MINUTES

BLUEPRINT FOR IOWA'S YOUNG CHILDREN STUDY COMMITTEE

November 8, 1995 -- Third of Three Meetings

MEMBERS PRESENT

Senator Elaine Szymoniak, Co-chairperson
Representative Danny Carroll, Co-chairperson
Senator Nancy Boettger
Senator Michael Connolly
Senator Johnie Hammond
Senator Maggie Tinsman
Representative Cecelia Burnett
Representative Neil Harrison
Representative Keith Kreiman
Representative Rosemary Thomson

MEETING IN BRIEF

Minutes prepared by Patty Funaro, Legal Counsel
Organizational staffing by Patty Funaro, Legal Counsel

Procedural Business.
State and Federally Funded Children's Programs.
Danforth Policy Group-Local Community Planning.
Committee Discussion.
Committee Recommendations.
Written Materials Filed with the Legislative Service Bureau.

COMMITTEE BUSINESS

1. Procedural Business.

Call to Order. Co-Chairperson Senator Szymoniak called the meeting to order at 10:30 a.m., in Room 22 of the Statehouse in Des Moines, Iowa.

Approval of Minutes. The minutes of the meetings of October 19 and 20, 1995 were approved as distributed and as corrected on page two to reflect Senator Johnie Hammond's title as a Senator, not as a Representative.

Adjournment. The meeting adjourned at 3:45 p.m.

2. State and Federally Funded Children's Programs.

LSB Presentation. Mr. Jon Neiderbach and Ms. Margaret Buckton, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, presented information regarding federal and state expenditures for programs for children through the Department of Economic Development, the Iowa Department of Public Health, the Department of Education, the Department of Human Services, and the Department of Human Rights. Materials presented included a mapping of the services by department and county and a chart which includes the programs, target populations served, and state and federal expenditures for the programs and program descriptions.
Committee members expressed interest in receiving additional information, which is forthcoming, including the number of persons served by the programs, an evaluation of the success of each program, staffing required for each program, and sources of funding other than state and federal funding.
Comments on the presentation focused on the following:

a. The need to reduce bureaucracy at the local level, associated with the programs, by streamlining the grant processes and the paperwork necessary after a grant is awarded.
b. The need to pool moneys in order to provide services that meet the specific needs of a community without duplication of services.
c. The need for interagency cooperation at the state level in the development and implementation of services.
d. The need for true collaboration at the community level so that funds are pooled to best meet local needs.
e. The fact that programs funded through grants often have such specific requirements that the services do not reach all in need or do not meet the specific needs of a community.
f. The need for a statewide plan that is comprehensive, equitable, and provides for joint ownership with the local community in the provision of services.
g. The fact that many variables exist in the implementation of programs at the local level, thereby creating difficulty in evaluating a program based upon standard criteria.
h. The fact that even within the same program, differences exist in local implementation and in local measurements of success of a program.

3. Danforth Policy Group -- Local Community Planning.

Child and Family Policy Center. Mr. Vic Elias, Child and Family Policy Center (CFPC), provided information regarding a grant from the Danforth Foundation and the Annie E. Casey Foundation to the Department of Human Services. The grant is being administered by the CFPC to fund development of community-based plans for provision of services to children and families in preparation for use of funds provided in block grants to local communities. The seven project area communities include: (1) Scott, Clinton, Jackson, and Muscatine counties, (2) Black Hawk County, (3) Mills, Montgomery, and Cass counties, (4) Polk County, (5) Linn County, (6) Henry County, and (7) Woodbury County. Mr. Elias reported that the players required to be involved in the projects include representatives of education, human services, and local government, and a broad representation of the community, including consumers, business, United Way, providers, and others. Actual representation is left to the community itself to decide.
The CFPC is conducting retreats with the community groups to provide technical assistance. The communities have expressed concern in addressing the following areas: management of cultural/practice differences, i.e. breaking down agency practices or biases in viewing the family and its needs; agency/staff resources, i.e., who is responsible for staffing; identification and management of overlapping services; data/information management, including confidentiality concerns and the collection of information in a manner that is useful at the community level; general strategic planning skills; increasing consumer involvement; the need for decategorization of funding and for collaboration between and within departments at the state level as well as at the community level, and the need for a forum for exchange between state and community representatives; and the need for true collaboration and true support of collaborative efforts.

