Stutsman: Back into session for the informal meeting of the Johnson County Board of Supervisors. Next item under business from the Board of Supervisors is discussion/action needed regarding possible changes to the Nutrition Contract with the Heritage Area Agency on Aging. We have Mike Foster with us, who is the Director of the Congregate Meals Senior Dining Program. Do you have some information for us, Mike?

Senior Dining Director Mike Foster: You bet.

Stutsman: OK.

Foster: You saved the best for last. Almost the last.

Stutsman: Well, no, we’ve still got some other things on the agenda here.

Foster: Jonathan distributed copies of our revised, revised, revised, I guess you get the picture, budget that we sent to Heritage, which I’m assuming they will accept, since their appropriation exactly matches what award they said, in recent communication, they would distribute to us. We have accepted that. I guess we’ve accepted it only on an informal basis, because we don’t have a signed contract yet. In essence, it does come up with the amounts that they requested. I’m sure you’re aware of the fact that they have reduced our funding considerably. In fact, it’s a reduction of $13,000 from where we’re operating on this year. To be specific, their revenues are $12,220 less than what they are the current year. We have a 3% reduction in revenues from Heritage to operate. Through the process, Heritage did amend the goals in terms of units of service provided. Personally, I don’t have a problem with that. They downsized our personnel request from our RFP to a considerable basis. However, in the revised edition, we did amend it to at least a place in time where we feel like we can operate, personnel wise. They’ve also reduced our amounts of food requested per unit. We had requested $1.40 per unit. Obviously, the intent there was to enhance our ability to diversify and expand. They’ve also reduced some mileage amounts. I personally don’t have a problem with those. I guess the key points are personnel. We did include the merit step increases in a lump sum on the start of page 4. The disparity, if you look at the individual line items, if we proposed a 3% increase over our current contract, Heritage, in their proposal, went back to a 1998 personnel format that was sent to them by Lora Shramek. They utilized that and took those figures and increased them by 5%. In essence, if you’re looking at 1998 figures of October, by the time October, 2000 rolls around, we’re looking at a 2 year gap there. We have incurred, last year, a 3% increase, a proposed 3.25% increase this year not withstanding any merit or step raises. That’s where the disparity lays, in the means that they produced theirs, which I feel, personally, those records were rather archaic and, really, had no validity to our current usage. We’ve beefed that up to some degree, allowing us a minimal amount of flexibility. Frankly, if we don’t have any more money available to us, what we’re going to have to look at, potentially cutting services, worse case scenario. It really compromises our ability to expand, home delivered meals, particularly, getting out, having a concerted County-wide effort. It really compromises our ability to provide a menu in keeping with needs and desires of younger seniors. We’re kind of up against a wall here, unless we have some support from the Board to operate on. Any questions I can answer about that?

Jordahl: I’d just like to add a piece of perspective for the Board. We’ve had a lot of discussion about the Elderly Waiver dollars here, and I don’t propose to completely rehearse that now, but if you look at the revenue page, which is the top of the handout that you’ve gotten there under Elderly Waiver reimbursement to Heritage. In the current Fiscal Year, in the second column that says FY 2000 Contract, it says N/A there. Not Applicable. That number was combined by Heritage for the 2000 contract award with our local tax dollars to come up with the figure above that, under local public funds at $26,000. That Elderly Waiver dollar amount for the revised proposed, which is the 3rd column over, is $14,600. That’s comparable to the amount we anticipated there being in our original contract process, and for the current Fiscal Year. It’s in that $26,000 of local public funds. When you go across from 2000 to 2001, from $26,000 to $32,000, that’s not a $6,000 increase. That’s a much larger increase than that, because the $14,600 is still there in the column below it, and so it’s $6,000 plus $14,600, or about $21,000 that the County is expected to contribute now beyond what we are contributing currently.

Stutsman: Which is, what?

Foster: That’s correct.

Thompson: We put about $9,000 in our budget, tax money.

Jordahl: There’s $9,000 for Fiscal 2001. Our current budget for 2001, as we approved it a month ago, shows the County taxing for $9,125 to support the Senior Dining Program. We would need an additional, how’s your math, Mike, either one of you.

Foster: $23,000.

Jordahl: An additional $23,000 just to deal with the Senior Dining Program. That doesn’t address the $8,000 shortfall in SEATS as well.

Stutsman: We’re almost talking…

Jordahl: We’re talking about $31,000 in…

Stutsman: Well, you’re counting SEATS, we’re getting up there to almost $40,000, right?

