Ryan White Planning Council - Community Health Planning & Strategies (chps) Committee - Regular Meeting

The recording should be going now, and we do have six of seven members present today for the CHIPS committee meeting. So we do have quorum, so we can begin.

Okay, waiting for your email. Do you want me to go ahead, Eric, or do you want to wait for the email? Either way. Michael, if you do. Okay. Please. Yeah, yeah, no problem. So thank you, Gwendolyn, and thank you, everybody. We do have a quorum. I think, Gwendolyn, you said we have quorum at how many out of?

We have six of seven present.

Six of seven. Thank you. The recording has started for today's meeting. And first is welcome and introduction. We've reached quorum. Next is review and acceptance of agenda items. Has everybody received the agenda in their packet and had a chance to review the agenda or need to make any changes to the order of agenda? We cannot add, but we can move around the agenda items if need be.

And Michael, just before we do that, we're going to just do the roll call for conflicts and introductions too.

Thank you for reminding me of that. Of course. Gwendolyn, do the roll call. Thank you, Gwendolyn.

Yeah, so we'll just do the roll call of any members of the CHIPS Committee and everyone from our Part A office who is scheduled to speak on today's agenda. Randall Furrow.

Present, no conflict.

Jason Velcruz.

Good afternoon, President. Conflicts include primary medical, substance use, mental health, HPSCA, and referral for health care and support services.

Erica Teekamp. Erica Teekamp, care directions, conflicts with medical and non-medical case management, referral for health care and support services, medical transportation, and HPSCA. Bradley Reese.

Hello, Bradley Reese, no conflicts.

Benjamin Pearson.

Benjamin Pearson conflict medical case management.

Eric Eason. No conflict.

Thank you, Eric. Jeremy Hivernon.

Jeremy Hivernon, Maricopa County.

Regan Hoy.

Regan Hoy, Maricopa County.

Thank you. So that's everyone on the committee and everyone who is scheduled to speak. So we can go ahead and now we can go ahead and review the agenda. So I'll share that on my screen.

Thank you, Gwendolyn. Thank you.

And again, we don't have to vote on this. I'm just sharing it so we all are familiar with today's items. But whenever we're ready, we can go ahead to the reviewing of last month's meeting minutes.

Awesome. So any changes to the agenda? Anybody need to change agenda items? I can change the order of agenda items, but may not add to comply with open meeting laws. Is everybody OK with the agenda? And we'll move on to the minutes. Hopefully, everybody received minutes in their packet for the minutes for Tuesday, May 26 meeting. At this time, the committee will review the minutes.

And if you have any revisions to the minutes at this time, please share so we can incorporate those.

I see no additions. I'll at the time ask for a motion to accept the minutes from the Tuesday, May 26th, 2026 CHPS committee meeting.

This is Jason, so moved. I just want to make a motion to accept the minutes from the meeting, last meeting.

Awesome. Thank you, Jason. I did hear Jason. And did you want to second that, Benjamin? Eric, second. Eric, second? Okay. Yes. So I do have a motion on the floor to accept the minutes from the Tuesday, May 26, 2026 CHPS meeting, Jason Val Cruz, and a second by Eric Eason. At this time, I'll ask Gwendolyn, or is there any, at this time, I'll ask Gwendolyn if she could do a roll call motion and roll call vote.

Thanks, Michael. Eric, I'll start with you.

Yes.

Randall Farrell?

Yes.

Jason Valcruz?

Aye.

Erica Tequia? Yes. Bradley Reese?

Yes.

Benjamin Pearson?

Yes. Motion carries.

Thank you everybody. And thank you, Benjamin. I kind of heard both of you at the same time. So thank you for stepping forward. I appreciate it. Yeah. Moving on to the next. That's okay. Moving on to the next item. We will go with the chair update at this time. I don't have any updates, but I would like to say maybe Eric, do you have any updates for the,

I do not have any updates.

Okay, awesome. So we'll go ahead and move on to item number six of the agenda, which is the Ryan White HIV AIDS Part A recipient. And I believe Jeremy's here today to present.

