Remarks Presented at the Closing Plenary of the NCIL 2017 Conference

By Bob Williams, the Director of the Independent Living Administration,

Administration for Community Living
Good afternoon, NCIL. For the fashion conscious among you, take note. I am sporting a bowtie made,
worn, and ripped off from Bruce Darling.

Now seriously, it is a distinct privilege to have been able to be with you this week and to give you this
update on what we have done together this year, as well as the challenges and unfinished business still
left for us to complete. Like many of you, I attended Sundays gathering of independent living leaders of
every race and continent. What that gathering, as well as all else that has occurred throughout this week
reminds us of, is the resolute, self-evident fact that whenever and wherever two or more folks with
disabilities of all ages, colors, shapes, and sizes come together to take justice-making into our own hands
and hearts, the potential, and often the results in creating greater justice and equality of opportunity for
all, are transformative. So, I deeply thank you for what you do year after year to propel the wheels of
justice and liberty forward. Mary and Melissa, I also want to thank you for being here today, and most of
all for your commitment to learn from and about the Centers for Independent Living and State
Independent Living Councils we fund across the nation, and to work together to strengthen and expand
the capabilities of the network and the resources it can draw on.

The debate that divides this Capital, and much of the nation, and we, the people on health coverage and
Medicaid restructuring is deeply unnerving, especially to our community. As leaders, however, each of
us here and abroad in the land have the urgent responsibility to aggressively identify and implement the
most effective ways of, as I said last July, bolstering the capacity and resources of Centers and SILCs to
do what you do best, enabling someday, all of us to exercise our most precious birthright: our
independence, and all the freedom, responsibilities, challenges, risks, and opportunities that come with
it.

As we all know, these are times of dramatic, rapid, and often deeply controversial change. We are not
going to always agree on everything or share the same perspectives on what is working, what needs to
change, or what form that change should take, much less the pace at which it needs to occur. This is why
communicating early and often with one another is crucial. This is the goal and we must continuously
get better at doing this. This is why we are looking forward to meeting with key NCIL leaders in
September to help chart the working relationship, as well as steps we can take on several fronts, some
of which I will touch on shortly. As Mary Lazare, the ACL Acting Administrator, and the official I report to
directly on all matters Independent Living, said recently, this meeting will be a chance to recognize and
build on what we know works and to hit the reset button in areas where we can and need to improve.

What I want to do now is to share several updates on what my staff, myself, and the network, have been
collectively accomplishing over the past several months, and speak to key issues that Kelly and the NCIL
Board have shared as major concerns of the network. Just so you know, I will be sending out the
remarks I am making now in full this coming Monday, so if you miss anything due to my synthesized
accent, you will be getting a copy soon in your inbox.
Here is some of what the nationwide independent living network of Centers for Independent Living and
State Independent Living Councils, my IL team of seven highly committed staff members, others
throughout ACL, NCIL, myself, and many more have collectively accomplished over the past year. Last
fall, every SILC, in partnership with Centers, developed and submitted, and we reviewed and approved,
56 State Plans for Independent Living. This was a gargantuan effort that I want to thank everyone for
contributing to, both in their development, and even more so now, in implementing these plans. SPILs
create the vision and the universal design for building out and strengthening the independent living
network, individually in each state and territory, as well as nationally. I also want to thank the 20 State
Independent Living Councils across the country, my staff, Centers, and others for the work you did on
going from having two designated State entities to having only one, as WIOA requires. On its face, it
seemed simple, until you did it. Thank you for all of your effort and due diligence sticking with updates
on the SILCs. Now that we have new leadership at ACL and after extensive comments from SILCs,
Centers, and others, I am pleased to announce that we have finalized the State Independent Living
Councils Indicators and we will issue them as guidance by early September. On a parallel track, for the
past several months, a workgroup made up of SILCs, Centers, and designated State entity
representatives, as well as my staff, the ACL evaluation team, and ILRU have been meeting to develop a
SPIL instrument and guidance to be used in the next cycle. Progress is being made and we will share
draft documents for your review and comment by late fall.

