Women's Employment Committee

January 11, 2021: 1:00 PM

Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/5130375395?pwd=Rnl5aERHc1Z0c29rSG1qOEVCT3NiUT09

Contact information: cheryl.a.davis@maine.gov

WOMEN'S EMPLOYMENT COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES 01/11/2021

Present: Gilda Nardone, (Chair), Joni Boissonneault, Darylen Cote, Laurie Glidden, Erin Benson, Andrea Mancuso, Joy Gould, Kelly Rickert-Samson, Jean Dempster, Amy Hughes, Destie Hohman-Sprague, Erica Watson, Karen Keim

SWB Staff: Josh Howe, Cheryl Davis

Welcome & Introductions Gilda opened the meeting at 1:02pm with welcome and introductions. Focus today will be: Legislative priorities, State/Federal level, what they are working on. Childcare. COVID impact on women and families. Strategies, priorities, and gender perspective from this committee.

What are you hopeful for in 2021? Amy Hughes Retiring in 5 days. Hopeful of 2021, more positive. Erin Benson Start hugging people again. Travel, go to the movies again. Josh Howe, Program Coordinator, SWB Better 2021. Wife graduating. Trip to Ireland. Settled politically. Joni Boissonneault Whole immediate family being able to get together. Settled into new work office. Laurie Glidden Son and family lives in England, being able to touch them. Darylen Cote Retired, but busy. On the Permanent Commission for the Status of Women. Proud member for reproductive rights. Domestic tranquility. Good health. Karen Keim Work in Florida remotely. Trying to get her parents settled. Husband retired. Hope for the New Year, Peace on Earth. Hug all of you. Tired of elbow bumps. Goal: continue funding for both programs. World peace. Destie Hohman-Sprague Excited about major change in 9 days. Hopeful about her organization. Have exciting work planned. Looking for COVID 19 silver linings. Andrea Mancuso Hopeful that the end of January will bring good changes from the federal legislatures. Erica Watson See family again. World peace. Jean Dempster Most all family members have received the Vaccine. Being able to take road trips. Gilda Nardone Stay healthy Start to receive the vaccine. Be in person again. How do we keep that balance, in person/virtual? Moving to provide service virtually. Tax Season - cash free tax assistance will be available virtually statewide. Gilda was pleased with the data presentation conducted by Mark McInerney, Director CWRI of how he mentioned the COVID impact on women. Maine Enterprise Option reintroduced. Something well be keeping an eye on. Senator Vitelli, Retirement Bill making things possible for folks when they do not have retirement through their business or employer.

Legislative Update Destie Hohman-Sprague Themes Specific bills and who are the Legislative allies? Staying connected about gender legislation. Shared private Google list on who you would like to connect with. Email Destie at destie@mainewomen.org Childcare Couple of bills to pay attention to. LR 514 "An Act to Build A Childcare System by Recruiting and Retaining Maines Early Childhood Workforce" Sponsored by Fecteau. LR 1624 - An Act to Create an Early Care and Education Program to Support Children's Healthy Development and School Success Sponsored by Jackson. Paid Family and Medical Leave. Supported by Maine Paid Medical Leave Coalition. Working on 2 years and create a Commission. Next year, full proposal, seem most likely to get done. Workforce adjacent post-partum care. Extends 60-day post birth to 12 months post care. LR 206 An Act to Provide a Tax Credit for Family Caregivers $2000 Tax Credit or family direct reimbursement. LR 620 - RESOLUTION, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of Maine To Explicitly Prohibit Discrimination Based on the Sex of an Individual. Coming back again. Incarceration Band the Box bill for employment and housing. Has 200 bills in her tracking sheet. There are more bills than expected that has taken her by surprise. 75% of this years bills are left over from the last session. There is pressure to keep bills COVID Specific. Andrea Mancuso stated 5.5 million dollars was asked over the bi-millennial but was not in the Governors Budget. Anti-discrimination provisions, would like to put in.

