Oregon Health Policy Board (OHPB) Draft Meeting Minutes May 4, 2021 Zoom Virtual Meeting - Oregon.gov
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Oregon Health Policy Board (OHPB)
Draft Meeting Minutes
May 4, 2021
Zoom Virtual Meeting
1. Welcome, Roll Call and Minutes Approval – Vice Chair Oscar Arana
OHPB members present:
Vice Chair Oscar Arana, John Santa, Kirsten Isaacson, Brenda Johnson and Ebony
Clarke
OHPB members absent: Chair David Bangsberg
Oregon Health Authority (OHA) staff present:
Patrick Allen, Jeremy Vandehey, Trilby de Jung, Lori Coyner, Jeff Scroggin,
Stephanie Jarem, Tara Chetock, Michelle Hatfield, Daphne Peck, Marc Overbeck,
Estela Gomez, Bevin Ankrom, Craig Mosbaek, Allison Proud, Dustin Zimmerman,
Chelsea Guest, Mackenzie Carroll, Trilby de Jung, Holly Heiberg, Dave Inbody, Jill
Gray, Amy Clary, Leann Johnson, Laura Sisulak, Stacey Schubert, Neelam Gupta,
Dawn Mautner, Dave Baden, Alissa Robbins, Sara Kleinschmit, Alissa Robbins,
Amanda Peden, Anona Gund, Karen Hale, Lisa Krois, Maria E. Castro, Leela
Richman, Lena Teplitsky, Jason Gingerich, Liz Walker, Will Clark-Shim, Tom
Wunderbro, Chris DeMars, Lena Teplitsky, Deepti Shinde, Nikki Olson.
Quorum was present. The Board voted unanimously to approve the April meeting
minutes.
Vice Chair Arana said two new board members, Jessica Gomez and Bill Kramer,
have been recommended for Senate Confirmation by the Governor and will hopefully
join the Oregon Health Policy Board in June.
Jessica Gomez is a small business owner in Southern Oregon. She mentors young
women and people of color interested in STEM careers. She was named Executive of
the Year in 2020 by the Portland Business Journal. Jessica believes that improving
access to health care while reducing the cost of care is of the utmost importance.
She's excited to help create a sustainable and equitable health care system that we
can all be proud of.
Bill Kramer is a nationally recognized expert in health policy, finance and economics.
Bill has devoted his career to improving the quality and affordability of health care for
everyone and looks forward to helping the board with its priority work. Bill offers
extensive experience and expertise in health policy, quality measurement, value-
based provider payment, health insurance, health care, finance and reducing the total
cost of care.
Additionally, Chair Bangsberg has been reappointed to serve another four year term
with the Board.
2. OHA Director’s Update
Director Pat Allen gave an update.
He said that we have some signals that cases of COVID-19 appear to be flattening.
This is a similar pattern to the B117-driven spikes that we've seen in places likeMinnesota, Michigan and Washington. The public health measures are still important
to take because it's what really gets us from plateauing into driving the cases back
down again. Back in the winter, we had cases of 1500-1600 a day so we’re doing
better this time. The one thing that's consistently true is that our fatalities during this
spike appear to be much more modest. One of the big elements of the OHA’s
Coronavirus Response and Recovery Unit’s (CRRU) work is supporting long-term
care facilities through outbreaks. That is a joint effort between OHA and DHS that
involves healthcare acquired infections, strike teams, staffing assistance and
decompression units to move COVID-19 positive patients to other facilities.
In terms of vaccinations our demand has declined a little bit, but not so much to be
alarming. We're down around 33,000 doses per day, on a seven-day rolling average;
we peaked out a little bit over 40,000.
He said we've now exhausted all the names in the Portland-metro area that were
signed up to go into a lottery and be invited to schedule vaccinations. The convention
center now is moving to being supportive of our 16-to-18-year-old strategy, which is
limited to Pfizer; they've been working with educational service districts in the Portland
metro area to enlist schools to help with transportation scheduling. If you sum it all up
and look across the state, we're at about 30% fully vaccinated and another 12% or so
in process. The trend lines are still going up steadily in those categories, even
amongst the very oldest seniors that we haven't topped out.