I now want to provide information and updates on issues that are on everyones minds. There are
questions and concerns about the most time sensitive of these related to the Part C grant funding
amounts that Centers will receive on September 30, for use in the new fiscal year starting this October
1. Overall, I can tell you that most CILs will receive the same or slightly more Part C funding as you did
last year. Most of this is driven by the funding formula in Title VII. However, for full disclosure, ACL is
distributing $12,369 less in Part C funds to CILs this September 30 than last time, and here is why.

As you recall last September, we at ACL used some Part C funding to address a one-time issue
experienced by some grantees that otherwise would have been disproportionately impacted by the
expiration of ARRA funding. To avoid greater grant reductions due to this, ACL was able to identify other
resources that, on a one-time basis, defrayed program and systems support costs that would have been
borne by the Part C program as they are borne by other ACL as well as HHS programs. In FY 2017, these
program and systems costs will be borne by the Part C program. These costs, along with those
associated with a Secretary transfer taken agency-wide, result in the $12,369 less in funding that will be
made available.

I have just thrown a lot of facts and figures at you. To make them clearer for all of us to have a shared
understanding of, we will take two actions in the coming weeks. We will send out a one-pager that
outlines the steps we take to determine Part C allocations annually, and request you submit any
questions or comments on the process to us. In September, Dan Berger, the ACL Deputy Administrator
for Management and Budget, and I will host a national webinar to explain the process, as well as take
your comments, questions, and suggestions to how we can make it as easy to understand, sensible, fair,
and transparent as possible.

Moving on, you also have questions and concerns about future funding for State Independent Living
Councils and Centers as well. Most immediately, there are concerns and questions on the Trump
Administrations budget, which proposes combining the Developmental Disabilities Councils, the SILCs,
and the TBI advisory panels, and creating a single disability council in every state. The proposal is
premised on the principle that this could result in greater cross-disability collaboration, more focus on
achieving results benefitting all people with significant disabilities, and reduced costs for the federal
government. As you know though, the disability community has expressed extreme reservations about
this approach, as have some in Congress. This said, the Administration is interested in getting feedback
from stakeholders on how, through legislation, the approach might be made to be effective.
Consequently, the White Houses Office of Management and Budget has directed us to hold listening
sessions to solicit your feedback on this. In August, you will be receiving information on how and when
you can participate in an online session soon.

Many of you are interested in when we plan to resume on-site monitoring, and I am happy to report
that, assuming we receive Fiscal Year 18 funding by this time, we expect to begin to make on-site
monitoring visits again in early November. We have reviewed and are considering making changes to
our monitoring protocol and our processes for assuring compliance. To get your feedback on what we
are considering, we will be seeking a few CILs to volunteer to have us do on-site visits from November
through next April. During this period, we will put the protocol through its paces, elicit your input, and
make needed tweaks along the way. We will make as many visits this year and moving forward as is
reasonable and necessary. I am confident doing these visits, coupled with conducting comprehensive
desk reviews and providing targeted technical assistance to CILs, will enhance our stewardship and the
quality and value added that the entire network brings to the table.

I also want to thank everyone who commented on our proposed revisions to the PPR, published in the
Federal Register this winter. We are revising the instrument based on the extensive feedback and
suggestions we got. We want to make this as interactive a process as the law permits. Consequently, we
will be publishing a 30-day notice indicating that we will continue to use the current instrument for the
time being. This will create the time and space to seek additional input. Using much the same process
we have been using with regard to the SPIL instrument and guidance, as part of this, we will host a series
of meetings with you to explore your ideas and recommendations on how we can best develop and
begin to use, as well as refine, outcome measures that track and accurately capture the real life impacts
and results that individual Centers, and the network as a whole, produce at the local, state, and national
levels. Title VII and the changes that WIOA made to it set a broad mission for all of us on this ship we call
Independent Living to seek out and achieve. To be optimally effective at doing this, we develop and
agree on both what we need to be accomplishing and, equally importantly, how we are going to
measure our progress toward doing so. The future of IL and the freedom of people with significant
disabilities rely on our doing this right. I expect to be held accountable for making measurable progress
on this front in the coming 6 to 12 months and I will be counting on all of your help in doing this. By the
next NCIL conference therefore, our intention is to publish a revised PPR in the Federal Register in the
fall of 2018.

