Statewide Independent LivingCouncil of Illinois
Statewide Independent LivingFollowing lunch, at 1:21 p.m. on Thursday, May 6, 2004 Pam Heavens, SILC Chair called the quarterly meeting of the Statewide Independent Living Council of Illinois to order and introductions were made.
Director Kilbury addressed the Council discussing the FY05 state budget recently introduced by Governor Blagojevich. Kilbury reported that the proposed budget has an increase of $50 million for the Home Services Program. Kilbury also discussed the recent collaborative trainings for staff at the Division of Rehabilitation Services and staff at the Centers for Independent Living. This training is meant to increase the relationship between these offices. The Director also spoke positively of the almost fully staffed positions for rehabilitation counselors following the vacancies from the early retirement of many of these positions.
Chair Heavens discussed the new position John Eckert will be assuming May 3 with the Home Services Program. John’s departure leaves the Council with the task of finding a new director. Heavens stated that the Executive Committee will review the Executive Director’s job description and place advertisements in several newspapers statewide as well as place the job announcement on ILUR and NCIL’s Listserv.
Minutes of the February 2004 meeting were distributed and reviewed.
Discussion on Mileage Reimbursement:
There was discussion about the increase for mileage reimbursement. Beginning July 1, 2004 the state reimbursement rate will increase to 37.5 cents per mile.
Julie Bosma discussed the focus groups that the Centers for Independent Living conducted to collect comments and concerns in their communities. The Council assisted the Centers in this effort by providing each Center a $400 stipend to offset the cost of ASL interpreter fees. Bosma thanked the Council for this assistance. Bosma further discussed the procedure that Centers used to conduct the focus groups.
Mike Egbert discussed the revised formula funding concept. This formula is revised based on the 2000 census data and in the 2000 census the age was changed to 21 - 64 years of age whereas in previous census collections it has been 16 - 64.
"The purpose of the formula funding concept is to determine the minimum funding level necessary to provide the four core independent living services to citizens in each county."
"In addition SILC will not support the creation of new CIL with funding that is not adequate to support these four core independent living services."
"However SILC does not support the creation of a branch or satellite office to serve an area if the funding level is less than the amount requested by the Center requesting the funding to support the satellite office."
At this time the Council adjourned for the day to reconvene Friday, May 7.
The Statewide Independent Living Council was reconvened at 8:44 a.m. by Chair Heavens.
Eckert gave an update on the WIG-2 grant. This was a two-year grant which ends June 30, 2004. On May 5 there was a meeting of the stakeholders who gave final reports. There were some successes and some disappointments but in all Eckert felt like we have made some positive changes to the way the One Stop Employment and Training Centers provide services to people with disabilities.
Eckert briefly discussed several bills listed below:
Coleman spoke of her involvement with Not Dead Yet a non religious disability rights group that is against euthanasia and mercy killings. This is a very controversial group. Coleman met with an end of life advocate last week. Not Dead Yet has a distinct voice on this issue. The disability community first became interested in this topic in 1980 when Elizabeth Bouda a woman with Cerebral Palsy asked that a hospital be allowed to give her comfort care while she starved herself. This was one of the first right to die cases.
Committee Chair Arellano discussed minor grammatical changes to the bullet points on pages 8-9 of attachment one of the SPIL.
Committee Chair Gunther reported that the Committee has reviewed the goals and objectives of the SPIL and accept them all.
Planning Committee member Roberts reported that the Planning Committee has met to discuss the goals and objectives and accept them all.
Committee Chair Robertson reported that the Committee has not met to discuss the goals that appear in attachment one of the SPIL but that they have changed little and are acceptable. The Committee will be reviewing and revising the travel policy soon. Robertson also reviewed the financial reports that are in the packets.
Eckert discussed his involvement with this Committee. Eckert reported that a subgroup has sent a memo to the Attorney General’s office asking her for action items on the position paper prepared by Access Living.
Roberts reported that INCIL is busy with the Illinois Disability Vote Project of which all Illinois Centers for Independent Living are sponsors. They will be working on list enhancements where organizations give them their mailing lists and then they go through the list and see if people are registered to vote and if they are not the CIL can call and encourage them to register. This is INCIL’s major goal for the year.
Chair Heavens asked for volunteers to serve on the Ad-hoc Search Committee for a new Executive Director. Heavens also discussed the Disability Pride Parade.
SILC representative on the SRC Tony Arellano reported that he spent a lobby day by SRC on four issues. Three were about funding and one was about communication through the phone on news articles. Arellano also provided testimony on the SRC State Plan.
Motion to Adjourn: Motion to adjourn the meeting made by Sherwin and seconded by Gunther. Motion passed. Meeting adjourned.
Minutes prepared for J. Anel Gonzalez, Secretary by Tara Dunning and John Eckert
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