Jordahl: The total tax dollar contribution would be about $40,000, but we’ve already got $9,000 in the budget, and last year we had about $12,000 in the budget. In terms on an increase over the current fiscal year’s County tax dollar contribution, it’s more like $22,000.

Stutsman: But if we’re looking at what the County is putting into this program, total tax dollars.

Jordahl: About $40,000. That’s not to say that there’s any unilateral decision making here on the part of myself or Carol or Mike or anyone involved in these negotiations. Heritage directed us to produce a budget that showed us getting the money that they would not change, the $369,000 revenues from them, and either cutting or inflating the County tax dollar contributions. This shows what the tax contribution would be if we changed nothing. Then it remains for us to decide do we want to change something, like cut a site, cut staff, serve meals of lower quality, whatever, or, and it’s paradoxically one way of cutting the County tax dollar liability, would be to serve more meals. If we served more meals at the Senior Center site downtown, there would be more reimbursement to Heritage from the Federal government. There would be more contributions from the seniors that would help to reimburse Heritage. I’m not sure how we get more money in that deal.

Foster: That’s the interesting part of the equation. I don’t think we’ll ever see a penny of that. But it certainly enhances our stance.

Jordahl: In terms of the home delivered meals, on the other hand, if we were to find a great number of people eligible for the Elderly Waiver program to receive home delivered meals, we would increase the, I don’t find any better word than surplus, let’s call it. The surplus funding that we would get beyond what the meal cost is that we have to reimburse Heritage for the Elderly Waiver meals, we get about $1.25 a meal of extra reimbursement for each additional Elderly Waiver meal we served. An interesting idea that came out of the discussion we had on Monday with Liz Salk and other members of the Heritage staff, was their notion of serving frozen meals. If we could purchase frozen meals for $1.75 or so, and if the Elderly Waiver person had financial eligibility for more than one meal a day, we could bring that $1.75 frozen meal along with the hot meal and get reimbursed $4.75 for that extra meal. We would have $3.00 of surplus from the 2nd meal and $1.25 from the first one, so we’d have $4.25 on trip that we’re currently getting $1.25 in surplus funding for. There are ways of enhancing our income from this program through frozen meals.

Thompson: I think the important thing…

Duffy: Jonathan, wait a minute. I’m next here. I’ve been on that committee for 11 years, and I got off this year and all hell broke loose. What do you mean by frozen meals?

Jordahl: Maybe Mike could answer that question better than I can.

Duffy: This is a bad deal, because I’ve had a lot of people ask me, and ask me last night.

Jordahl: I think we’ll answer that question.

Foster: The initial step would not to replace a hot meal. It would be an additional meal, perhaps for their supper, perhaps delivered on Friday in lieu of a hot meal on Saturday, Sunday.

Duffy: I think we’re starting something, Mike, we shouldn’t start. Some of these people should not cook any meal, whether it’s just a regular meal or a frozen meal, because some of these people are in pretty bad shape, helping all these years with some home delivered meals. They paid their dues, the seniors, and that is a lot of money.

Jordahl: We’re talking about giving them…

Duffy: I called up Scott County yesterday, or we could talk to them, and they have real good meals down there, same as you. I know you put them out. There’s half a chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy and everything, and they asked $2.00. There’s something wrong here.

Foster: Nevertheless, I think it’s worthy of analysis anyway, Charles.

Duffy: You mean a frozen…

Foster: I think it’s worthy of our analysis to at least explore and look at it and have it as a buffer for ourselves in case the money is not available. If the money’s not there, we can’t produce the service.

Duffy: It’s not going to work, Mike. Frozen meals have a lot of salt in them.

Jordahl: We’re not talking about Swanson.

Foster: They’re prepared according to the nutrition government guidelines.

Duffy: That isn’t any good.

Thompson: The really important thing that came out of our meeting with Heritage, though, was that if we want to continue this program, participation is the key. If there are people out there who think, well, that meal isn’t for me, they should understand that their participation is important and helps us maintain the meal for everybody. If our population continues to dwindle for these meals, we’ll continue to lose funding.

Stutsman: And we’ll continue to be asked to put more County dollars into this program. A federal program that we’re going to put County dollars into, Charlie. I know I’ve heard you up here just rail against replacing…

Duffy: That’s right, I can find something in the 40 million dollar budget we don’t need and take care of the seniors, because they have taken care of themselves and paid taxes all these years.

