SUMMARY NOTES August 17, 2017 9:30 a.m.--11:30 a.m. Tulare County Government Plaza, First Floor, RMA Conference Room 5961 S. Mooney Blvd., Visalia, CA 93277 Invitees: City of Avenal City of Corcoran City of Dinuba City of Farmersville John Jansons
City of Hanford Mario Orosco City of Lemoore Linda Beyersdorf City of Lindsay Maria Knudson City of Porterville
City of Tulare Trisha Whitfield City of Visalia Nathan Garza County of Kings Rhonda Mann County of Tulare SJVCEO Courtney Kalashian Samantha Dodero
PG&E Steve Newvine
SCG Gustavo Sevilla
SCE Omar Faris Irfan Parekh Frank Yanes
Guests: Greg Buchler, SCE Jeanne Ramirez, PGE Martin Nogues, United Way Jacob Jimenez, HHSA Arselia Mena, HHSA
Agenda: Topic Welcome Courtney Kalashian, SJVCEO, welcomed the group to the Q2 partnership meeting. Introductions were made around the room and a housekeeping notice was given to the group. Presentation: Income Qualified Programs (IQP) What are they? Presenters from PG&E, SCE and SCG all touched upon what programs were offered to low-income vulnerable communities. SCE covered their ESAP, CARE, FERA, Medical Baseline and ESAF Programs. All programs except Medical Baseline are income qualifying and CARE and FERA are all programs that lower the monthly billed rate by 20%. ESAF is a small fund made up of donations from customers and employees. These funds go toward qualifying homes that cannot pay their utility bills. Medical baseline is a program that allows you to double consumption of electricity/gas usage if you have a qualifying health need at home. ESAP is the only program that takes care of energy efficiency upgrades and energy saving education. SCE allows their contractors to go back to visit homes who have participated in the past if it was after 2012. SCE did explain that there is an update to the income qualified programs that goes into effect on 7/1/17. Households that qualify for federal assistance programs automatically qualify for the income qualified programs. The only item needed is proof of enrollment in the federal programs. PG&E went over ESAP, CARE, FERA, Medical Baseline and REACH. All programs are income qualifying except for the medical baseline program. All programs have the same federal qualifiers as listed above. Medical Baseline is the same as outlined above in the SCE description. REACH is the equivalent to SCE’s ESAF which helps with payment of bills in time of need. PG&E’s ESAP program only allows contractors to go back to homes that were visited after 2001. SCG described available income qualified programs for residents. Items included CARE, FERA, ESAP and Medical Baseline. All program guidelines are outlined above. Presentation: IQP Data IQP success Attachment #2 outlines numbers for SCE ESAP and PG&E’s CARE programs. The excel sheet shows the percentage of eligible households who are enrolled in each program by zip code. The partnership is
working to get comparable numbers for both ESAP and CARE from each IOU. Many of the percentages are less than 80% and those are the areas of opportunity.
IQP opportunity areas As mentioned above those areas that are less than 80% in enrollment have a lot potential for program reach. The partnership would like to work with each partner to see what is the best way to reach those that are not hearing about the program. Those zip codes that have potential are listed below. SCE ESAP California Hot Springs Camp Nelson Ducor Earlimart Goshen Lemon Cove Pixley Porterville Posey Springville Strathmore Terra Bella Three Rivers Tulare Visalia Hanford PGE CARE Tulare Corcoran Badger Miramonte Hanford
Discussion: Improving IQP in VIEW territory How can we increase reach into most needing neighborhoods/communities? CK, SJVCEO, asked the group in attendance how we can better reach into the areas that are lacking in enrollment. Jacob and Areslia, HHSA, mentioned that with the change in guidelines for many of the rate assistance programs they can pass along applications and brochures. Many of those residents who need WIC and other programs go to them to apply. If they can get hard copy items they include that information in the packets to families when they come in. CK then asked the cities in attendance how they would approach sharing the information with residents. All in attendance stated that they would like the PDF links to all applications so that they can house them on city websites. They thought having the information posted but not distributed by the city would be the best since they do not want residents to get confused on who and where the information is coming from. IOU representatives agreed on all fronts and stated they will provide necessary hard copies as well as links to those parties interested.
What access can LGs provide to IOUs? One program that was presented to the group, Medical Baseline, was one program that all IOU’s feel is undersubscribed and holds a lot of potential. CK asked them and the cities/counties how the partnership can help with that?
All parties agreed that putting together a list of all senior centers and care taker facilities would be a good start. From there the partnership can work to hold education sessions on the programs from each IOU in the respective areas. Also, many cities hold senior days or clinics and that may be a terrific opportunity for IOU’s to table at. CK agreed that the partnership would work with organizations to collect contact information for senior centers in each partners territory and go from there. Wrap Up 1. Upcoming Events Samantha Dodero, SJVCEO, went over the upcoming events for the VIEW territory.
2.
9/29/17 – SCE Hispanic Heritage Month Event in Tulare SJVCEO will be receiving the community organization award at this year’s event. We hope VIEW partners will be able to make it. 10/2/17- SCE/SCG All Partners meeting in Irwindale This annual meeting will cover updates with both IOU’s as well as best practice sharing between LGP’s. The partnership will be able to help cover some of the travel cost associated with attending. 10/26/17- CenCal All Partners Meeting in SLO This meeting is being sponsored by all three IOU’s as well as SLO County and the SJVCEO. This year we will focus on filling the gap for LGP’s. The meeting will cover necessary updates, networking as well as energy saving projects best practices. 11/2/17- Water Conference in Tulare This event is being held at the SCE energy education center in Tulare. It will focus on assisting customers with water issues, land subsidence as well as SIGMA updates and issues. This year the event is both SCE and PGE sponsored.
Fall Rural Outreach Events Update SD went over scheduled fall outreach events for the VIEW Partnership. Tulare County Health Fair – 9/28/17 Energy Saving Workshop in Goshen- 10/3/17 Farmersville Fall Festival – 10/7/17 Energy Saving Workshop in Ducor – 10/10/17 Energy Saving Workshop in Allensworth – 10/11/17 Energy Saving Workshop in Pixley – 10/18/17 Kettleman City Safety Event – 10/19/17
Concluded at 11:15 AM