Yes, thank you, Michael. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a few updates. The first is that we did ON FRIDAY, RECEIVE OUR PART A NOTICE OF AWARD APPROVING A REQUESTED CARRY OVER AMOUNT FOR $421,983. THAT BRINGS OUR TOTAL FOR THIS GRANT YEAR FUNDING AVAILABLE TO $11,772,068. We will send out the NOA to the Planning Council later this week, so you have that for your records. We are still waiting on approval of our EHE work plan and budget from HRSA. That was submitted a couple weeks ago. Hopefully we will get approval for that. Generally they have minor revisions that they usually request for EHE work plan and budget. So hopefully we will have that in the coming weeks and be able to share a little bit more about that. I just have a brief allocations update today. We will have, when we send out the carryover notice of award, we'll send out the allocations and expenditures report. It's a shorter report. THIS MONTH, BUT WE ARE BACK TO MORE NORMAL PROCESSES WITH OUR EXPENDITURES AND FORECASTING. WE ARE CURRENTLY SHOWING UNDERSPENT FOR THE YEAR IN PART A. THAT IS NORMAL AFTER THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF BILLS. SO WE PROCESSED MARCH, APRIL, AND MAY. service costs and we're running about 1.6 million underspent. We know that that's going to change as we see a number of things come in happening. We anticipate increases in outpatient ambulatory that would be coming throughout the year. We also know that we'll see increases in the food bank home delivered meals service category. And on that note, the planning council in June proved an increase to the food bank home delivered meals allocation and directed the office to work, our office to work on getting that rolled out. It is set to begin technically August 1st. August 1st is a Saturday, so August 3rd. uh clients uh will start those clients who are eligible for the current food voucher program will receive a hundred dollars a month food voucher rather than the forty dollars it was set up for the past year um so that is uh exciting and that is ready to go we've confirmed that with the sub recipients and um everything is set to go for for next monday um so as those as those um changes go into effect, we will see that overspending decrease month by month. And we're still projected to be within budget, which is great. Next up, I do want to just make you all aware that the National Ryan White Conference is next week. I believe it might be today the last day to register for the virtual attending the conference virtually. We can share that link in the chat momentarily. If you have questions on registering for that, you do need our grant number. It's a little pop in the Part A grant number. Planning Council members are welcome to attend virtually. There are several members of our team from the Part A and EHE teams who are going to the council along with Gwen, our planning council support, and Michael and Randall, our chair and vice chair. Randall and Gwen were asked to present on a panel in one of the planning council sessions. So they will be presenting there on the work we do around community engagement and recruitment for planning council members. And then... while we are away we are still working we're not in the office here we're in dc for the conference but we are still working which means we will be available via email um and we'll be checking our emails uh throughout the day so uh and respond as we are able so we are not unavailable just maybe take us a little bit longer to respond to emails um than normal um Also, I just wanted you to be aware, too, that in regards to Medicaid changes that are upcoming, there is a nationwide ad campaign regarding those upcoming changes launched recently. Thanks to Erica for sending me the information on that. And to ensure our clients are not confused or think that they're losing their access coverage today, We are providing some guidance in our next client newsletter. We're just waiting for the final approval internally to send those out. Hopefully they will go out early next week with some language there. And also, again, thanks to Erica and to Dr. Roman, our access rep on the planning council who reviewed the language that we drafted. It was very similar to the language that access was providing. um, to community organizations, but we're wanting to get that out to clients. They're not confused. Um, also just want everyone to be aware that the, uh, the state's attorney general did, uh, sign on or join a lawsuit regarding the Medicaid changes. Um, that results of that are not expected, uh, until potentially September or October. So after, uh, PSRA is done. So we're watching that closely and monitoring that, and as things come to light from that, we will keep the planning council posted. And then we are also working closely with our partners, including access to monitor what the impact and the rollout of those changes could potentially be. That being said, as part of our preparation for PSRA, we do have an upcoming allocations work group that is happening prior to PSRA and our office is working to prepare several different scenarios depending on how these Medicaid changes do roll out and the number of clients who could be impacted for them to review in preparation for them to have some recommendations for PSRA. So again, regarding Medicaid, a lot is still up in the air as to how that will impact us locally here and how it will impact our program. It could be from a small number of clients up to a pretty significant number of clients that are impacted by potential Medicaid changes or potentially could lose their Medicaid. So we're kind of planning contingency plans for that. And finally, in the midst of all this, our EHE team is still recruiting for Positively You ambassadors. They are looking to do a campaign refresh project for this grant year. And if you know anyone ages 18 to 30, who is living with HIV and a current or former client of Ryan White Services. We're asking that they reach out to Kate Thomas to express their interest. I am popping her email in the chat in case you don't have it. You can share that with them if they'd like to become an ambassador.

And I think I covered everything.