If you went back to April 1, you would see that the Latino/Latina population was
getting vaccinated at about 40% the rate of the overall statewide average. He said it
was about 15% versus 27%. The Latino/Latina population is now up over 50% of the
statewide average vaccination rate and that gap is closing by a healthy amount. Each
day for the African American population, we're closing in on a two-thirds vaccination
rate. The Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander population is over 100%; their vaccination
rate is higher than the overall statewide average. He said the strategies that we've
been talking about for a while, focusing on FQHCs, or mobile vaccination
opportunities, migrant seasonal farmworkers strategies at worksites - those kinds of
things are really beginning to chew into this gap. We're now showing some
meaningful progress and he is happy with that 40 to 50% increase over the course of
April and that appears to be accelerating.
Kirsten Isaacson asked about vaccines for children ages 12 through 16. Pat said we
are anticipating word from the FDA this week and we would take advantage of our
existing strategy of how to widen the geographic availability of Pfizer, which is usually
some kind of a hub-and -poke model. He adds an additional complication, though,
around parental consent, and how to manage the paperwork. The good news is the
logistical lift doesn't change by going to 12-year-olds. By moving into pediatrician’s
offices, not only do you get the kid, but you get a shot at getting the family as well;
that's also an important opportunity.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 2John Santa asked when can we travel out of the country? Pat said that is really a
combination of how well vaccinated other parts of the world are, and how much data
emerges about the true effectiveness of the vaccine.
Ebony Clarke thanked Director Allen and the team for their quick responsiveness and
the continued equity strategies. She noted there are a lot of competing and equally
weighted priorities.
Vice Chair Arana asked the strategies to get people who are less-likely to be,
vaccinated. Pat said they are redistributing doses to primary care providers as the
best message about vaccines may come from someone already involved in a
person’s care. We also will be able to use doses in much more tailored fashions
around faith-based organizations, community-based organizations and other trusted
voices. We had some great success around migrant seasonal farmworkers at work
sites. It's a kind of an opportunity throughout the entire summer and into fall that we
can continue to work with.
American Rescue Plan Update
Dave Baden gave a presentation.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides emergency supplemental funding
for the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic and specifically provides
resources for vaccines and therapeutics, testing, bolstering our public health
workforce, and supporting mental health and substance abuse treatment.
Additionally, the legislation extends the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance
program and includes Medicaid flexibilities for states and territories.
ARPA adds $358.5 billion in state and local fiscal recovery funding and $50.8 billion
in testing, tracing and mitigation as well as other categories. Dave said this is a one-
time infusion and not ongoing funds. Oregon's estimated allocation from that is
about $2.6 billion.
Dave said some of ARPA’s Medicaid provisions start next April 2022, on some
modifications for pregnant and postpartum women, as well as the state option to
provide qualifying committee based mobile crisis intervention services. We still have
some research and work to do on this. There was a lot of extension of 100% federal
match on a variety of things. He said there is additional support for Medicaid Home
and Community Based Services.
Dave said the funding coming to Oregon has given Leadership a chance to think big
and to support our 2030 strategic goal to end health inequities in Oregon and
support the State Health Improvement Plan, support for the behavioral health
system, economic drivers of health and access to equitable preventive health care.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 3He said there are systemic challenges in the behavioral health field from not
having enough beds to the workforce and other capacity issues. He could see a
large investment of that being facility infrastructure costs. Another one is a healthy
community’s grant. This is one that we're working in partnership with the Oregon
Department of Human Services and the Oregon Department of Education.
Further, he discussed increasing access to health care by:
• Equity grants for community/regional partners ($10M)
• Health equity metric incentives ($100M)
• REALD data collection and reporting ($15M)
• CCO equity grants ($150M)
• Bilingual and bicultural health care workforce investment ($100M)
Dave said $84 million is going to support 30 health centers around the state.
Discussion:
Brenda Johnson said she recognized these are one-time infrastructure
investments and what we end up doing in 2022 and 2023 will be impacted
because of this. She asked are you contemplating how to position this opportunity,
so that the impact of the reduction in essence, what will feel like a reduction of
funds into the future isn't quite so intense? Dave said that point is super well taken.
We've had a lot of internal discussions of how to think about expanding the public
health workforce, that doesn't create these big cliffs that we get to in the future. On
the CDC side there, they're excited and really worried of what this will mean.