4. Committee Discussion.

The Committee's discussion included the following comments:

a. In light of federal budget reductions, corporate America should be a partner in filling the gaps in the provision of services for children and families in a logical manner, e.g., providing child care. However, corporations should not be responsible for filling all of the gaps in services.
b. The possibility of providing funds through block grants from the state to communities in such a way as to require the involvement, both monetarily and in other ways, of local businesses and other local players.
c. The possibility of decategorizing all of the funding streams associated with existing programs for children zero to five years of age, providing the funding to communities in the form of a block grant, and then expanding decategorization to additional age levels.
d. The need for an evaluative component and oversight at the state level to verify that communities are meeting previously established community goals in the expenditure of the block-grant moneys.
e. The need for a holistic approach in dealing with the needs of children and families.
f. The need for a statewide plan of services for children and families that is comprehensive, equitable, and includes community involvement.
g. Consideration of expanding the Healthy Families Iowa/Healthy Opportunities for Parents to Experience Success (HOPES) project component statewide as an initial step in addressing the needs of children and families from zero to three years of age, then adding on additional services for subsequent age groups. Consideration of offering the project to all families with new babies initially, and then providing more intensive services to those families identified as high opportunity.
h. The need to document the efficiency and effectiveness of existing programs, in order to gain the support of corporations.
i. Consideration of a proposal by Senator Hammond to leave intact existing programs; to fund new projects through a grant process administered by the Child Development Coordinating Council (CDCC) following a community needs assessment and planning process; to fund projects primarily designed for preschool children to meet the goals established by the CDCC; to direct the Council on Human Investment to establish benchmarks for success and develop an evaluation tool, and to recommend a standing appropriation, two variations of which are provided in the proposal, that would be merged into a Trust Account for Successful Kids in FY97. Included in the proposed appropriation is funding for statewide expansion of the Healthy Families Iowa - HOPES project - and for funding for communities to apply for up to $20,000 in planning grants for the initial year.
j. The need to work with existing local boards instead of creating new boards, since in many communities the same people are involved in a number of boards that sometimes are duplicative, or have conflicting goals or service populations.
k. The possibility of using a loaned executive from the private sector to provide technical assistance in community planning.
l. The possibility of including findings in any bill draft developed so that the intent of the General Assembly to use a collaborative approach is clear.
m. An understanding that with any investment, someone must assume the risk of failure, and agencies must be willing to restructure expenditures and programs in order to provide necessary services.
n. The fact that not all investments have immediate results.

5. Committee Motions and Recommendations.

After discussion, members made the following motions with the following noted acceptance or failure:

a. That the General Assembly appropriate up to $3.2 million beginning in FY97 and annually thereafter to expand the Healthy Families Iowa/HOPES project statewide. The recommendation was adopted with Co-chairperson Carroll recorded as voting no.
b. That the General Assembly direct state agencies to collaborate, reduce regulation, eliminate duplication, and develop a system for evaluation of programs with an initial progress report to be made to the General Assembly prior to the end of the 1996 Session of the General Assembly, and annually on or before December 1 thereafter. The Committee voted unanimously to accept the recommendation.
c. That state expenditures for prevention programs for families with children between the ages of zero and five be provided in block grants to communities who agree to collaborate, and to provide matching funds in a designated amount and who agree to have the program evaluated through state performance objectives. The Committee voted unanimously to accept the recommendation.
d. That the General Assembly appropriate $15 million and seek $15 million from the private sector as a match to implement the Blueprint for Iowa's Young Children as presented by the Child and Family Policy Center, targeted to the 18,000 high-opportunity families identified by the Center and implemented in a manner which is comprehensive, equitable, and includes community involvement. The motion failed.
e. That the Committee recommend implementation of the proposal submitted by Senator Hammond as amended to reflect prior accepted recommendations and that the appropriation amount be the alternative second formula. The motion failed.
f. The Committee recommended that the recommendations accepted by the Committee be drafted in bill draft form to be submitted to the General Assembly.

6. Written Materials Filed with the Legislative Service Bureau.

1990 Population Distribution of Persons 5 Years of Age and Under, copies of overheads developed and distributed by Mr. Jon Neiderbach and Ms. Margaret Buckton, Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Programs for Children, chart developed and distributed by Mr. Jon Neiderbach and Ms. Margaret Buckton, Legislative Fiscal Bureau.

Blueprint Proposal, submitted by Senator Johnie Hammond.

OTHER INFORMATION FOR THIS COMMITTEE:

Iowa General Assembly

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