Updates from WEC members Joy Gould talked about her new role. Sits in Commissioners office. Position was created prior to COVID. Challenge with COVID cases growing. Focus on how to support workers in this sector Healthcare (HC). Wants robust HC infrastructure. Encourage/support people go into this area. DOL/DHHS meets quarterly. Cross training. HC sector is heavily female. Gilda Focus on livable and sustainable wages are critical. Josh Violates rights to privacy nuance of data. Darylen The PC on Status of Women report contains specific priorities, specific recommendations broken out by gender, income, and ethnicity. There are policy recommendations in that report. Laurie Glidden Housing priorities out of Maine Housing. Home funding has been fully funded. Rental assistance program has been continuing. Focus: Family Future Program stalled due to COVID but is picking up again. Always trying to get connected with those trying to get Maine Housing. Tiny Houses. Working with shelters in Portland Homelessness. Joni Only get updated so often. Working hard at Foster Youth independence. Thirteen have housed since September. Building new buildings. Section 8 voucher vs new housing. Joy Gould continued... Where can we build those stackable credentials? Use HOPE program to continue Nursing Degree. OnWard new platform shes working on. Insight or best practices? Please let her know. Josh Digital Badging, Micro credentials is one big initiative. There are 4 pilot programs going on around the state. The SWB is coordinating some of these pieces. Erin Benson A lot of women enter HC through the CNA program and then leave. List the range of pay as they progress. Provide a vision on how they can move forward from the beginning because of low pay and hard work. Josh stated he is working on how micro credential translates into college credit. He stated he is much aware of transferring credits of New Mainers because of his wifes situation. Laurie suggested to have some small snip it so it will not be overwhelming to accomplish their final goal. Erin - They need to realize there is some monetary benefit attached. Joy stated tying micro credentials to rates have been really trying to DHHS. Gilda stated she will look at the OnWard Program tomorrow and get some people that might be interested. Destie stated she is the one-point person. Please let her know. Erica Watson OnWard Program. This platform is used by 9-10 states. Basic version is offered free. Working on this since August. Will be working through tomorrow. Might be able to invite a few more people. Focus: On where adults can get information about training/education in HC. Colorado has been sending her a lot of information like an Admissions Office. Erin stated her only concern is that it is free now but may change later. Josh stated the State of Maine is not a site he suggested to read about privacy. Being a private site means all they collect is data. Joni stated Cash Greater Portland will be virtual this year. Riverton/Sagamore will have ghost sites. Will get the flyer out. Jean Dempster Tax Maine season offered by New Ventures. Assists many elderly couples that just need a tax rebate. Please spread the word. Still an opportunity to volunteer. Will make sure they get their tax returns. Gender equity document, need access, please let Erica know. Erin stated she recently became a board member for Mainely Girls, celebrating the 25th anniversary and would like to email the flyer. Gilda stated New Ventures will continue to offer Totally Trades this spring virtually.

Updates from DOL/SWB Josh Howe Priorities and direction of the SWB and how committees can fit into that. Collaborating work with DHHS. Benefits cliff, how it impacts, align services with DHHS. Employment First Maine and employment of People with Disabilities (PWD). POC/Racial/New Mainers would like to see it split out. Racial disparities COVID related. Accessible services. Opioid Grant connect with DOL/DHHS. Getting people into the HC industry. Unified State Plan look at implementation. Micro credential, Digital Badging has been 2 years in the works. Looking at this: 1. Low income. 2. New Mainers. 3. Incarcerated. 4. Tribal populations. English language piece, still focusing on. Josh stated the SWB was cited by our federal partners for our membership. We had 3 vacant seats which made it difficult to get a quorum. Six or seven seats is what we really need to be filled but must be filled by employers. Gilda stated would like to see the committees and the SWB in the future have a strong relationship. Josh stated the intent was there but has been put to the wayside due to COVID. But we really need to have a connection. We used to have Committee Chair meetings and we need to keep doing this. Gilda agreed that its important to continue this and to be more unified going forward.

Priorities or areas that you would like to continually drill down Darylen Cote Committees and the SWB connectingshe stated she would really like to see this happen. Invite representatives from each of those committees. Why do we need to wait? Gilda stated we certainly can reach out. She also stated she will invite people to join Google group so we can connect. We need to structure our conversation this year going forward. We can communicate in between. Erin suggested to consider having 1 meeting in person and the rest virtual.

Meeting adjourned at 2:40pm.

Next Meeting Monday, March 1, 2021 from 1pm 3pm Via ZOOM

Respectfully submitted by Cheryl Davis

Attachments WEC Agenda