Home Care for Maine's RFP Appeal Hearing

Today was Home Care for Maine's appeal hearing on the Homemaker Services contract that was awarded to Catholic Charities of Maine. The morning started off by hearing testimony from Mollie Baldwin, Home Care for Maine's CEO. She was crossed examined by the State and by Catholic Charities attorneys. After a recess for lunch, Vicki Mihalik, HCM's program director, provided testimony on behalf of Home Care for Maine. She was also cross examined by the State and Catholic Charities attorneys. The State presented its testimony and that took the remainder of the afternoon as it's witnesses were cross examined by Home Care for Maine's and Catholic Charities. Catholic Charities did not present its case as the session ran out of time. They will at a following session continuing the RFP hearing in November. Sometime during the week of November 17th will be the next hearing with Catholic Charities presenting its case. As soon as I know the date and time, I'll post it. I found this to be a very interesting day. I learned a lot about this RFP process that our agency goes through when it puts a proposal out to be a service provider. This particular RFP was with the Office of Elder Services. On another note, Mollie did tell me that we workers will get our quarterly stipend, even with the reduction in hours we've recently gone through with our homemaking cases. That's some good news I'm happy to pass along. As soon as I get the date for the next RFP hearing, I'll post it.

Quarterly Stipends for HCM

A lot of concern has been raised about Home Care for Maine's quarterly stipend that has been paid to workers since last September. The concern is whether or not we will still receive the stipend despite the loss in funding for the Homemaker Program. From what I've learned from MSEA headquarters, our stipends, at the current rate of $.45 per hour worked per quarter are okay. We will continue to receive the stipend at that rate, paid on the quarter. We received a quarterly stipend in April for the first quarter of 2008. We will receive a quarterly stipend again in July for the second quarter of 2008. The stipend is like a "bonus" for all the good work we do for our consumers. It is not a "raise" on our base rate of pay. If anyone has any questions about the stipend, feel free to contact me at helen.hnsn@gmail.com. If I can't answer the question, I'll pass it on to headquarters and get an answer for you.