Thompson: But we need to get the message to seniors that, in this case, it’s a use it or lose it kind of thing. We have to get the people out to these meals.

Duffy: Where are they going to park, Carol? The parking thing was a thorn in our side for years and years.

Foster: I think that’s our mission, Charles, is to, if we can get all the tangibles in place when this ramp gets built, then we can meet our goal, if the people respond. That’s their burden, that’s true. But if we can have all the things essential to us that we need to have, I want to be able to prove the government wrong and say, hey, we have a site here that’s serving more, that’s actually running opposed to what the percentages indicate nationwide. We have a vital nutrition program at the Senior Center.

Duffy: But still…

Foster: But we’ve got to have parking, we’ve got to have a safe access.

Duffy: Now what is… We’re talking about $369,000, are we, for this fiscal year, and then $382,138 for next…

Jordahl: No, it’s the other way around.

Foster: It’s just the reverse.

Thompson: We’re getting less this year.

Duffy: It’d be less…well, that’s what I say. Less money. But I can remember when it was a lot less than that a few years back and we served more meals.

Foster: Well, costs have risen.

Duffy: Well, they shouldn’t be. The cost of meals has been $1.27 for many years.

Stutsman: But he’s talking about its operating cost, and salaries are a big part of that, and food costs have gone up. Nothing is stagnant.

Foster: They continue, and you know this, Charlie, they continue to offer us this meager $3,000 a year for equipment and repair. Already this year we’re $11,000, and we were looking at at least 6 or $7,000 more. Our equipment is archaic, it’s breaking down, we need new equipment. It’s old.

Duffy: Well, we have a fund for that. Why don’t we take some of the Sterba trust account?

Foster: I’ll be talking to you about that, because it’s kind of in the balance now of who’s responsible for that? Is Kirkwood responsible for that, or is the County responsible for that? I’ve got to believe the Kirkwood’s going to scoff at it.

Stutsman: Harold, you had a comment?

Harold Stager: Yes, I sat on a (Inaudible) for quite a few years. I have a problem with the frozen meals, not for the idea they can’t be done, but a lot of people who would use them don’t have microwaves.

Jordahl: The discussion was to actually buy microwaves for people who would be receiving these meals. You can get a microwave for $69 that would heat the meal up. We and/or Heritage, somehow that would be paid for through the program for them, because it would be cheaper for us to be able to deliver the frozen meal, more profitable for us to be able to deliver the frozen meal. It would far outstrip the cost of the microwave. Assuming they didn’t have a pacemaker. That point was made to me earlier.

Duffy: When was the last time you’ve eaten a frozen meal?

Jordahl: Well, Charlie, I’ve never eaten one of these frozen meals, but that’s because they’re a different frozen meal than what you can go buy in the store. You’d have to be eligible for these, and again, Mike, some detail on that would be useful. Who makes these meals, where do they come from, meeting the standards and so forth.

Foster: I can’t answer that.

Jordahl: Well, the one thing you mentioned is that it would be low salt. They would meet the nutritional standards of the federal program that would be paying for them. We’re talking about low salt, low fat meals that would have the nutritional balance that’s required. We’re not talking about going to the grocery store and buying something off the shelf.

Thompson: Maybe we should get some of these meals and try them out.

Duffy: Who brought up the idea of frozen meals?

Jordahl: I believe it was Theresa, wasn’t it?

Duffy: (Inaudible) for one person, and who brought it up?

Stutsman: Charlie, I think what we’re looking at is some creative ways, some new ideas on how to manage this program, and to increase usage. We’re not trying to substitute, we’re trying to figure out new ways to keep this program viable.

Jordahl: Another nice thing about the frozen meals is that the person driving might have 3 or 4 or 5 different entrees in the frozen meals, so you’d be able to choose, where currently you just get the meal. This is the meal, there it is. You get your hot meal, and then you’d be able to choose another variety from the frozen meal to have for dinner, or, as Mike put it, over the weekend. Let me line this out. We’ve got 2 real basic options here. We could just simply put the $40,000 into the program out of our ending balance and say, we want to fund this program, and then we don’t have to talk about all these cuts. We don’t have to talk about frozen meals. It’s just an option.

Thompson: That was purpose of having this…

Duffy: (Inaudible) some place else and do it.

Stutsman: But I want to remind you too, Charlie, that we started out with no County dollars into this program, now it’s $10,000, and now we’re talking about $40,000. How much will it be next year? I think we have to be realistic about where we’re going with this. If there’s commitment from the Board to keep this program going just the way it is, to make no changes, then I think the Board has to be fully aware that we are going to continue to put more and more dollars into this program to keep it just exactly the way it is today.