Oh, one other thing that I forgot to give Shantae to provide in the Teams meeting is that HRSA did let us know recently that they are potentially changing their schedule of site visits for on-site recipient agencies, which would be us. For Part A, EHE is not impacted by this as of yet. But for Part A, instead of an every three-year cycle, they are looking at a every four-year cycle, and potentially five years for those recipients where they're not seeing a lot of findings or improvement opportunities. And we anecdotally appear to be making the list for the not having a ton of findings, as you saw from our last Part A site visit if you were here. on the council, we only have three findings and three recommendations. So those are, it could be potentially we don't see a HRSA site visit for until 2029 or 2030, which gives us a little breathing room in terms of that. It is a lot of work. internally to prepare something like 500 to 600 documents each time they're here, and also more time commitment from the planning council. So more to come on that is not set on stone, but I just wanted you all to be aware. If you don't hear about a site visit in the next little while, that's why. They did not alleviate the requirement that we do site visits on subrecipients every year, so that is still that is still a requirement that we will be doing those with our subrecipients. Any questions for me? I know that was a lot of information.

Thank you very much, Jeremy.

Okay, now we can move to 7. review PSRA framework, data requests, and meeting logistics. And that will be Reagan to present updates on the 2026 PSRA 2 and process.

Thank you, Eric. And Reagan, did you want me to share your slides for you? Yes, please, Gwen. Perfect. I will have those up.

Thank you, Gwen.

All right, so as Eric said, Here's my cat, first of all. But I am here to present some changes to the PSRA tool. All right, so this is what the PSRA tool has looked like the past few years. So if you've been through the PSRA process, you're probably familiar with it. Just a very brief rundown of what's on here. So the service category that we're ranking is on the left-hand side in that first column. The next three columns are the points we use to calculate the total score for the ranking so that we can determine the new priority. The first column is the planning council ranking, second is the client rating from our needs assessment, and third is actually weighted at 0%, so it doesn't play into the score, but that one is how much consumers indicated that they needed a service but weren't able to receive it. So the next two columns, the reddish-oranges ones, are the total score presented in two different ways. The orange column, current ranking 2025, was the previous year's ranking. And then the final column is the ranking that was decided based on the scores in the second set of columns. So that's the basic overview. We got feedback that we would like to streamline this tool because it's a lot. And if you were there during last year, there's a lot of moving pieces and it can be confusing when you're looking at this much. So if you could go to the next slide. So we sat down and came up with some proposed changes for the tool. The first one is to remove some repetitive or unnecessary columns. So those are the ones with the big X on this graphic. Specifically, that's the column I mentioned that is weighted at 0%, which is labeled specific gaps and emerging needs. And then also the total percentage column. It basically shows the same number as the total score column. It's just interpreted as a percentage. So we felt that that was repetitive. So for streamlining sake, we decided to remove that. We also wanted to improve the visualization of the funding streams on this. Again, there was a point of confusion last year where it was difficult to tell which service category we actually funded on this tool and then which were covered by Part A or EHE. So we wanted to make that a little clearer visually. And then finally, we wanted to simplify some of the column title phrasing. The ones specifically pointed out here are the access to slash maintenance and care That very long sentence that basically just means the planning council rankings we wanted to rephrase that a little bit and then the current ranking 2025 column I personally find calling it current ranking a little confusing, so we wanted to change that as well. So this is what the new tool looks like after our brainstorming session. The first thing you'll notice here is the color coding on each row. So in this example, the green row is funded by Part A. EHE is housing services and not currently funded is oral health care. We also removed that one column I told you with the specific needs and emerging gaps. We labeled the first ranking column planning council ranking planning council member priority instead of what it was before that very long sentence. And then we just condensed the columns a bit. Finally, on the right side, we added a little indicator to show if the ranking has increased or decreased from the last time we did the PSRA so that you can quickly see if it's changed in priority. So this is a comparison of what it looked like last year versus what we're hoping it will look like this year. We wanted to know if you guys had any feedback on this or if you have any other ideas of what we can do or if this looks good to you.

Hey Reagan, this is Jason. I appreciate the simplification and the color coding. I think that that will be helpful as folks do their prioritization just to ensure that they are looking at things on a solid foundation. So appreciate all the work.

Just to jump in, I want to say too, just because we've removed things doesn't mean we don't still have it available. We still have it. Likely things will be hidden or on a different tab so that we can make sure that it's available in case there are questions about it. But yeah, the team, I agree with Jason, the team did a great job of taking a look at this and making it a little bit more simpler for the council without so much to look at.

Yes, that is a great job. Thank you so much. And now...

