California Automated Consortium Eligibility System

Meeting Minutes

November16-17, 2017

9:00am & 8:30am

Location:Embassy Suites- Sacramento Riverfront Promenade

Old Sacramento Ballroom

100 Capitol Mall

Sacramento, CA 95814

Board Members in Attendance:

Region 1 – Susan von Zabern, Riverside County DPSS Director

Region 2 – CaSonya Thomas, San Bernardino County HSA Assistant Executive Officer

Region 3 – Sanja Bugay, Kings County Human Services Agency Director

Region 4 – Kathy Harwell, Stanislaus County Community Services Agency Director

Region 5 – Scott Pettygrove, Merced County Human Services Agency Director and Chair

Region 6 – Mike Dent, Nevada County Dept. of Social Services Director

Region 7 – Shelby Boston, Butte County Dept. of Employment and Social Services Director

Region 8 - Antonia Jimenez, Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Social Services Chief Deputy and Vice Chair

Region 8 – Michael Sylvester, Los Angeles County Dept. of Public Social Services Assistant Director

Region 8 – Brandon Nichols, Los Angeles County Dept. of Children and Family Services Acting Director

Board Secretary:Thomas Hartman, C-IV Project Director

Member Representatives in Attendance:

Colusa – Elizabeth KellyShasta – Melissa Janulewicz

Lassen – Eric NielsonSutter – Lori Harrah

Madera – Deborah MartinezTuolumne – Ann Connolly

Marin – Kari BeuermanYuba – Jennifer Vasquez

Mariposa – Chevon Kothari

Modoc – Kelly Crosby

Monterey – Elliott Robinson

San Benito – James Rydingsword

San Joaquin – Michael Miller

Additional Attendees:

C-IV Project Staff/ LRS Project Staff

County Staff

State Stakeholder Representatives

  1. Chairperson Scott Pettygrove convened the meeting at 9:16 a.m.
  2. Public opportunity to speak on any Item NOT on the agenda.
  • No public comments.
  1. Confirm Quorum of the Board and Member Representatives
  • C-IV Project Director, Thomas Hartman, read the roster of the County Directors and a quorum of the Board was confirmed. Quorum of the Member Representatives was confirmed with 23 Directors at 9:18 a.m.
  1. Welcome

Scott Pettygrove announced his role as JPA Chair gave a high-level overview of the challenging times in the counties this year and extended his warmest welcome to all attendees. Antonia Jimenez welcomed everyone to the Conference. She explained how this was a historic moment of the joining of two very important systems and reflected on the history being made in California. She expressed that she looked forward to working with everyone over the next two days including bringing everyone up to date and planning for the future.

Action Item

  1. Approve Minutes of the September 21, 2017 CalACES Member Representatives and Board Meeting

Motion to Approve was made by Member Kathy Harwell.

Motion was seconded by Member Mike Dent.

All present Board Members were in favor of the motion.

Motion passed unanimously.

Strategic Planning Conference – Thursday, November 16, 2017

  1. Day 1 Agenda Review, Logistics, CalACES Bingo, CalACES Logo Contest

Betty Uzupis gave a brief background of herself and went through hotel/meeting space logistics; she also explained the directions of the bingo game to be played throughout the Conference on Day 1. June gave a high-level background of how the logo contest was created. She stated a total of 91 logo suggestions were submitted. The paper displayed on the wall showed the full size colored logo, what the logo looks like as a header, what the logo means to the artist and the thought process behind their creativity. In the packet, there were three voting chads to be affixed on any one or more logos of your choice. The top 10 logos will be brought back and you will have one vote to take before the end of the first break. There will be a board vote taking at the end of the meeting Friday afternoon.

  1. Guest Speakers

Betty Uzupis gave a high-level background of guest speakers before presenting them.

Will Lightbourne

Will gave a synopsis of how the forty county system was outlined to come together. He honored a few people on their achievements and gave a Thank you to all.

Frank Mecca

Frank talked about the success of the statewide strategy, why he feels the moto has been so critical to the project’s success, as well as the people. He appreciated and thanked everyone for his or her hard work thus so far.

Jennifer Kent

Does not believe anyone outside of the places we work have any idea the complexity of the program and system that we run today in California. Between Health Care Services and Social Services we provide really good things to a third of the state population. Incredible churn and a lot of complexity in the clients lives that show up to your office every day, figure out what they need and deliver benefits in an appropriate customer eccentric way. How many people are seeking services? How do we pay for it? How is it delivered? There are so many layers to making this service available.

John Boule

John gave a brief background of the past migrations and the accomplishments made. When you look at the road of SAWS and the success that’s been done through SAWS its remarkable and inspiring to be able to talk about the path going forward. There is no place on earth that has more integrated eligibility experience than the people in this room, the counties and federal partners. The table has been set to continue to work together and move forward. We cannot lose sight that everything we do is for the benefit of the workers and public needs. We have to make sure what we do is together and mutual success and that we make sure to stay together.