Duffy: Sally.

Stutsman: It’s choices. Everything in life is choices.

Foster: Even that will be a struggle in itself to keep it like it is, due to cost of labor.

Duffy: Sally, I’m the one who brought that up, and it fell on dead ears, about picking it up. Bob Welsh is here, he’d say that.

Stutsman: Exactly, Charlie, and I fully remember you…

Duffy: I think we can have this program work for, what is it, $382,000. That’s a lot of money.

Thompson: The other thing we have to be clear about today is we’ll get a contract back from Heritage that wants a signature from us. What we’ll be agreeing to at that time is that we intend to amend our next year’s budget, because there is not this amount of money in there right now.

Jordahl: Right. If we don’t want to sign a contract that says we’re putting in 40, well, it’ll be 30 something here, and then SEATS would just not get their $8,000. We need to sit down pretty quick here, have a work session together with Mike, and give him some direction on how we want him to run this program. Then let Heritage know that we want to modify the thing in some way so as to spend less in the way of County tax dollars.

Foster: Was it clear to you, Carol, for next year’s, and I think we need to keep this in perspective, that we need to be prepared for the RFP for next year, knowing some of the things we know now. Was it clear to you that they were willing to go 3% over the established contract we have this coming year?

Thompson: No. They said that they would use the same base number and apply whatever percentage they apply next year. It would be on the number that they used for this year’s contract, minus the amount that we contribute.

Jordahl: The point that…

Foster: The 220, so we’re still looking at 220 versus the personnel which receives the 248.

Jordahl: What they’re talking about in Heritage is that they have 7 counties to oversee and they have to distribute their federal money in a fair way across all of those. Part of this is that, yes, we have a higher cost of living here, so you can say, well, gee, it costs us that to deliver the program, and they can say, well, we’re going to pay equally across the region here or relatively equally. If you want to pay your employees more, you got a tight labor market, and you need to do that, whatever, for your own reasons, you want to have a director level person running the thing, you pay for. They’ll pay for this base level staffing and so forth that they pay for elsewhere, and a base rate that they pay elsewhere, and then we’re responsible for the stuff on top of that. That’s going to continue to grow. Like you said, 3% doesn’t cover all the personnel costs, so we’re going to continue to have our portion of the personnel costs grow, irrespective of Heritage cuts in funding.

Thompson: It’s also pretty clear that Heritage cuts will probably continue. Jonathan and I spent a lot of time studying this, and we asked a lot of questions in the meeting. I believe that we have received our fair share of funding. They had some funding criteria, that they applied those criteria fairly to us, and to all the other counties. They did mention that, per capita, we get more than our share. We probably get the largest share of dollars of any of the counties in their district. I don’t feel like we’re being shortchanged by Heritage in this, I just feel like they’ve given us this amount of money, and it’s our decision now to decide whether we want to decrease our program in order to accommodate the budget.

Foster: One comment I would have on that, Carol, is that I think they need to start looking at performance. We did a study 2 or 3 years ago that would indicate that, per capita, we are serving many more units of service to each senior in this county than other counties are. Our performance would indicate that we’re doing a better job.

Thompson: That’s probably why they’re giving us a higher rate of pay.

Foster: One would hope so. But I think the other thing, to my way of thinking, there’s pretty much a wanton disregard for the amount of mobile meals we do. We are very unique in all the deliveries of service that they provide. We are very unique in that we not only prepare the food, but we distribute a massive amount of satellite and home delivered meals. I don’t think that anyone has actually looked at that. They want to compare us to a small site that has a lower cost of living that’s distributing a small number of meals. Many of them coming to the site, which makes it a lot easier, as opposed to our program, where we’re decentralizing, diverting out many, many meals. The labor in that is incredible.

Thompson: What I’m saying is that they had stated criteria for how they allocated this money, and they followed those criteria consistently across the county.

Foster: It’s just not an accurate measurement.

Thompson: Maybe should ask for different criteria next year.

Foster: I agree.

Jordahl: You’ve raised a very important point there. It’s not as though we’ve been slighted, but rather that we have a problem.

Stutsman: Well, I think it follows a pattern with the way we do things in Johnson County. We go consistently, not just with this program, but other programs beyond the minimum expectations. You can just point to any, and that’s good, but you have to realize it does come out of, sometimes, an additional cost. I think we have to recognize that and decide if that’s what we want to continue for this program, then it’s just going to cost. Harold?

