Gateway
Board of Directors
Minutes
Meeting:
Date/Time:
Location:
Board Attendees
Steve Alby
Martha Barber
Carmelita Bivens
Derry Bunting
Margaret Caley
Valerie Camp
Susan Compton
Heather Cooper
Dick Dandurand
Donnie Dobbins
Board of Directors – Annual Retreat
May 15 2012, 8:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
BB&T Alabama Headquarters
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Agenda Item and
Speaker:
Business Session –
Sandy Killion
Denson Franklin
James Gettys
Glenn Goedecke
Alice Gordon
Phyllis Hall
Brian Huff
Sandy Killion
Jamal McCaskey
Steve McCord
James McCrary
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Melanie Montgomery
Denise Moore
Barvette Patterson
Tony Porter
Kate Ray
Kristin Ritter
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Associate Board:
Staff:
Jackie D-Fowler
Wes Goodenough
Doug Horst
Vanessa Huggins
Cathy Jenkins
Jim Loop
Kathleen Ross
Whitney Rother
Rickie Young
Topic Summary
Business Session
Ms. Killion welcomed the group to the Annual Board Retreat and thanked the Board
members for attending and Susan Compton for allowing the use of the BB&T
facilities.
Facilities Report—Sandy Killion
The facilities hired Goodwin Mills and Cawood to do a complete examination of all
the property and buildings the agency owns. This is a comprehensive list of not only
what there is, but also what condition it is in.
They concluded that the campus was still needed for residential programs and there
was not currently a way to combine all operations into one building. Campus is
currently at capacity for classroom space. Security is still an issue on campus. There
will be more discussion of what fencing is appropriate or allowable.
Goodwin Mills and Cawood’s recommendation was that the Board should complete
some long-term projections of programs and space requirements. The Board will
continue to look at the possibilities and discuss at the next Board Meeting.
Financials—Clyde Smith
Mr. Smith reported on the first six months ending March 31, 2012. He relayed that it
had been an outstanding first half of the year, but was likely the calm before the
storm.
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Topic Summary
Although administration looks like it is carrying a 101K loss for the year, that is
budgeted against investment income, so there is no issue. Pysch 21 has a 15K loss
for the year, he noted that 20K of that was startup expenses for the Substance Abuse
Cottage.
TFC has a surplus of 350K, but there certainly is concern of how long that will
continue with proposed cuts. ILP has a surplus of 69K as well. CCCS is the program
with the largest deficit. It is currently at 31K, and the agency and Program
Committee are looking into ways to stem the loss.
Operating support over expenses is 350K. With both the investment and Beeson
performing well, the total support over expenses is at 1.344 million.
The balance sheet shows cash at 2 million, which should help with potential
problems coming down the road.
Mr. Smith shared the recommendation of the Investment Committee to change the
collateral on the agency’s line and letter of credit from investments to AR and the
Southside building. The Investment Committee must finalize the change by the end
of the month and has the Finance Committee’s approval to move forward if
documents are received that truly replace one with the other. This change will give
the agency total access to its investments. Once that freedom is obtained, the
Investment Committee will move forward with a firm that will handle the
investments. The motion was approved unanimously.
Ms. Moore was asked to give an update from the Audit Committee. She shared that
the agency had received an unqualified opinion on the audit. However, there were
five management comments, four of which were material weaknesses. The good
news is that all were easily rectified. Accounting has provided a plan to eliminate the
issues the auditors discovered, some of which are new policies and procedures for
approval processes. The Audit Committee will meet again prior to next year’s audit
to cover the procedures with the audit firm and get their approval.
Off the Wall—Tony Porter
The Off the Wall fundraiser in April was a success in terms of enjoyment of the
attendees. Mr. Porter thanks the Gateway staff, especially Ms. Ross, for all the work
they put in to make the event a success.
Financially, the event made 66K and made a net of 59K after expenses with 283
tickets sold. The results certainly could have been better—the budget for this year’s
event was 80K. All but two Board Members participated. He also noted that five of
the new Board Members fully participated, even though they were not required to do
so.
The expectations for next year will be even higher. This will be accomplished by
starting to get corporate sponsorships earlier—in June and July when they are
planning their budgets.
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Topic Summary
Committee Assignments—Sandy Killion
The Board was given the final committee structure. In the future, the Governance
committee will get the committees in place for the March turnover. If any member is
unhappy with their committee choice, they can let Ms. Killion know and she will
facilitate that move.
Prevention Services- A
Focused Discussion—
Tom Thompson
Prevention Services- A Focused Discussion—Tom Thompson
Ms. Killion told the attendees that the Board Retreat had always been a time for the
Board to expand their knowledge in the social service arena and that this Retreat
would be no different. The Program Committee completed their examination of all
the agency’s programs and decided that it was time to take a strategic and
comprehensive look at prevention programs. So that the Board would have a good
understanding, there were experts invited to help develop that knowledge. The three
panel participants are Sara Newell from the United Way of Central Alabama, Paul
Butler from Alabama State Department of Human Resources and Linda Jewel
Morgan of Casey Family Programs. Tom Thompson acted as a moderator of the
discussion.
