Due to the COVID-19 health crisis and in effort to best serve our members, CSG moved its national conference online in 2020 and offered eight weeks of virtual programming on topics including health care and Medicaid, disability employment policy, interstate compacts and occupational licensure, criminal justice, emergency management, COVID-19, equity and inclusion, sustainability, cybersecurity and more. If you missed any of these sessions and are interested in viewing this free content, visit web.csg.org/2020 and select “Past Events” in the menu.
We’ve wrapped up more than five weeks of virtual programming as part of the CSG 2020 National Conference Reimagined. Last week, subject matter experts and members attended sessions on how states can bounce back from 2020 fiscal challenges, the federal response to COVID-19 from a state and local perspective, the U.S. Supreme Court, disability perspective in state policy and more.
From Risk to Resiliency: State Innovations to Navigate Fiscal Challenges for 2020 and Beyond
As states grapple with unprecedented fiscal challenges and continued uncertainty, national conference session, “From Risk to Resiliency: State Innovations to Navigate Fiscal Challenges for 2020 and Beyond” took a look at innovations across the country to surmount the fiscal impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the course of this session, speakers and staff examined short and long-term strategies by states to boost fiscal resiliency and recovery – from data-driven decision-making to regional collaborations, financial market diversification, use of federal relief funds, and more.
Rhode Island Rep. Marvin Abney stressed that most state and local governments bear the sole responsibility of navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I found that a good state budget is a good state budget, no matter what” Abney said. “We built a very solid approach to spending money.”
Abney went on to describe Rhode Island as a tourist state, making the tourism industry a big target during COVID-19. Their Emergency Funding Board (composed of the Speaker of the House, the Senate President, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and the Chairman of the House Finance Committee) collaborated to authorize the Treasurer to borrow $300 million to combat any interruption services may face and avoid laying off personnel. Other broad actions taken by Rhode Island included tapping into the Rainy Day Fund and publishing a “skinny budget” which includes only necessary, legal budget items that need attention including nursing homes and schools. Abney went on to say that the state predicted they’d be worse off than they were, citing fierce grit from small businesses and restaurants that contributed to revenue growth.
Sen. Betsy Johnson of Oregon shares that an influx of federal funds served as a major aid to Oregon, but that one can’t possibly anticipate what the expectations are once the federal ability to fund is exhausted. One effective course of action taken during the COVID-19 pandemic was the discipline to have substantial reserves, including a Rainy Day Fund and a school stability fund that was only tapped into once since the pandemic began in March.
In Kentucky, Rep. Steven Rudy informed attendees that the free conference committee of the budget was passed the same week that the CARES Act passed in Washington, D.C.
“We didn’t even know what the CARES Act was going to look like as we were trying to make these decisions,” Rudy said. “ We decided to unprecedentedly pass a one-year budget, rather than a two-year budget because we knew the numbers that we had were not going to be realistic or attained.”
To view this session, follow this link.
SEED Learning Lab: Ensuring a Disability Perspective
Disability etiquette training seems like something we shouldn’t need as public servants as we seek to help and serve our communities. However, there are many phrases, well-intended actions and even thoughts that are actually received as a prejudice or discrimination towards people with disabilities. During this webinar, we explored general best practices for how to interact with individuals with disabilities and integrate inclusive practices. Acknowledging individual prejudice or errors in past behavior can be an enlightening but vulnerable process.
Amy Porter, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Aging and Disability Services, works to maximize opportunities with independence and well-being with people with disabilities and older adults in Connecticut. Porter discussed a new strategic plan focusing on the opportunity gap and making sure everyone in the state has access to education, training programs, workforce programs, childcare, to what they need to be successful.
“It’s not about disability, it’s not about any particular group. It’s about trying to make sure that we’re closing that opportunity gap. It’s a nice model,” Porter said.
Georgia Rep. Kim Schofield discussed the impact a diagnosis had on her relations with others both in and out of the workplace.
“As a person in my 30s at the height of my career, as a mom, as a working person, I was diagnosed with a disease called Lupus and from that point on, my life changed,” Schofield said. “It didn’t change because I was diagnosed with a chronic disease. It changed because of the stigma associated with living with an invisible disability.”
Schofield explained to attendees that, because others couldn’t “see” her disease, it impacted every aspect of her life from being able to sustain employment, going to the grocery store and parking in a handicapped space with a state-issued parking pass. In addition to the outreach and the education, Schofield knew there was a level of policy that needed to change to incorporate and include those that have an invisible or hidden disability. After engaging with and educating legislators as well as working with the Lupus Foundation, Schofield ran for office and now works in the legislative space finding intentional ways to recognize that the definition of sickness or disability cannot be one dimensional. It can no longer be myopic but panoramic to include everyone.
As a child, next speaker Kody Olson grew up on a farm in rural Iowa and was deafened at 2 years old with viral meningitis. Olson was implanted with a cochlear implant and was a trial patient at the University of Iowa going through the final stages of the cochlear implant surgery. It wasn’t until later in life when Olson traveled across countries focusing on food security and global development, that he met an inspiring deaf boy living and working with his family in Uganda — pushing Olson to pursue a career in disability public policy. He now serves as an Advisor for the Minnesota Council of Disability where he advocates for policies and programs in public and private sectors that advance the rights of Minnesotans with disabilities. During the age of COVID, Olson and the Council of Disability have focused on what inclusion looks like throughout mandates and restrictions.
“We had to make sure that the disability community was considered in all of those different elements,” Olson said. “When we had our face mask mandate enacted in Minnesota, we had a disability community input. We wanted to make sure how it would impact the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, how it might impact someone with autism, someone with intellectual or developmental disabilities, folks who have motor sensory challenges — we were able to consider all those things as we constructed our mask mandate.”