Stager: Yes, I have a question. I agree with Mike. It’s tough to live in Iowa City. It’s quite different from Williamsburg, where you pay 3 dollars an hour (inaudible). It makes a difference. They don’t look at it this way. You’ve got to look at the overall area, not just some place they can all (inaudible). I disagree with them.

Thompson: They’re not saying that we shouldn’t pay more. They’re just saying that this is the amount of money they’ll give us. If we pay more, we have to make up the difference.

Jordahl: Another important point that Liz Salk, the new director of Heritage made in this discussion, was that her emphasis here is on the recommendation of her Citizen Volunteer Directory Board. Both with regard to this Fiscal 2001 contract that we’re talking about, and with regard to the base for calculating that, she went back to what she and her staff call the Heritage recommended level of funding for 2000. That means, what was recommended by her Board. There’s this sense of respecting what the Board decided, and she said, if we want to have a different result from board processes, then we need to make sure that we appoint very effective people to represent us on that Board.

Stutsman: That’s good. Where do we need to go with this?

Duffy: I’d ask Heritage on the Aging personnel to come down right here, and we’ll talk it over.

Stutsman: We need to get this contract in, though, don’t we?

Jordahl: They’re giving it back to us.

Thompson: We’ll get a contract from them and it’ll be expected that we sign.

Stutsman: All right. Is that what the Board wants, to have Heritage… I know Jonathan and Mike and Carol met with Liz and had a long meeting. I think it was pretty productive. I don’t know if it’s necessary for Heritage…

Foster: I don’t think there is any negotiation. That was quite clear. They are not going to negotiate any more.

Jordahl: No, they’re not going to give us any more money for 2001. That’s not, we can talk about details about ways to make the service more efficient, but I think the best way to do that might be to schedule a work session, say, along about Monday. If we can get Theresa Kelly to come down and see if we can configure a set of expectations for the budget that would allow us to indicate that we will either contribute this amount or some smaller amount with a higher projected number of meals, or something, so that we are prepared to respond to the contract offer.

Thompson: We had our work session and we talked about the situation at Autumn Park, is one of the first places we would make a change. It was something that we all agreed on.

Stutsman: Yes.

Jordahl: Yes.

Thompson: The contract is structured so that the County pays out most of its funds at the end of the year, so we have this year of transition to kind of decide which cut we want to make and which cut we want to make next, if we’re going to do it incrementally.

Jordahl: Yes, but if we… Dramatic things have been suggested. Charlie, you, as Sally said, have spoken firmly in the past that you did not want to see this rise in the County’s tax dollar contribution to this federal program. I kind of agree with you about that, and yet, I agree with you also that we want to continue to support this program and make it available and not diminish its quality or quantity. I really want to know what your advice is about this thing. Do you want to give the tax dollars, or what?

Duffy: Again, we’ve had personnel from Heritage (inaudible) right here where Mike’s sitting. We used to have meetings with them, because there’s a fly in the ointment some place, because that’s a lot of money.

Jordahl: Well, I tell you where the…

Duffy: (Inaudible) 2000, but there’s something wrong here, and the press is here. People can come here, and I like to, for myself, there’s a lot of questions I’d like to have asked.

Stutsman: Are we all in agreement to submit the contract with Heritage the way it is? We just aren’t in agreement on what kinds of adjustments we’re going to make as far as (inaudible).

Foster: It’s already been submitted.

Stutsman: OK. I get confused with the process, bear with me.

Foster: It’s just a matter of them sending it back to you and you signing it.

Stutsman: All right.

Thompson: It won’t come up next week, it’ll come up whenever they return the contract.

Foster: Charlie, the reality…

Duffy: But we’re not going to have them down, the personnel down here?

Stutsman: There’s no point in it.

Thompson: Charlie, you designated Jonathan and I to meet with her, and we did meet with her.

Foster: It’s kind of redundant.

Duffy: You also said that they should all, you can meet with them if you want to, the Advisory Committee, but I also asked to have these folks down here.

Foster: The reality of situation is that these funds have not been increased by the Feds for 7 or 8 years now. The Feds are not blind or oblivious to the fact that these types of programs in a congregate setting are seeing a reduction nationwide. Seniors, younger seniors, are busier, more educated, they have other places to go, they have more money. So they’re going to other places. They’re going to other places in Iowa City. Our mission, once this ramp gets built, is to, somehow, bring them back. I think we can do that. But if there’s no more money, we’re going to get a smaller piece of the pie nationwide.