  1. Meet & Greet: New CalACES Executive Director

The wizard join us again this year for the 2017 CalACES Conference. He made a few jokes about attendees and the guest speakers. He gave a high-level overview the accomplishments achieved and were CalACES stands currently. He continued to introduce the new Executive Director of CalACES, John Boule. John Boule followed with this is a new entity! It isn’t a culture of C-IV or LRS but a new culture of CalACES. A new entity that has forty counties that has a lot of work to do. The warm wishes from the counties, people in the room and state has told me that I look forward to this challenge and this has been the perfect time to come back. Thank you all again.

  1. Break
  2. CalACES JPA Overview

How we got here

In the 80s, two counties were designated (Napa and Merced) to build a statewide-automated system. Merced created Magic and precursor of where we are today. Napa went with more traditional mainframe system. There was a Contest performed and Napa was selected as the winner. All the ISAWS joined the Napa system and then migrated over to C-IV. Antonia gave a high-level background of the LEADER and LRS System. LA County entered into an agreement with Unisys in September 1995. Go-live was in 2000. M&O for the original LEADER system began in May 2001. California Assembly Bill ABX1 16 passed in 2011 required that the 39 counties migrate to a system jointly designed by the 39 counties and LA County. LRS project commenced in 2012 and LA County was live on the LRS System in 2016. We are happy with the system and looking forward to sharing it.

Who we are today

All 40 County Boards of Supervisors approved the CalACES Joint Powers Authority by August 2017. New CalACES Board of Directors took place September 21, 2017. The Board Chair, Scott Pettygrove and Vice Chair, Antonia Jimenez was elected September 21, 2017. Antonia gave a brief story about the time she was nominated as the boards vice chair and explained to all that she is committed to the CalACES JPA Board and making sure the small counties needs are heard. General Membership and Board of Directors approved the Memorandum of Understanding and Bylaws September 21, 2017 along with the Assignment of existing LRS contracts to the JPA. The appointment of Consortium Executive Director took place November 8, 2017.

What we look like

Antonia reviewed the statics on slide 20 and expressed the significance and how it represents what CalACES looks like today. Scott stated CalACES is currently working on how CalWIN will fit into the migration transition.

What’s next

CalACES is also hopeful for Federal approval by end of the year 2017. Also, looking to keep the two systems from diverging but instead staying in sync.

  1. CalACES Migration Development and Implementation (D&I) Update

Overview

Schedule Update

Hayward reviewed the CalACES Migration Timeline on slide 25 and 26.

Scope Update

There were some changes made to reach the governor’s budget requirements. One of those changes being the FastTrack Approach, which consist of everyone switching over to the new system during a long weekend. The CalACES Development and Production environments will be moved to the cloud to helpCalACES avoid the 15 million dollar purchase for hardware. The current contract structure is based on the two (LRS &C-IV) existing contracts: Common statement of work, common statement of requirements and divided up deliverables by where most of the effort will be. Tom reviewed a few of the guiding principles used to help determine the design differences amongst the Forty Counties. Application Development Requirements between 17 categories that is meant for all Forty Counties to conduct business was discussed.Imaging: C-IV is going to keep their current imaging and the same with LRS. Fiscal: Pay codes, fiscal systems, warrants will be moved into LRS. Manage Personnel: Security rules from C-IV will be moved into LRS. Data Collection & Eligibility: There will be minor changes amongst many pages to make acceptable for the thirty-nine counties. For example,the homelessness system and being able to use a voucher. Reports: Management Reports used in C-IVwill be moved into LRS. Batch Interface: Need all individual and system county-wide batch jobs moved to LRS. Testing: imaging, batch job interface running correctly, is data on cases appearing correctly. CalACES Migration Deployment: getting implementation staff support out to counties, conversion goes well, testing goes well and etc. Hayward reviewed the Implementation Approach timeline and when releases will deployed.

Budget Update

The Migration D&I APD was done last year and CalACES received partial approval. On November 15,CalACES received federal questions from CMS and we will be working through how we are going to approach the answers to their questions;we are still not sure if there are any questions from FNS at this time. Kris gave a high-level example of some of the questions received from CMS. The Combined CalACES M&O IAPDUhas been submitted for approval on September 22, 2017. June reviewed the numbers for the combined CalACES IAPDU.

Integrated Project Team

Seth reviewed the Accenture CalACES Organization Chart and what position they will play in the implementation of Migration. He also reviewed how Accenture counterparts coincide with the CalACES staff. The implementation change training and conversion work will be done in the north because C-IV Migration data is converting into the LRS System. Most of the build is happening in the South. The technology aspect is spread across both locations.

