2014 Trainings
Pre-registration is required!
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Happy Hour at Octane
May 17, 7-10pm
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Visit our website!
ResCoalition has updated our website...you can now pay your annual membership dues on the site. We will continue to work to keep it updated and add new information and resources so keep checking in!
www.ResCoCCF.org |
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Send to a Friend
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Update...
This year is shaping up to be another complex year with several issues taking the forefront. The most prominent of these is the labor law issue. The Federal Department of Labor (DOL) Wage and Hour Division has begun a focused review of all community care licensed programs in the state. They initially came to California to see if employee misclassification (claiming employees are exempt and salary) was an issue. The "review" of misclassification in residential care showed a 99% noncompliance rate. Not only did they find that virtually everyone they audited was out of compliance but there were often other serious problems. This raised a red flag and the DOL has vowed to audit residential care providers in California until they begin seeing the majority of providers in compliance. In addition, once audited, they have promised to return within two years to do a follow up to ensure follow through.
The small benefit to a DOL labor audit is that there are no attorney's fees and there are no penalties. A lot of people have felt that the "liquidated damages" that the DOL may assess is a penalty. However, liquidated damages are only assessed when the DOL finds that the employer did not act in good faith.
ResCoalition has met with DOL on several occasions and sat through a number of audits with vendors. In doing so, we have become familiar with what they are looking for and what residential care providers need to do/STOP doing to be in compliance. As a result, ResCoalition has been doing labor law trainings throughout the state. We are pushing labor law compliance as far and wide as we can because DOL has vowed to stay and audit until providers are in compliance. A few issues that need to be highlighted: (1) there are a great number of labor law attorney's that simply do not understand our industry so they give incorrect advice, (2) you cannot pay your employees salary, (3) virtually no employee in residential care is eligible as exempt from earning overtime, and (4) lack of documentation (no agreements, schedules and time sheets) are a huge issue. If we don’t clean up our own backyard with regards to labor issues, the unions will!
A strong second to the labor law issue is the impact of the minimum wage increases on the ARM rated structure. ResCoalition has met with DDS on this issue on several occasions. DDS now understands and appreciates that there is a need to increase the ARM rate to address the minimum wage issue. However, they are still in a quandary as to how much of an increase there should be. We are working to educate DDS, the community, and the Legislature on the travesty of the ARM rates. Please understand, this is a delicate balance and we are trying to ensure that no matter what there is a minimum wage pass through.
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Other Items...
This legislative session, there is not a lot impacting the DD residential system with most bills being focused on RCFE’s. One bill that does impact us and we’re reviewing is SB579 from Berryhill. This bill would create a commission on Oversight Efficiency and Quality Enhancement Models. What this means is that a 12 member panel would look at the CCL/RC QA dynamic and identify how to take CCL’s oversight and merge it into the RC system. We’d certainly be interested in getting your feedback on this possibility.
Additionally, please note, there was a recent tragedy in Southern California where two developmentally disabled consumers perished in a facility fire so we expect the issue of fire sprinklers to come up again through legislative action.
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