PRESENT: Jenni Tilton-Flood, Celeste Branham, Luke Shorty, Ed Barrett, Jonathan Barczyk, Maryalice Crofton, John Portela
The Executive Committee gathered virtually for its monthly work session at 3pm.
-- Maine Service Fellows bill in legislature: Representative Morgan Rielly has submitted a bill to establish the Maine Service Fellows as a program under the Commission and request funding for 10 positions to serve as the foundation group. The first three years would require a focus on COVID recovery in communities. He would like Commissioner assistance with organizing testimony and outreach to legislators. John offered to handle the mid-coast legislators. Luke has contacts in The County and Jenni will coordinate activities with Communications task force. The bill does not have an LD yet; it is in the revisors office for drafting.
-- Microsoft Teams vs Basecamp: the jury is in. Commission staff along with state OIT staff met with a representative of Microsoft. The wide variety of challenges Commissioners and Grantees encounter were reviewed. It was noted that the issues are not the same across users. The MS rep explained all the variables and, after discussion of Basecamp functions, acknowledged Teams is not that integrated. It is also built largely for in-company teams of people. After some discussion, Executive Committee decided to end the Teams experiment and return to Basecamp and continue with zoom.
-- Updates from the staff.
Michael and Kelsey have been deep into emergency response. Maine CDC merged the 3500 members of Medical Reserve Corps into MaineReady.org but failed to notify the MRC volunteers of the move. About 8% of the emails were not valid/closed and another 3% of people reached out for help. Many meetings and much training of the CDC managers is needed.
The Executive Order (presidential) establishing a climate corps is helping draw interest. Maryalice and Michael are already meeting with Maine programs and staff in the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation to discuss how a Maine Climate Corps would work. Three AmeriCorps programs are involved. This is in early stages of conceptualizing how to marry work underway with goals of Maine’s climate plan and any gaps that may be uncovered.
Commission staff are attempting to recreate a Public Health Corps. There hasn’t been one in Maine for 4 years. The exploration started in November 2020 but is spurred on by the presidential Executive Order creating a Public Health Service Job Corps that would be implemented, at least partially, through AmeriCrops.
Funding in a rural state becomes the issue.
-- Board consideration of diversity, equity, inclusion: Executive committee members discussed the best way to begin exploring how this impacts Commission work. It was decided to ask the Exec Director of ASC to brief the full board on what is happening in other commissions. That will be followed by a discussion of how best to examine the issue here.
-- Final commissioner orientation session: It was noted the final session covers an introduction to the Foundation and orientation to grant-making. Orion Breen is attending the Commission meeting to represent the Foundation so that item can go on the agenda. It will be useful for everyone to get an update. The grant-making process will be covered in the hour before the meeting.
-- As the chairs of Task Forces discussed current work, agenda items for February 18 were identified.
There being no other discussion topics, the committee dispersed at 4:06 pm.