Good Afternoon, Folks-
Here are some NYSCAA updates and other items that may be of interest
NYSCAA News and Updates
Save the Date for the June 2007 NYSCAA Annual Conference and Membership Meeting/Annual Awards Celebration. The annual conference will be held June 11-13, 2007 at the Poughkeepsie Grand Hotel in Poughkeepsie, NY. The event will run from noon on Monday, June 11th through noon on Wednesday, June 13th. Please hold the dates and plan on joining your colleagues for what we hope will be an engaging and educational conference.
CAA Head Start/Early Head Start Providers will meet by conference call on Monday, January 29th, 2:00-3:00 to discuss recent experiences, problems, policies, procedures, etc.
Policy Discussion and Position Development Groups. The Public Policy Committee will be hosting several discussion groups over the next 6 weeks in order to develop position statements/talking points that build off the committee’s work in preparation for the March 13th advocacy day in Albany and for ongoing legislative/public education/website posting. We will keep the calls to no more than 45 minutes each and will likely have 2-3 calls per topic. This is a new venture for NYSCAA and participation is open to all members. Please let me know if you would like to participate in one or more of these conference calls.
Basic Needs: Thursday, January 25th at 10:00
Immigration: Thursday, January 25th at 2:00
Housing: Friday, January 26th at 10:00
Economic Development: Friday, January 26th at 2:00
Child Care/Head Start: Thursday, February 1st at 10:00. This will go beyond Head Start/Early Head Start and will address broader child care issues and have a different focus than the meeting on the 29th.
NCAF Meetings in Washington, DC. The meeting with Senator Clinton’s staff has been scheduled for Thursday, March 8th at 3:00. We hope that if you are in Washington for the NCAF conference, you can join us for the New York visit to Senator Clinton. More information will follow as to this and other visits.
Thank you. Thank you to Maureen Lashlee for taking the time to meet with me this week as well as hosting the FDANYS board meeting on Tuesday. Thanks to all the board and committee members for their participation in the board meeting on Monday and the morning meeting with the auditor. Folks truly come from far and wide and give significant amounts of time. Your participation is greatly appreciated.
Meeting with Bob Halsch. We hope that folks who attended the session with Bob Halsch on Monday enjoyed the presentation and found it worthwhile. This will likely be an ongoing conversation as the group raised a number of issues that will need further debate, conversation and planning. We will keep you updated as we move forward.
The next Public Policy Committee Conference Call will be Tuesday, February 13th at 9:00.
The next Membership Development Committee will be live and in person in the Syracuse area (weather permitting) on Wednesday, February 14th at 11:00-2:00. Exact location TBD.
National Community Action Partnership
National Partnership Board Activities. Attached are the minutes from the Partnership’s December board meeting for your review. Knowing that folks are interested in the search effort for a new Partnership President, here is the section of the minutes discussing the search: “The [personnel] committee will obtain the services of an employment agency in the search for a new Partnership President. The target date for a new Partnership President is July 1, 2007. This includes screenings by the Personnel Committee in March 2007. The board will be a part of the interview process during its March 2007 board meeting.”
Articles and Other Items of Interest
Impact on NYS’ Minimum Wage Increase on “Exempt” Employees. When the New York State minimum wage increases to $7.15 per hour on January 1, 2007, the minimum salary level an employee must be paid to be considered exempt will also increase. An “exempt” employee is a worker who is not subject to the minimum wage and overtime pay requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and New York State labor regulations. An employee may qualify for an exemption as an executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, computer professional, or highly compensated employee. To be classified as exempt, an employee must generally:
1) meet a job duties test; 2) be paid on a salary basis; and 3) be paid at least a minimum salary level. Effective January 1, 2007, the minimum salary level requirement for the executive and administration exemptions under NYS labor regulations will increase from $506.25 per week to $536.10 per week. The duties tests and the salary basis requirement for these exemptions remain the same. (Note: The salary level test under the FLSA remains at $455 per week but NYS employers must pay the higher of the two salary levels.) Source: Amtek Management Services Corp. See www.amtekhr.com for more information and contact attorney familiar with NYS HR law if you have any questions.
Community Action Highlighted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. If you are a subscriber to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, you may want to check out the story on a Wisconsin-based CAP entitles: In the Driver's Seat. A Social-service charity's car dealership aims to put its clients on the road to a brighter future at http://www.philanthropy.com/premium/articles/v19/i06/06001001.htm While the Chronicle doesn’t promote Community Action as they probably should have/could have, it highlights the impact entrepreneurial ventures can have for an agency and community. If you are not a subscriber and would like a copy, please let me know.
Food and Nutrition Service Reports on Status of Federal Nutrition Assistance. (“Leading the Fight Against Hunger: Federal Nutrition Assistance,” fns.usda.gov, December 2006) USDA nutrition assistance programs reach one in five Americans over the course of a year, reports the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since 2001, funding for these programs has increased by more than 50 percent, to $59 billion, accounting for over half of USDA’s annual budget. The agency provides food stamps to more than 26 million low-income people, half of which are children. In 2004, 60 percent of eligible individuals were able to participate in the Food Stamp program. Last year, FNS awarded more than $1 million to 15 faith- and community-based organizations to improve access to the program and will award another $1 million to 14 more organizations this year. The National School Lunch Program added 1 million more children since 2001. It now feeds 30 million students, with 15.5 million receiving free or reduced-price meals. Over the same period of time, 1.3 million more children were added to the National School Breakfast Program. Almost 10 million children receive a school breakfast every school day in 82,000 schools. In addition, the Summer Food Service Program provides meals to more than 2 million low-income children in the summer months when schools are closed, the agency reports. http://www.fns.usda.gov/fncs/hunger.pdf
Free Online Resource and Demonstration. DataPlace Demonstration
Wednesday, January 17 at 2 p.m. ET (1 p.m. CT/noon MT/11 a.m. PT)
Heard about DataPlace™ (www.dataplace.org) but haven't had a chance to check it out? Or, perhaps you've been to the site but want to learn how to use it better. Join them for their monthly online demonstration of the DataPlace Web site. DataPlace is a KnowledgePlex initiative sponsored by the Fannie Mae Foundation. This free, online resource combines mapping technology and multiple statistical databases, allowing users to access housing and demographic data about communities, regions, and the nation. Troy Anderson, managing director of knowledge management at the Fannie Mae Foundation, and Patrick Simmons, director of housing demography at the Foundation, will guide folks through the DataPlace demo and take your questions and comments about the Web site. http://www.knowledgeplex.org/xchat.html
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Denise
Denise Harlow
Chief Executive Officer
New York State Community Action Association
2 Charles Blvd.
Guilderland, NY 12084
(518) 690-0491, ext. 24
Fax: (518) 690-0498
www.nyscaaonline.org
A Member of the Community Action Partnership-Helping People. Changing Lives
Check out http://hq.nyscaaonline.org/priweb/events.aspx for infomation on upcoming NYSCAA events such as our Online Tech Day on January 31, 2007 and the New York State Symposium on Poverty and Economic Security on March 12-13, 2007.