed background checks, etc. The Chair would like to have the RFI posted as soon as possible and to allow three weeks for responses. Mr. Spooner requested that Council members receive the RFI by e-mail after it is released so that it can be distributed further. Ms. Richards will also look into posting the RFI on the Council Web site. The Chair reported that the Senate had recently passed a supplemental budget containing $852,000 for the PCA Quality Home Care Workforce Council. Update on Election Lisa Romeo from the American Arbitration Association joined the meeting and provided an update on the upcoming PCA union election. Lisa reported that the AAA New York office mailed 21,978 ballots today. From the August 31st pre election mailing, 197 address updates were received from the US Post Office, but there were an additional 2,000 pieces of mail returned with bad addresses. There were 27 requests for other language ballots in Chinese, Haitian Creole, Russian, and Spanish. There had been no requests yet for communications in larger font. As the ballots are returned to the AAA Boston office, Ms. Romeo will send daily updates regarding the volume of returned mail and ballots. AAA will continue accepting ballots until 5 P.M. on November 6th. Ballots will be counted on November 7th at 11:00 A.M. Next Steps Ms. Brewster requested that the Council participate in the MRC Conference, for which a date has not yet been determined. Council members discussed adjourning to Executive Session for the purpose of personnel discussions involving candidates for the Director position, with said session occurring on Friday October 26th. A motion to move into Executive Session was made by the Chair and seconded by Mr. Spooner. Without further discussion, the motion was approved unanimously. 2 Minutes October 16, 2007