  1. Lunch
  2. CalACES Migration D&I – County Involvement

RPM and Region Introductions

Tom gave a brief review of the CalACES Family and whom it includes. RPMs listed all Directors for their Regions, who their JPA and PSC representatives are and some fun facts about their regions.

RPM Roles and Responsibilities

RPM roles consist of providing support, helping the counties understand the process of the Project, steering them in the right direction and to the appropriate resources. RPMs provide guidance from the JPA and PSC teams to share information and priorities with counties. We act as a liaison between stakeholders. Ex. County Administrators. Work to keep information flowing, build and provide support to increase the communication flow. RPMs know a little about a lot. They work with fiscal, technical teams and administrative. They like to work as a team and share ideas through different resources like the web portal. Prepares counties for upcoming functionality and activities. RPMs provide guidance to the project asking for various resources to assist the counties with changes. Champion of Change consist of taking the consortium as a whole and assessing the needs of everyone.

Recruitment Update: Initial and Future

Karen reviewed slide 54, which displays the title and number of positons for the whole migration project. A CIT was sent out for the Migration Recruitment with over 112 applications submitted. Interviews were conducted last week with five panels in the North and South. CalACES is currently cutting down the list to get to a manageable selection for second interviews. John Boule will be taking part in the second interviews for Executive Administration. There has been much confusion on the definition of leveraged positons; it is someone who is already accounted for cost wise. In total, we are hiring 22 new/leveraged staff. The majority of the positions are located in the north because it is the bulk of were the C-IV Implementation is happening. After the first of the year, a new CIT will go out to recruit for new additional positions. Slide 58 gives you the global view of the entire Migration Project in comparison to positions. The regional view on slides 59 and 60, gives you the opportunity to provide a little more clarity of the regional structure within the CalACES structure. As communications are sent out to the County, it goes to the PPOC to be distributed. County interactions such as policy and state priorities are all done within the Regional Committee members that make decisions on how things should look etc. RCMs communicate back and forth with the County SME for help, knowledge and resources. There will be the following people Implementation Coordinator (2), Training Coordinator, In-county Training Support and Implementation Support Staff placed in your county for implementation support, as we get closer to go-live.

CalACES Handbook Overview and Update

The handbook has been updated to account for the new CalACES Project. June reviewed some of the changes being made on slide 61 and it is expected to be completed by December 2017. FAQs- there will be a fiscal call in January 2018 for any counties that will end up with Migration staff.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

June reviewed someone of the frequently asked questions presented on slides 62 and 63. She also gave staff a fore warning that there will be a fiscal call in January 2018, for any counties that will end up with Migration staff.

  1. Organizational/System Change Management Initiatives

Addressing Today’s Challenges

OSI contracted with Alexan to take a look at how we are doing with change management. The Alexan team is co-located at both project sites. The initial findings were presented on August 21, 2017 and they stated CalACES was getting further apart in regards to changes. The CalACES consortium put together a small group that included CalACES Deputy Directors, Migration planning team and Accenture Team that meets multiple times a month. The meeting goals are to find out what the guiding principles should be going forward, redesign the CalACES Enhancement Request (CES) form, discuss strategies/barriers for aligning processes and reach an agreement on the emergency approval process. The workgroup is ongoing and the plan is to walk through each decision made with the CalACES Project Steering Committee (PSC) members

What Will be Different Going Forward?

Tom gave a high-level explanation of how slide 68 shows the efforts to get to a one-consortium project management system. One effort currently in the workings to achieve this solution is the new change management system called JIRA. Some other efforts being made to become one consortium is changing staff email addresses to @CalACES.org by late January. A new web portal/SharePoint will be built for all forty counties to access one web portal. The C-IV.org home website will be updated to reflect CalACES Consortium.

  1. Break
  2. SAWS/Counties Collaboration

CalSAWS Executive Leadership Team

The purpose of the CalSAWS Leadership Team is to provide direction and steering of where we are now and provide leadership at the Director level to get there. Christiana Smith went over who the members are on the CalSAWS Leadership Team. Meetings will include the 2017 and 2018 CWDA President and Vice Chair and the Consortium Directors from CalWIN and CalACES. Quarterly meetings are conducted to talk about strategies and how things are going. The Single SAWS Overview has been created and published on the OSI SharePoint site; this will be a living document. Four questions were received from FNS & CMS, there has been responses drafted and is currently being reviewed before submission. CalSAWS Roadmap was drafted, discussed and submitted to state partners. An agreement was reached for a 2023 date. We gave them a list of assumptions and risk that would be considered with the 2023 date. Christiana reviewed upcoming task that need to be worked on by the CalSAWS Leadership Team on slide 76 (Informal Governance, 58-County Planning and Formal Governance).