This is Michael. I would like to say I do like the little up and down arrows so where we can see it. And those will move real time as we vote. Is that how that will work?

Yes, those will move real time.

Okay.

This is Erika. I'm getting myself a little confused with percentages but then also scores. I mean I know I understand that the 50 percent means that's how much weight it was given into the the total score correct. Yes. Okay. And then last year when we had total percentage, which I realize is removed now.

That really is just, it's literally just, yeah, it's really just the total score converted to a percentage. It's useful in the sense that if there was a tie, like an exact tie in the total score, this gives you one more decimal point, but that's also something I can do in the total score column. So we just decided that's repetitive. So we decided to remove.

Yeah. Yeah. OK, thank you.

Yeah, and just to note, I believe specific gaps in emerging needs used to have a weight, but it doesn't anymore, so that's why it's weighted at 0% and is displayed, but we decided just to hide that. We will still have it available, as Jeremy said, but it just is not shown on this tool, so that it doesn't confuse anybody.

The reasoning for that, for those who weren't around, it's an important indicator. It just, because the denominator would get so small in some of the service categories that it was skewing a lot of the rankings very widely where we would see things like higher Things we know, like outpatient ambulatory, that we know are things we need to fund, like medical care we need to fund, it was moving it down quite significantly because most people were able to access it. But if there were a handful of people that weren't and said they couldn't, that really did skew the score.

Tom.

Thank you for all the work, Gwen. Nice and streamlined and I love the arrows also. I think that's really helpful. And the colors.

This is Bradley. I just wanted to concur with all the praise from the team and I think my favorite part two are the color coded rows for the different funding sources because I remember last year it was just like chaos when no one could figure out which program was funded by which award and whatnot. So I think this will definitely streamline things and I appreciate all the hard work put into it.

Yeah, and I know we will be focusing on funding a lot more in this year, like which service categories have alternative funding. Jeremy can speak more on that portion, but that will be something that we'll be paying a little bit more attention to this year as well.

Yeah, since Reagan brought that up, I will talk briefly about that. We are still working on the funding map thing that we'll kind of like lay out at the beginning of PSRA and then revisit prior to the ranking and allocations processes so that those are fresh. Still working on how best to present that so it doesn't become convoluted or look really confusing. We don't want to create more confusion now that we've simplified this tool. But on that note too, This will be, because we'll be in person for PSRA Day 2 when you're doing the ranking and allocation, our goal is to have this up on the screen, the results after the polling, after the planning council sets their priority, and after the scores are totaled and the ranking results come in, because remember the ranking, that polling process is kind of the starting point where the council can then weigh in feedback from each other to make adjustments. The adjustment of that will not happen on the tool live. We'll see the tool as a reference for you to see where it started, and then we'll have an interactive activity in the room to have the discussions and move things around as the Council makes consensus agreements around if something did not come out, how we're seeing based on your feedback, based on anecdotal community feedback, based on the things that are required and based on your guiding principles for what services need to be maintained if possible.

Okay, thank you.

Before you move on, Eric, I just wanted to ask if there's any other questions about PSRA suggestions. You know, Gwen has sent out a survey around the PSRA education session. It is optional, but if you would, not a survey, she did an ask about if you wanted to attend that, correct, Gwen? Or no, it's in the survey.

Yeah, there's a question in the survey, and I'll pop that into the chat too for anyone who hasn't taken it yet.

So it's a survey about attendance, about who's going to be able to be there, any accommodations you may need, any dietary requirements as well, because we will be providing lunch that day. And so if you could please, that will help us plan better. And yeah, and then you'll get the invite for the training session if you opt in for that, because it is an opt-in thing.

Great.

Question. I think I did the survey already, but will you catch it if I do it again?

Yeah, I believe it's allowed for multiple responses. But also you can just email me too if you have like a specific thing you wanted to call out. But yeah, you can take it again.

Okay, thank you so much. I can't remember. Okay, are we ready?

I have one question, Eric. Yeah, thank you. I'm just trying to jog my memory about the second day of the PSRA. Will we be using like our smartphones to rank it again or is that the first day that we use to rank it into the polls?

The rankings will be done, you do that day of because you have the discussion, we present some information, we'll probably like re-share about other funding that's available, particularly, like, as an example, we would talk about the HAPA funding that's available for housing, and those kinds of things, and provide a little bit more context as we're able. The piece that you'll want to be, and then we will, yes, so you, if you bring your, bring your phones, because we will have QR codes that you will be able to use, but we will also have a handful of iPads available for individuals who who need that as well. Thank you. I just had a memory lapse of how we could have done like scorecards, but that might have like. We want people to be able to like share their thoughts without feeling like on the spot or be. Influenced by how other people are ranking things like this is really about how you as a planning council member personally or are ranking this stuff and then that's the discussion after the fact about whether or not that's good. We leave it as is or if there's things that need to be adjusted, that's where the conversation comes into play.