Kirsten was curious with the pretty large bucket allocated to technology
modernization, if any of that will offset some of the cuts some other work. Seems
like some HITOC’s work has been pulled back for a bit because of other funding
restrictions. So, shifting or changing, not quite a cliff, but some pullback of other
funds. Does any of HITOC’s work fit into this bucket? She said she was sad to see
the provider directory go. Dave said it could fit in that bucket.
Ebony Clarke said she is thinking about the limited resource of public health and
how to prioritize funding. As we think about the state budget and state general
funds, versus the ARPA funds, what are strategies for sustained funding, so we
don't have this constant kind of yo-yo effect within our system. Dave said that is a
super cogent point. He said he thinks that sustainability of that funding is so
important, because we now have augmented and provided support for so many
committee-based organizations to do more work. The continued pandemic
response work, in an ongoing sustainable way, is super important for everyone in
Oregon.
3. Legislative Update
Holly Heiberg and Jeff Scroggin gave a legislative presentation.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 4Holly said that everything her team is doing with every bill is trying to move
towards the goal of eliminating health inequities by 2030.
The deadline to schedule bills for work session in the opposite chamber is May 14.
Other deadlines:
• Revenue forecast: May 19
• Work session in opposite chamber: May 28
• Constitutional Sine Die: June 2
OHA Bill and Budget Request Categories:
• Reduce Barriers to Health and Reduce Health Inequities in our
Communities
• Reduce Health Inequities in the Healthcare System, and Realize Better
Care, Better Health, and Lower Costs
• Improve Behavioral Health Services and Decrease Behavioral Health
Inequities
Holly and Jeff discussed some bills currently being discussed including:
• Modernize Public Health (HB 2073 placeholder not used, POP 417:
$30.0M)
• Modernize Emergency Medical Services (HB 2076 not moving, EMS fees
proposed to be included in HB 2910, POP 450, $0 GF)
• Social Determinants of Health (HB 3353)
• Telehealth (HB 2508)
• Create a Cover All People Pilot (HB 2164, Racial Justice Council request,
$10M GF, and HB 3352)
• Race, Ethnicity, Language and Disability (REALD) and Sexual Orientation
and Gender Identify (SOGI) Data Collection (HB 3159)
• Public Option (HB 2010)
• Behavioral Health Parity (HB 3046)
• Ban Flavored Tobacco Sales (HB 2148 not moving)
• Universal Access to Primary Care (HB 3108)
Holly stressed that we really are investing in our public health system and in our
community partners.
Jeff went into more detail about Cover All People and the Public Option saying that
provides for kids who've aged out of Cover All Kids to have the care and the
parents to have care was amended that way in house health. There's an initial
recommended investment in the governor's recommended budget for this as a
kind of pilot/expansion of about $10 million.
Discussion:
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 5Vice Chair Arana asked about the social determinants of health bill. Jeff said it is
really focused on Oregon's 1115 waiver and prescribing certain components that
might be part of that waiver negotiation. It's focused specifically on health equity,
which aligns with where the state is going, as it relates to the waiver, and has
some prescriptive components around CCOs investing in health equity and
behavioral health and including community to direct those investments.
Dr. John Santa asked about the mergers and acquisitions bill. Does the bill really
position itself as specifically focused on health equity? Would the bill result in an
impact on health equity? Holly said it does have that focus.
Kirsten asked if there was a role the Board could play in supporting the legislative
work. Holly said she thinks it's great that the Board is tracking this and having the
important conversations. She said the Board can give feedback in thoughts and
she should take that forward as part of one of our important advisors in how we
move out this work.
4. Public Comment
Vice Chair Arana invited Paul Terdal to give public comment.
Mr. Terdal said, “I am a resident of Northwest Portland and I'm testifying as a
member of the public and as the father of two Medicaid eligible children with
disabilities as you noted to provide comments on the upcoming section 1115
Medicaid waiver renewal application. There are two critical fixes that should really
be included. First, please remove the obsolete EPSDT waiver provision. And
second, please declare that you will not be using quality or quality adjusted life
here metrics in the prioritized list for EPSDT. The federal government's purpose is
to provide all medically necessary diagnostic and treatment services for children
under the age of 21. Regardless of whether or not such services or otherwise are
covered by the state Medicaid plan for adults, Oregon, as far as I can tell is the
only state in the entire country that reserves the right to withhold medically
necessary care from children solely for the purpose of raising money. There may
have been a legislative purpose for that or a policy purpose of that 30 years ago
when OHP was started, but it's time to move on from that there has been a drastic
increase in funding and in coverage for, for access to health care, particularly for
children. And it's really time that Oregon drops that EPSDT waiver and moves
forward. This is a tool that values the treatment according to years of additional life
adjusted for the level of disability, the effect to use to automatically discount the
value of the life of people with disabilities. It has been used the end in ranking
services on a prioritized list. It's discriminatory, and I would ask you to insert a
provision saying that you are using that in the future. Thank you.”