Duffy: I think Carol said that she didn’t have any problems with the money offered them. Didn’t you say that now?

Stutsman: She understood why they…

Thompson: They said they would offer that much money.

Duffy: Why don’t you want, why don’t we all get involved in this and ask these people down. We used to do it about once a year.

Stutsman: They have been asked down.

Jordahl: They have made a… Liz is a new director. She, as I said about wanting to support the recommendation of her committee, she’s made it very clear that, although in the past there was this process of negotiation, when you point to the way things were, I was part of that way things were. I was part of that negotiation process for this current contract. Joe did it. I think maybe you worked with Joe on the last one, and there was always this give and take, let’s talk about this, look at your numbers here, the realities of our situation, the cost of living in Johnson County and so forth, and we’ve gotten some adjustments. Liz has made it very clear that that is not going to happen now, under her directorship, that she is going to respect the recommendation of the Advisory Committee. I don’t think she’d respond like, she wouldn’t understand that we wanted to hear that again, I hadn’t communicated it clearly or something. We’re not going to get more money out of them.

Stutsman: It doesn’t sound like there’s support from the Board to have Heritage come down here.

Duffy: I can’t understand why. You want public input, you want a…

Stutsman: I don’t think it’s a good use of anybody’s time at this point.

Duffy: You don’t think it’s a good use for senior citizens, some of them 85, 90 years old, to try to fix a frozen meal, Sally? Is that what I hear you saying?

Stutsman: No that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I don’t think it’s a good use for Liz Salk or the Heritage Agency on Aging to come down to the Board again. I think those decisions have already been made. I think we are just going to hear the same thing, and it’s done. Now the Board needs to decide how we are going to handle.

Duffy: I asked a long time ago to have them down here, and no, Advisory Committee…

Stutsman: Let’s move on. We have decided we’re not going to have them.

Duffy: You might as well, if you don’t want to do it, then it’s your baby, but forget about frozen meals.

Stutsman: Mike, would like you like to have them come down?

Lehman: No. My understanding is that the dollar amount we’re going to receive from Heritage is fixed. There’s no negotiating. The negotiating is going to be done between us to decide, do we want to put in more dollars to make up the difference or adjust our services to lower our input.

Stutsman: OK. Jonathan, how do you feel. Just answer me if you want Heritage to come down.

Jordahl: I’ve already had them down.

Stutsman: OK. Carol?

Thompson: No.

Stutsman: All right. There’s 4 of us that feel there’s not any…

Duffy: (Inaudible) there’s a lot of 4 to one votes up here, and I spent 11 years on that committee, and…

Stutsman: I think we’ve all been pretty clear as to where we’re coming from as far as…

Duffy: I didn’t have any trouble, Sally. They can forget about the frozen meals and take care of our elderly population.

Stutsman: That’s the next thing we need to decide, where the County wants to go with this program as far as additional dollars and any other plans we want to do. How do we want to handle that? Do we want to have a work session? Do we want to make those decisions today? Where does the Board want to go?

Thompson: Jonathan and I have been meeting with Mike, and maybe we could meet a couple more times and come up with some kind of plan to come back to the Board and the Nutrition Board.

Jordahl: I think a recommendation from Mike, because there’s a blend here of the need to expand the service and serve more meals and the need to cut the cost. We’re trying to come up with… I think the most appropriate thing is a recommendation from the director of the program as to how he sees it growing. Then we can deal with whether we want to pay for that or not.

Stutsman: All right. I am supportive of having Jonathan and Carol meet with Mike to come up with some ideas, to bring them back to the full Board, and then we can discuss and see where we want to go from there. Are you OK with that, Charlie, or do you want to be a part of…

Duffy: I guess. I volunteered the last time and you selected Carol and Jonathan.

Jordahl: If you want me to step out, Charlie, and you can talk with Mike, that’s fine. I’ll do that.

Duffy: I think it’s too late now to do it. That’s why I thought we all should talk to him.

Stutsman: We will eventually. They’re just going to make some proposals. OK. Mike, are you OK with that plan?

Lehman: Yes. I appreciate Jonathan and Carol and Mike, work they’ve done to get us this far.

Stutsman: All right. If you could get some things together and bring them back to the full Board, then we can continue this discussion.

Jordahl: We may have the contract sitting here. We need to really get on top of that, so we better schedule ourselves quick.

Stutsman: Very good. Thank you, Mike. I appreciate your work.

(Continued in Part 4)