Dear Imagine friends and family,
OK, first of all, the Imagine Film Festival is on November 8. You don’t want to miss it. This year, the event will be held at The 418 Project, 155 S. River St. Santa Cruz CA, 95060. Show up at 6 for a good time. If you would like to learn more about The 418 Project, their website is here. We appreciate our most constant sponsor, Aveanna.
We are producing a report covering the half-decade since COVID. Our story is an aggregate of all of your stories and we’d love to hear from you your memories of life together with Imagine since lock-down began. Whether you are an individual we serve, a caregiver, a parent, conservator, family member or friend, we’d love to include a memory of your experience in the last five years with Imagine. If you wanted to send a photo all the better.
This half-decade report will replace the annual reports we used to send out, well, annually, once the previous year finances had been audited. As it happened, we were waiting on an audit to release our 2019 report when lockdown struck and the world turned inside-out, upside down and nostalgic. Getting that audit completed and the annual report out were two small adjustments of routine during a transformative era in our collective history.
But an annual report has purpose. It helps us to see the small things comprising the big picture, our mission in our actions and our future in our past. At no point in the last five years did we think the annual report was history. As our restoration continues, our desire and obligation to recognize that history has its moment. You all know I can fill pages with words, but if you would be so kind, I’d love to fill some with yours.
We aren’t looking exclusively for happy memories, although of course we welcome those. Your memories of frustration, fear, anxiety and conflict are part of the story and we want them represented.
This is covered in the Advocacy Corner and the Year Of… column below, but we are coming into a golden age of funding state funding. Some funding increases came in in July, some in August and the biggest ones are coming in January. Some will be temporary while some are meant to one permanent. It’s a complicated mass of change but it bubbles with goodness. Like Fresca.
This is a very exciting time, because the changes are enough that we believe we can sustainably hit the trifecta of raising caregiver wages, expanding the support our clients and caregivers experience and growing our cash reserves as a hedge against future needs and rate reductions.
It will not be enough to simultaneously expand caregiver wages to what we wish they’d be and shrink caseloads but it is a good chance to make significant improvements, we’re excited and the board has a great package of improvements before them.
But as I have and will (and do in other places in this very newsletter) I do want to explain some caution and conservatism in these good times. Some of the new funds arriving in January are already slated to fade in July 2026. And the whole package is at risk from the State’s ongoing budget deficit. So we are preparing budgets for the board under these parameters: that the budget will continue to balance when the temporary funds go away and that when the state makes typically painful budget cuts, the deficit can rest on funds we are putting away now, instead of lay-offs and wage cuts in a panic.
Finally, my son, Orion, will turn 9 on November 5. For his birthday he would appreciate that you consider his future and vote! A lego set wouldn’t be bad either.
As always, I am here for your feedback, questions, concerns and anecdotes.
In The Year of The Facilitator, a new position to help Facilitators help people help people.
In the HR Corner, Patty really wants you to come to the film festival.
The Person-Centered Evolution this month talks about the world outside of tools.
The Redwood Chronicles this month turns the tables on Jake.
In Community Connections, We’re planning a get together on the seventh.
Our usual stuff in the column around self-determination but also, self-determination participants should be aware that rates for many services on which budgets are based will be rising January 1.
The Advocacy Corner discusses Phase 3 of rate reform, planned for January 1 and destined to remembered in my dotage as “the golden half-year.”
Our monthly Transparency at Imagine column invites you to our Board meeting on December 18. Lots of budget stuff!
This month we have our client spotlight on Charlie H. There are two staff spotlights this month appreciating Mariana and Fidel. The Spotlight on Change tells the story of how our friend, Ron, came to find a family and live his dream.
As ever, I am at your service. If you have any questions, feedback or want to try and outword me, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can write me here. I look forward to hearing from you.
Gratefully yours,
Doug