5. 1115 Medicaid Waiver Update
Lori Coyner and Jeremy Vandehey gave a presentation.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 6Oregon is applying to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for a
new five-year Medicaid 1115 Demonstration waiver. The implementation is
targeted for June of 2022.
Lori discussed the wavier renewal’s policy and engagement calendar which
highlights work being accomplished from February through December 2021, when
a final draft application will be completed. She said they are engaging with our
community partners, who work every day with our clients and our Oregon Health
Plan (OHP) members, the Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHECs) who also
work with clients on a daily basis, and then also other stakeholders that are
interested in the waiver. Other organizations which the waiver may impact include
the Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs). She said we've defined many
problems and have taken time to look at what community, particularly communities
of color for example, during our CCO 2.0 development, to lay out some of the
problems. We're really beginning at this point to have those conversations about
the drivers and barriers to those problems.
Lori said, starting in May, OHA will convene focused work groups to help OHA
integrate experiences with the delivery system and identify what changes are
needed. Sessions will be divided into a three-part technical work group series that
aligns with OHA’s timeline of waiver content development and covers a deep dive
into each of the goal areas.
Content Development Stages:
1: Define problem, drivers, barriers
2: Potential strategies and theories
3: Program detail, quality and evaluation
Goal Areas:
Equity Centered System of Health
Access to Coverage
Smart, Flexible Spending through Global Budget
Reinvest Savings in Across Systems
From May through September 2021, convene community partners in a dedicated
waiver webinar series, called “Waiver Days.” They are open to anyone who wants
to come. The idea is we will divide out into groups and it will be opportunities for
people to sit at virtual tables and really talk in detail about the waiver. The
webinars will be in English and in Spanish.
She said this is another opportunity for our community partners who focus mainly
on helping either OHP members fill out paperwork or new potential OHP members
learn how to and provide assistance in filling out applications in and getting people
signed up for OHP. These partners are key to understanding the difficulties that
our members are experiencing and the kind of lived experience that many of our
members have in their daily lives.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 7Overarching Waiver Goal: Advance Health Equity
To achieve this, our policy framework breaks down the drivers of health inequities
into four actionable sub-goals:
• Ensuring access to coverage for all people in Oregon
• Creating an equity-centered system of health
• Encouraging smart, flexible spending
• Reinvesting government savings across systems
Jeremy said the waiver encourages smart, flexible spending that supports health
equity. The global budget framework in Oregon has a strong record of providing
flexibility in the way Medicaid dollars are spent toward improving outcomes.
Future State:
• CCOs have greater flexibility in spending through their global budgets, with
consumer protections.
• Decisions about community investments are held by the community itself.
• People will get the care and supports they need to stay healthy.
Jeremy said the overall goal of the global budget framework in Oregon was really
twofold; one to push the healthcare delivery system to operate within an
established budget and to use that to drive innovation, to drive change, to drive
higher value services, and to move away from a system where, the health care
system is rewarded for higher costs, especially spending on things that are low
value. The community can really help drive dollars to the right place within the
system that really promote health and also provide more flexibility so that
members can get the things that they need, at the time that they need them that
are going to keep them healthy, regardless whether that's a healthcare service or
something else. That could mean food, transportation, housing supports.
Jeremy said we do have a global budget which is defined as a budget given to
CCOs to cover integrated service delivery for OHP member to achieve optimal
health. He said he thinks what we're talking is a future state of overall budget
versus kind of the more traditional capitation model. It really has to do with how
that budget evolves and changes over time.
The intention of the CCO Global Budget in 2012 was:
• Integration of services under one contract –Physical, Behavioral, Dental &
Non-emergent Transportation
• Increase the tie to quality
• Encourage CCOs to address non-medical needs that impact health (e.g.,
housing supports)
• Achieve sustainable rate of growth (in exchange for initial federal
reinvestment of $1.9 billion)
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 8He said when the system fails, people end up in the emergency room or jail most
often. We need the systems working together and a big piece of that was folding
the dollars together.
