PRESENT: Jenni Tilton-Flood, Celeste Branham, Luke Shorty, Ed Barrett, Maryalice Crofton
The members convened at 3pm using the virtual meeting technology.
Discussion items:
Commissioner evaluation of retreat. Nine of the 14 Commissioners attending submitted evaluations and all nine were present both days. Generally, the ratings were very high on the 10 point scale for elements related to preparation, participation, and results. The guest speaker was rated very favorably and two-thirds of respondents agreed the board should continue exploring diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. One comment was of concern as it indicated confusion about board members’ role. Executive Committee members decided that, because responses were largely anonymous, the chair would invite anyone who shared that confusion to contact her or Maryalice to sort things out.
New attendance policy. There was a brief discussion of how to document compliance with the policy and gauge in-person attendance so room set-up would be proper. The decision was made to expand the announcement about posting of board materials to include two questions that would capture the information needed. Those questions will be added for October’s meeting.
Maine Service Fellows task force. Celeste volunteered to chair this group which also will serve as the start-up advisory committee described in statute. The next step is to see if other commissioners want to serve and then start recruiting community representatives to fill the other roles.
Grant changes occurring between 9/24 and 9/30/2021. Staff submitted a request for supplemental AmeriCorps Formula funds in June. In the final days of the federal fiscal year, they were notified that $129,609 in additional funds could be awarded to Maine. Thankfully, there was a waitlist of approved grantees and staff moved the two highest ranking programs onto the funds. The result is that Maine Street Skowhegan and Trekkers are fully funded. Maine Youth Alliance will still have to be fully funded from the ARPA award. Ed noted the Grant Task Force will meet in three days and discuss the funding scenarios for the next few year to see if new grants can be added or all funds are committed to continuations.
Discussion of Commission Support Grant (CSG) priorities for ARPA. Although there is still no information or even hints of what states can expect for CSG normal allocations or ARPA CSG allocations, they’ve been warned the turn around will again be about 10 business days. Maryalice asked Exec to help think through options so, when instructions come, the office operating budget for calendar year 2022 can be pulled together on time. More immediately, any supplemental funding request from the state budget is due in three days. The most recent new work (Maine Service Fellows and Climate Corps) do require additional staff support. Maine Service Fellows work has been done through temp staffing just like Climate Corps. After some discussion, the tentative plan is to try and add the Climate Corps coordinator through federal funds and MSF coordinator through state funds. All is subject to change as information on actual resource amounts come out.
Update from DEI subcommittee. It was noted these have to be published as public meetings. A couple of the subcommittee members were not present so Celeste will figure out the meeting schedule after today. Notes from the subgroup work had been sent to Exec with today’s meeting notice. The group’s focus is to outline next steps, set a schedule for grantees to present to commission about their DEI efforts, and connect with Sandy Pulles of ServeMinnesota (the MN service commission). It’s clear there is a lot to be done around grants and hiring practices and other work. For October’s session, the plan is to ask commissioners to take Harvard IAT and read a Harvard Business Review article. There would be time for discussion in the agenda. Celeste is searching for a presenter on implicit bias for November. She is also editing the identity statement for subcommittee discussion. Anyone who comes across resources, please send to Celeste.
Update on commission appointments. The Office of Boards and Commissions has acknowledged it has the nomination papers for candidates forwarded. Constant follow-up will be needed to keep the appointments on their “need attention” list. Celeste has one potential candidate and Jenni is working on the open youth seat.
Task Force reports. All the task force meetings for October will be later in the week so there are no updates.
There being no other discussion items, the members dispersed at 4:06 pm.