Thank you for refreshing my memory. I appreciate it. Great question. Thank you. Do we have any more questions? No.

Okay. Let's move on to review policies and procedures. And I believe, Gwen, you've got to help me with that.

Yes, I'll share my screen and thank you, Eric. So yeah, we got through the entire policies and procedures at our last meeting with some small updates. Then the star committee, they did have a few suggestions for some like blanket changes to make to all of the committees. So I have drafted those today. So the first was they thought it might be a good idea just to have a quick sentence here under committee membership requirements here. Let me zoom in right there. Just adding a little reminder about the planning council onboarding. So I have a sentence here that says new members of the planning council are required to complete the virtual planning council onboarding program before participating in meetings. So just a quick reminder that that is a requirement. And then the other two changes and CHIPS might have some, or sorry, STAR might have some additional changes to the phrasing here, but they did talk about making the, and I believe the CHIPS committee talked about this too, but kind of making the absence policy a little more flexible and just understanding for people. So I drafted this right here. A member may request a leave of absence either in advance of the anticipated absence or after the leave has begun. So that way, if someone is having health issues or, you know, personal things going on and they've missed a few meetings, they can still request a leave of absence even after that started, just making it more flexible for people. And then also they had talked about maybe adding this bullet point right here. Members may reapply for membership after voluntary resignation so that just it doesn't seem like, you know, if someone resigns, they're not like permanently banned from the council, like they are able to reapply. I know that we have so Erica and Jason you're the leading our star committee, did you have any input on this phrasing here, or like how, what are your thoughts on how we've updated this.

Except for me.

Oh any anyone can yeah anyone on the committee.

I like that. I think we need to make sure we have the same language, you know, just across all of them for all the committees.

Yeah, so I did. I added this into all of the attendance sections have the same language. And then also what I did at team is when they voted to approve it, they also voted to authorize the star committee to make any final like small adjustments for consistency. So that way it doesn't have to keep going back and forth, you know. So yeah, if we're okay with this, we can go ahead and forward it to star. And then if there's any small changes, you guys would still be able to do that.

I would like to forward it to star.

Yeah, let me make sure there's no additional changes that I made. I think yeah, so that was it. It was just these two. Yeah, we took that out last time. Just these two additions to the absence policy and then this right here with just the three changes.

Yep.

Before we were to move on to emotion, were there any additional final questions or comments?

Hearing none, Eric, you can go ahead and ask for that motion.

I will now accept the motion for the updated CHPS policies and procedures with authorization for the STAR Committee to make the final revisions for consistency and formatting. Do I hear a motion?

Do I hear a motion?

I will move that we push those to the Star Committee.

Thank you. Second motion?

I second.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second on the floor. So I will now do the roll call vote. Eric Eason?

Yes.

Randall Farrell? yes jason valcruz yes erica teacamp yes bradley reese yes benjamin pearson yes thank you all motion carries thank you

Any questions before we move on? OK, thank you.

Now we go to review and resolve parking lot items.

And we don't have any parking lot items currently.

Now determination of agenda items for next meeting.

So I have the PCAT on the screen.

So for our next meeting will be in September, which is right after PSRA. So the one item that stands out for that one will be identifying data gaps and needs for next year's PSRA. And we'll also be reviewing the feedback data from the PSRA survey. So that will be our focus for September.

Great, thank you. Now moving to current event summaries. This is a time for planning council members to share a brief summary of current events. Members of the planning council cannot propose, discuss, deliberate, or take legal action on any matter voiced during this time.

Do we have any current events summaries? I think there's two festivals in the fall, right?

Yeah, we have Latino Pride, which is Saturday, October 3rd, and then the Phoenix Pride Festival will be Sunday, October 11th. And I'll probably send out surveys to get some volunteers for those after PSRA.

Awesome. Now we have called to the public.

This is a time for the public to comment. Members of the Planning Council cannot propose, discuss, deliberate, or take legal action on any matter voiced during this time.

I'm hearing none. Okay, I call this meeting adjourned. At 1244.

Thank you Eric and Michael and thank you everyone.

Thank you. Everyone. Thank you. Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.