Jeremy said CMS has some pretty rigid rules around having a look back at most
recent health care spending so that's the piece where we've really struggled.
We've come up with a lot of ways to try to build in that same incentive for the
system to live within a budget and to rewarded for efficiency. Those have largely
been things we've had to tack on to the traditional rate setting process. We have
gotten a lot of flexibility from CMS in terms of how CCOs can spend and they have
a lot of flexibility today. The challenge is being able to see that investment shows
back up in the rates and not feel penalized if they do a bunch of things that lower
costs.
What we’ve achieved so far since CCO 2.0:
• CCOs who achieve a lower rate of growth will not be penalized with lower
rates
• Incentivized health-related services investment through performance-based
reward program
• Sustainable program target continues to be met
• Continue to maintain a sizeable quality pool payment
He said we had to go through a process to completely redo our rate methodology
back in 2015, after CMS questioned how we were doing it. So, that really pushed
us to really remake the entire process.
Lori added that in 2012 we ran out of time to negotiate our original version of the
global budget so there was a lot in the waiver that was vague. She said we really
want CCOs to have the flexibility to provide some funding directly to communities
who know what their needs are to allow more flexibility in the areas of social needs
where we know it keeps people healthier.
Many challenges remain.
• Incentives are not aligned with goal of eliminating health inequities and
promoting long-term, upstream investments
• In many CCOs, power and decision-making on community investments and
health equity is still centralized within the CCO
• Federal rules for considering recent health care spending
Role of the waiver is smart, flexible spending that supports health equity. Jeremy
said first and foremost, it's really to get to a new definition of what a global budget
looks like, trying to end the cycle of inefficiency within the system; low value care
is still sort of rewarded in the way that we do rates that you can see that show right
back up and rates in future years.
Strategies exploring for this waiver:
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 9• End the cycle of historical, inefficient costs driving rates, and build budgets
that shift focus to flexible spending to meet member and community needs
• Explore opportunities for bundled payments to target complex needs
• Enhance consumer protections, quality, and equitable outcomes
• Expand community governance, both within and outside of CCOs
• Commit to a sustainable growth rate and negotiate with CMS for targeting
reinvestment in eliminating health inequities
Expanded community governance
• Achieving OHA’s goal to eliminate inequities will require different but
intentional approaches to centering community voice in decision-making
• Identify opportunities for community to lead resource distribution or
redistribution to improve the health of priority and underserved communities
• Process matters: strategy will be co-created in partnership with the
Regional Health Equity Coalitions
Discussion:
Brenda wondered about how we tend to the question around the fiscal
accountability and the actuarial soundness and all the mechanical things that go
underneath them. Jeremy said we're trying to build something that hasn't been
done in another state. He said the global budget means a little something different
to everybody; basically, it’s a blended funding stream that grows at a prospective
fixed rate. It's important that we can evolve to say to the healthcare system, you
have a set of money, and you really need to figure out how to live within that.
Kirsten said non-emergency transportation is a challenge for so many Medicaid
members. She was curious about the new vision that will help address that
challenge. Lori said she can shed a little light on the non-emergency medical
transportation benefit for Oregon Health Plan members is federally required; all
states must provide non-emergency medical transportation. What that means is
rides to medical appointments, that aren't an emergency where you would take an
ambulance. CCOs rely on brokers and others to help with that. Sometimes people
need a particular vehicle they need to transport in a wheelchair. There certainly is
lots that we can do as a Medicaid program to improve that, that we don't that
doesn't require a waiver. It requires really talking to community and understanding
the barriers. She said that she believes through a waiver authority we can look to
improve our program.
John commented on consumer protections, saying we have to watch out for the
widgets that are harming people.
Brenda asked how do we mitigate against those sorts of interactions so that our
pendulum doesn't swing one way too far or the other? Jeremy said we are years
away from the new waiver and many details are still in the works.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 10Vice Chair Arana asked how we are aligning Cover All People with the waiver.
Jeremy said we're still working through this part of our overall message to the
federal government. We're establishing a cost growth. Underneath our broader
umbrella of equity, we've got two key goals: having a higher value system that's
lower costs and sustainable. We also want to get to a spot as close as possible to
having universal coverage as a state. There is Medicaid, Federal dollars, the
marketplace - it's a broader conversation with them, how do we really stitch
together several things. We're really, as a state, making a huge effort to contain
costs of the entire healthcare system, in part so that we can make sure everybody
has access to it.
