WHEREAS, the contract policies of the Department of Health, which have been approved by the Health Commission, includes a provision for granting performance based incentives to contractors; and,

WHEREAS, the Board of Supervisors appropriated $1 million to the Department of Health in the fiscal year 1997-98 budget to grant merit based increases to contractors; and,

WHEREAS, this increase was granted based on testimony from private non-profit community based organizations that they have insufficient funds to provide salary increases and to fund increases to their operating costs; and,

WHEREAS, the $1 million augmentation has been placed on reserve by the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors, pending receipt of the Department's plan for allocating the funds to contractors; and,

WHEREAS, the Department has developed principles by which it proposes to grant merit based increases to contractors; and,

WHEREAS, the Commission recognizes that $1 million is not sufficient to provide all agencies with a meaningful increase and therefore the pool of eligibles and grant amounts should be limited; and,

WHEREAS, the principles proposed for merit increases include limiting awards to non-profit community based organizations which contracted with the Department in the past and in the current year, limiting the pool to approximately 30 contractors with a maximum award of $35,000, making the awards as one-time adjustments to contractors, thereby allowing the Department to make decisions on contractor awards each year; and using data from program reviews and monitoring reports as the basis for judging performance; therefore, be it

RESOLVED that the Health Commission approves the guidelines for granting merit increases to Department contractors, and authorizes the Department to request release of these funds from the Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors.

I hereby certify that the foregoing resolution was adopted by the Health Commission at its meeting of Tuesday, October 7, 1997.