I want to close by addressing questions and deep concerns you have and I share, regarding the need to
grow the resources available to Centers to do the vital work of independent living, especially in respect
to delivering on the promise of the new core services added by Congress in WIOA, by enabling people to
avoid needless institutionalization all together, escape it when they experience it, and by equipping
young people with significant disabilities with the tools and equal opportunities they need to get a solid
head start on creating good lives and better futures for themselves. I would be a fool and a liar if I said
there are quick and easy ways to infuse new resources into this network to do this work and so much
more. There are not.

We need to approach it as a long distance race, and I have already touched on some of the pivotal steps
we need to take: piloting and enhancing our monitoring and quality improvement efforts; developing
and getting into the habit of using reliable outcome measures to drive and enhance everything we do
and accomplish; and, we in ILA and ACL need to get far better at telling and marketing why what the
independent living network does, and the ways it does what it does is vital, absolutely vital and
irreplaceable to the freedom and future of children, young people, men, women, and older people in
cities, towns, tribal, rural, and frontier communities across America, and that of the nation itself.

Practically speaking, this means building out and diversifying some of the efforts ACL and ILA already
have underway. These include working with Jennifer Sheehy and others at the Labor Department to
identify ways that Centers can work with, and share in the resources of American Job Centers to equip
young people and other jobseekers with disabilities, with the tools and opportunities they need to gain
and sustain good career path employment. We had a session on our collaboration yesterday where we
both shared and learned a lot from those there, and we will be doing something similar at the APRIL
conference in Spokane in October. Billy, wherever you are, you owe me for that much.

There was also a session this week on the ACL-wide initiative to provide our grantees, including Centers,
the business acumen training, technical assistance, and tools they need to effectively compete and tap
into the resources of managed care and managed long-term services and supports organizations. I want
to emphasize two things. I recognize and respect the fact that this is not work that many Centers want
to do for deeply held reasons having everything to do with IL values, and there are many other Centers
that either are doing, or want to, and feel compelled to do this work for equally deep IL value-driven
reasons. Given the stakes for our people, we need both. For CILs that want to take this path therefore,
this initiative is aimed at making it more readily accessible.

As you know, we recently sent out a series of Frequently Asked Questions regarding the IL networks
role in emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery efforts. Among other things, we indicated how Part
C Centers could provide IL services in disaster areas outside their service areas and use grant funding to
do it, provided certain conditions we list in the document are met. We also said we would identify other
possible sources of funding to help support such efforts. One modest way of doing this would be for
Centers to subcontract with Area Agencies on Aging, that receive modest grants of around $40,000 from
AoA to do relief work during a disaster. This is certainly not the total solution by any stretch. We are
also going to be meeting with the HHS Office for Preparedness and Response, the FEMA Office of
Disability Integration and Coordination, the IL network, and others to identify additional strategies and
resources to accomplish these aims.

Finally, we are beginning to work with CMS, HUD, Justice, Agriculture, and other agencies to develop
and roll out practical, readily achievable strategies for expanding the availability of accessible,
affordable, safe, and integrated housing. Especially in this town, those from all across the political
spectrum are talking about how having such decent, livable housing is the number one social
determinant of health. We know, for folks with disabilities, the stakes are often far higher. Absent this
housing, many now living in the community may end up on the streets or warehoused, and those that
are needlessly institutionalized will never break free. Here is the irony and the opportunity, however.
Even with proposed budget reductions HUD might experience, two rounds of HUD Section 811 funding
from 2012 and 2013 to support project-based housing and individual rental assistance, awarded to 29
States and DC, are beginning to have an impact. States receiving this funding include Alaska, Arizona,
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Kentucky,
Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Nevada, New
Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas,
Wisconsin and Washington. Several hundred units are already becoming available, and eventually the
number of units this funding will support for individuals with disabilities and older persons will be in the
thousands. . See http://811resourcecenter.tacinc.org/policy-programs/hud-section-811-program-
information for details. Furthermore, we recently learned that $10 million in 811 Mainstream Housing
vouchers was included in the 2017 Omnibus Appropriations bill. We are working with HUD to assure
that the IL network and other ACL grantees play an integral role in how this all gets done.

So, NCIL, thank you. Never stop pushing forward. Lead on.