6. Kindergarten Readiness: Social-Emotional Metric
Dr. John Santa gave an update.
This is coming in the third year of a six-year project, involving a unique
collaboration of state community groups and measurement experts focused on
kindergarten readiness. The project seeks to add a third measure involving
children to the incentive metric set in 2020. From the outset, this third measure,
focused on the social emotional health of children, has been seen as a key step in
integration of physical dental and mental health. This is transformative work that's
been recognized nationally and funded by philanthropy. The metric was recently
presented to the Health Plan Quality Metrics Committee (HPQMC) and a motion to
put the metric on the menu of possible incentive measures, making it possible for
metrics and scoring to deliberate on it was approved unanimously. During that
discussion, there were concerns expressed about the impact of COVID-19 on
CCOs. It was pointed out that the evidence is strong, but young children have
been very affected by the epidemic from a social-emotional point of view and are
likely as in need of this type of activity as ever, if not more. He said he hoped the
Policy Board will join so many others in supporting this project and move it
forward.
Colleen Reuland, the Director of the Oregon Pediatric Improvement Partnership
said we do population-based improvement work for children across the state and
this metric really builds off work we've done over the last decade. This work has
been a collaborative effort with OHA led by Dr. Dana Hargunani.
Elena Rivera, Senior Health Policy Advisor at Children's Institute, said we're a
statewide nonprofit advocacy organization; we advocate for early investments and
policy and systems change, to support all children to thrive.
Colleen said health plan quality metrics and metrics and scoring, endorsed a multi-
phase strategy or four different measures over four years. When we hit
transformational measures, you're going to need people to lean in and develop
those measures. They're going to need to go get fundraising. They're going to
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 11need to do Portland piloting work that's going to have to meet all the measurement
criteria that health and quality metrics has set.
She said from the first meeting, to the last meeting, the top priority topic raised by
providers and early learning parent health systems, with social emotional, if
children show up at kindergarten, unable to self-regulate, and children that appear
in certain ways can actually get differentially treated from the beginning in
kindergarten. That becomes a social determinant of health in that they are labeled,
categorized, and treated quite differently in school. She asked the Board to weigh
in on the measures.
Discussion:
Brenda wondered if the presenters could speak to the resistance that already
anticipated in these pilot kinds of periods.
Colleen said the value of an incentive measure pool is they shouldn't be for things
that aren't hard. There's a good awareness generally around adverse childhood
events, and what that impact of the first five years of life is. She asked how do you
operationalize focus on social determinants of health? How do you think through
the various roles within the cross-sector systems? You can't actually get to
addressing social emotional health by just telling a primary care practice to screen
or telling behavioral health provider to have this or telling early learning providers
to identify children. It's going to require a cross-sector focus. This is going to
require some new work to happen. Some of the new work is thinking through how
to operationalize specific focuses around community level factors. It is going to
look differently in Portland than in Eastern Oregon.
Elena added that CCOs have discussed their focus on social determinants of
health.
Kirsten asked how the Board can be supportive. Jeremy said he is not aware that
the board has endorsed a specific measure here or there. John said in some
instances the Board has written letter, but he is not asking for that step.
Vice Chair Arana said he has been thinking about the pandemic and the kind of
trauma it's actually causing with families, particularly low income families, BIPOC
families who are most disproportionately being impacted by the results of the
pandemic, and the stress that is happening with adults that is then transferred to
children. A lot of the conversations that we've been having have been about how
do we build back something better and something different.
Ebony said we continue to put a lot of our energy focus resource around the
COVID-19 response. At the same time, we need to continue to look at and move
forward, because we are seeing some of the concerns disparities play out now,
even at a more elevated rate.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 12Brenda said she supports the notion wholeheartedly and thinks we’re right on the
cusp of potentially a formal board action, at least from her perspective.
Vice Chair Arana said he had an opportunity to speak with Chair Bangsberg who
is in support of this effort.
7. Closing Remarks
Vice Chair Arana thanked everyone for participating in the conversation. He said
the next meeting will be June 1st.
May 4, 2021 | meeting minutes Pg. 13You can also read
