Carol Cohen: Yes, so you can propose anything you like. We gave you our ideas. You can propose what you like. Please justify it and demonstrate in your justification how it’s in the best interest of the beneficiaries and that it’s in Social Security’s best interest, so basically you need to provide narrative that justifies why you’re proposing a different service area. (Deb Kopak): Okay. So when I am looking at the RFT on page 22 and it says specifically in the second paragraph applicants may include additional areas, we can also propose a reduced area. I just wanted to clarify that. Carol Cohen: Yes, that’s correct. That’s a good point. That’s correct. That’s correct. (Deb Kopak): Okay, okay. That’s terrific. Carol Cohen: Yes, your comment about major metropolitan is when we spent a lot of time doing these analyses, using the current population data, we made every effort to distribute major metropolitan areas so that certain grantees would not have a situation where they were serving multiple major metropolitan areas, so an attempt was made to just level the playing field so to speak, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t propose something different. (Deb Kopak): Correct. Okay. That has answered my question. Thank you very much. Carol Cohen: You’re very welcome. Operator: And we move to our next question. (Harriet Van Whitman): Hi, I’m calling - this is Harriet Van Whitman from Delaware. I’ve been looking at the RFA and I have been looking at on page 28, there’s a - the different - in section part 3 and the project narrative and it lists different parts of the project narrative and how many pages they’re to
(Crosstalk) (Gina): So it will be only the continuing education for ((inaudible)); right? Carol Cohen: Exactly. If they were fully certified, they would just need to do the 18 hours of continuing education credits. (Gina): Okay. That’s great. Thank you. Carol Cohen: You’re welcome. Operator: And we move to our next question. Changed their mind. Please check your mute function. (Linda): Hello, can you hear me? Carol Cohen: Yes. (Terri): Yes. (Linda): Okay, I’m sorry. My name is Linda. I’m calling from and I have a question regarding our project narrative. Carol Cohen: Okay. (Linda): In regards to the page limitation, it states in the RFA that the page limitation is 75 pages. Is that for the project narrative?
Carol Cohen: Another really great question, and you know, our inclination is to say yes, we’d like you to keep up. It’s like any kind of licensing or any kind of certification where if you want to maintain it, you have to continue. But again would you please submit that question? That’s a great question, like if you’re certified, but you’re not providing a lot of direct service, but are you providing any? (Kathy): Well I have done some as the result of you know, getting certified, and then also I’ve you know, I am currently the CWIC for a small area of our overall current service area, although in the next iteration if we’re awarded that will likely not be the case, so... Carol Cohen: Your project officer is nodding her head and saying if you continue to provide CWIC type services, then yes, you should have those continuing education credits to stay on top of your field. (Kathy): Okay. And then my next question is ((inaudible)). Carol Cohen: I’m sorry, go ahead, yes. (Kathy): I’m sorry. Is there a plan in place that Social Security has if the state does not get enough applicants for - with the project? Carol Cohen: Yes, we do, and it’s in the RFA that if we don’t receive adequate or acceptable or fundable applications or any for that matter for a particular area, we will reannounce. We will come out again with another reannouncement, with another announcement. (Kathy): Great, thank you so much. I appreciate... Carol Cohen: Yes, for those areas that are not covered, we went through this before in 2006, some of you may remember, where we had to reannounce for the areas that we didn’t get coverage.
Carol Cohen: You make a very, very good point. I know there have been many discussions internally about creating a beneficiary Website so folks could obtain their own information. This again is beyond us. It’s not something we can respond to. That would be something that speed - that is under consideration by another division here and that’s the systems folks, and I know this has been talked about, whether there could be a universal Web-based access for beneficiaries to - really to do anything that they needed to do with their own accounts including pull down a BPQY. This has been ((inaudible)) - yes, it’s been discussed, it’s been written about and so forth. I don’t know where that is. That would be something that systems would be addressing, but you raised some terrific points. (Carmen): Okay. Thank you very much for your time. Carol Cohen: Thank you. Operator: We have one final question in queue. We’ll go to that question now. Carol Cohen: Hey, perfect timing. Okay. (Terri ND): Hey, everybody, it’s Terri in North Dakota. Carol Cohen: Hi, Terri in . (Terri ND): I know. I didn’t know we’re being recorded, so hi, everybody into the future. Now what we have here and a just quick clarification is we have a - we also - our non-profit was also awarded monies from VR to have an extra CWIC in the state, and that position then shares project coordinators with the WIPA project coordinator, does that make sense?
(Terri ND): VR recognized the importance of the WIPA program, their benefits to their beneficiaries in North Dakota and their clients and they gave us some money. (Crosstalk) (Terri Uttermohlen): They gave the organization some money, but that person is not a VR employee. (Terri ND): Correct, that’s right. (Terri Uttermohlen): So there’s no firewall issue. (Terri ND): Beautiful, thank you for the clarification. (Terri Uttermohlen): You’re welcome. (Terri ND): Also one real quick one if I can, are there - I know that we set benchmarks for all WIPA projects. Is there any wiggle room let’s say for modifications or at least some leeway? Some of you are extremely rural, and I - this goes back a little bit to the outreach thing, and like it was touched on before like how some trips can take an all day. We make it as efficient as we can, but man, it’s just wildly different for some of us and in some of these states. But I guess that was more of a comment than a question. (Terri Uttermohlen): Okay, I might be off base here, but we made a comment that we may be modifying some of these benchmarks. You’ll receive further guidance. You know, a lot of these questions are kind of you know, the types of questions that we sort of a wait and see and let’s see what we get when we make all the final awards, you know, and we have all these new contractors on board.