Travis County Commissioners Court
August 16, 2005
Item 16
Number 16, receive presentation to approve baseline standards accountability and initial eligibility for nonprofit agencies and provide direction to apply standards to social services contracts.
>> good afternoon, I’m sure sherri is on her way down here, but I think I can go ahead and start, I’m arlene sellman with health and human services. We talked to you a little over a year ago about our whole social service investment strategy, the renewal of the contracts and kind of which ones would be long-term investments for us. And part of that discussion centered around the accountability that we're trying to set up for the social service investments. And one of your directions -- sorry about my breath, I hurried over here -- was to work with asa to develop the baseline accountability standards. So we have done that in conjunction with our city partners. We used the eligibility criteria that the -- the basic eligibility criteria that has been developed by one of the well-known nonprofit organizations. I don't remember exactly which state they're associated with at this point in time, but we went out and worked with asa, we also worked with the city of Austin health care subcommittee, and we worked with the c.a.n. And all three of those bodies at least gave us support. Asa gave us support, the health committee gave us support and the c.a.n. Also gave support. And so what we would like you to do is formally adopt the standards and I would just like to go briefly through those with you. They fall into distinct areas, one of which is governance. We want to of course make sure that agencies that we do business with, that their boards meet all the state requirements, that they actually work with the staff to approve the budget annually and to period cli assess the performance in relationship to the budget expectation of them also is that they hire, evaluate and set compensation for the executive director. We would also want to know that they have their five o Austin c three status or the legal authorization to operate in place, and to know that they have a conflict of operation policy in place. Under the management area, we want them to have written policies for the way that they do business. We want them to have written hr policies. And again, we're really big on the conflict of interest policy. These are all part of the contract requirements that we have in our boiler plate contracts for these. In our financial development, we want to make sure they have a audit review done annually and they do submit their rrs 90 form as required. We want them to have qualified audits and we want them to at least quarterly have a financial review by their board of directors. We hope that they have written financial policies for the contract requirements and we want them to be current on all their tax obligations, including but not limited to their payroll taxes. Under health and safety, if there are licensure standards for the organization, we want those to be in place. We want to know that their buildings meet local building codes and that they have written health and safety policies in place. Under their programs, we want them to have demonstrated ability to perform the needed services. We want them to have demonstrated community support. We want them to have an outcome and evaluation plan in place and policies in plan and in place and in use per the contract requirements. The final thing that we would hope that they have in place is participation and community planning. Everything that we do is based on community planning and assessment. And so this is a very important part of their operation. Our whole premier is that you will adopt these as the minimum requirements for the contracts that we already have in place. And to also adopt them if we ever get to the place where we have new vendors who provide services for us, that we can look at them from the standards and say this is a business that we can do business with and feel good about it or else we can help them set up the technical assistance that they need to get these minimum requirements there.
>> this is not the first time any of us have seen this, and certainly please confirm for us that there ought not be any of our social service agencies nor asha that would say I have no idea where any of this came from. Can you give us a little bit more background in terms of this was kind of a collaborative process working with the social service agencies and we can kind of work through our bumps in the road related to too much and how we could also empower those that were less able to handle some of the requirements, kind of get them to a place where this is now not too burdensome to ask in terms of requirements.
>> I think we've been very collaborative. We definitely have the support of the asa community. They all want accountability as badly as we do because if you even have one bad apple in the group, it tends to reflect horriblely on the whole investment and you do have a substantial investment in social service, the vr department. The other thing we do is annually when we renew these contracts, we go through a technical assistance session with all of our partner vendors. We go through the contract requirements, we go through the audit requirements, and we have covered these standards with them. And last year each and every agency that we did business with was required to actually attend one of our sessions. We don't make them vocational terry. So it shouldn't be news to anybody.
>> on the program do you need the requirement if you simply have an outcome and evaluation plan in place? What if we don't like the one you have in place? What if we think it insufficient?
>> we work with vendors and we work with also united way to develop the criteria for performance. And again, if you don't -- if we don't like the one we have in place, our approach would be from a technical assistance standpoint.
>> so if I find myself without one and I ask -- it seems that I need an outcome and evaluation plan, is there any model, we'll have a model to show them?
>> we have a model and we also have a couple of vendors on contract with us, one is green light for success and the other one is, I’m going to draw a blank here.
>> abc.
>> abc.
>> any more specifics that come to us, we're in the position to give it to them.
>> yes, we are.
>> we want you to demonstrate the community's support. If you say what do you mean by that, we've got several examples we can give you.
>> we do. There's many, many collaborations within the greater Austin area where they can participate in the community planning process.
>> okay.
>> there are many of these agencies that have total contracts, and believe me, except for the subtle requirements to be able to keep their grants and the accountability and things that they are being asked to by the federal government, pale in comparison.
>> it's the ones that don't.
>> exactly. But there are quite a few of them that actually --
>> make you wonder.
>> judge, I would move approval of the baseline standard.
>> Commissioner Sonleitner, I second. Ommissioner Gomez seconded. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote with Commissioner Davis off the dais.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 10:52 AM