Mr. Thompson began by listing some of the programs that are considered prevention:
CCCS, Community Connections and Gateway Violence Intervention Program.
Mostly, these are programs that are funded by the United Way or through grants. He
stressed that the Board needed to look at how to evaluate these programs and how
they fit in the agency.
Each panelist gave a description of their view and their organization’s view of
prevention.
Sara Newell- UWCA:
Their view of prevention is broad-based and the United Way spends several million a
year in that area. Almost every one of their partners does some kind of prevention.
They have found that does the most impact for the money spent. Their new focus
will be in three areas: education, income and health. They work on balancing
prevention and intervention.
Paul Butler- AL DHR:
Mr. Butler noted that DHR is responsible for all child welfare functions. They deal
with 19-20K cases of child abuse a neglect each year and have roughly 6K children
in foster care. They also have roughly 9-10K prevention cases each year. These are
cases that don’t meet the statutory requirement of abuse will need help to prevent it.
DHR is seeing an increase in problem families that deal with substance abuse and
domestic violence.
Linda Jewel Morgan- Casey Family Programs:
The Casey Foundation categorizes prevention into three areas: primary prevention,
which is aimed at the whole community for education; secondary prevention, which
is aimed towards the at-risk population (she noted that 80% of cases are child neglect
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and 20% are child abuse); and finally tertiary prevention, which is similar to
treatment in that it is to help prevent reoccurrence of abuse.
Mr. Thompson posed the question of how far “upstream” prevention programs
should go. Responses recommended tailoring prevention programs to the risk and the
problems that would cause a child to be removed from the home. One of the most
recommended was the “secondary” level prevention. It is easier to measure—unlike
broad primary prevention. The way to measure secondary and tertiary prevention is
by measuring repeat maltreatment, the amount of new cases and model fidelity.
One of the agency’s main concerns with prevention programming is the quandary of
funding. There was discussion of 4E funds. There was also talk of how to do
“creative funding” that uses United Way dollars to get Medicaid funding. The
thought of the Board is that once the agency has decided to support certain
prevention services, there will be a commitment to find funding.
Agency
Loop
Update—Jim Agency Update—Jim Loop
Mr. Loop stated that the largest issue facing the agency currently is the concern over
funding. The following day was going to be the day that the state budget was or was
not passed. It is likely that the Legislature will go into special session. Cuts will
likely be 25% to DHR, but that is in addition to proration from this year. The
agency’s most significant immediate impact has been to the Alliance, specifically
WRAP and STAR. To break even, STAR has to have 36 slots and WRAP needs 18.
Currently, they are at 7 in STAR and 14 in WRAP.
Other programs capacity are as follows: Residential is at 32 versus a budget of 32,
Residential has 29-30, ILP has 29 in Birmingham and 15 in Huntsville and TFC has
40-41.
Operating authority has been granted to the Substance Abuse Cottage. Staff is ready
with only two days worth of billing training needed. Reimbursement will likely be
$200-250 a day for Medicaid and could be $400-500 per day for private insurance.
Board Issues—Sandy
Killion
Board Issues/Discussion—Sandy Killion
Board Development
Ms. Killion wanted to let the Board know that it is imperative for the Board members
to be educated on the agency’s issues so that they can be advocates. In that vein, she
wanted to know what areas they would like additional education. Some suggestions
were to offer a tour of the facilities and to maintain boards in the training room with
details on each program.
Ms. Killion also reminded the Board to be ever mindful of potential new Board
members. They must be committed by December and be voted on in the January
meeting. There will be a need for five to six new members.
The question was also posed to Board Members whether Board Education at
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meetings is useful. Board members confirmed that they still wanted to have program
information presented. In addition, they requested success stories and program
challenges.
Branding
Now that the agency has a new logo, some members of the Branding Committee met
with o2 Ideas about what will be done with it. The last meeting was held to form a 45 month Branding Campaign. The goal for launch is to begin in September 2012 and
run through August 2013. O2 Ideas created a multi-media campaign with TV, radio,
internet, outdoor, etc. Ms. Killion shared the commercial concepts. The initial
purpose of the campaign is to grow name recognition for the agency. All ads will
drive traffic to the website. This will later develop into fundraising.
The initial proposed campaign cost a good deal more than the agency’s initial
budget, but they are open to working with the agency and have agreed to break each
element down. There was initially 100K pledged to this branding, but the Board will
likely look at the possibility of spending more to ensure it is effective. There are also
earned media credits that can be used to expand brand recognition.
The general consensus of the Board was that the agency couldn’t afford not to do
more to get in the public eye. With the potential for drastic funding cuts, they
acknowledged that fundraising will be a major part of the agency’s future success.
Ms. Killion thanked the Board for their time and participation and the meeting was
adjourned.
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Secretary
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