January 26, 2000		2000-R-0070
REPLICATING PROMISING STATE PRACTICES
By: Saul Spigel, Chief Analyst

You asked about structural models here or in other states through which a state agency could help other states replicate its promising practices. You were particularly interested in the agency's maintaining quality control and assuring that state employees were not being paid for non-state work.

SUMMARY

We can find no models in Connecticut or other states that directly address your question. We consulted the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, the Ford Foundation, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, all of which identify innovative state programs. But these institutions do not track whether other states try to replicate any of the programs they cite and, consequently, could not tell us whether or how the originating states might have tried to help others in their efforts. But the following examples, while not specifically state-initiated efforts to replicate promising programs, may provide approaches that help achieve your ends.

1. Prevent Child Abuse America (PCAA) is a nonprofit organization that adopted a promising child abuse prevention practice from Hawaii and further developed it with technical assistance from the Hawaiian organization that created it. PCAA promulgated Healthy Families America nationwide through its state chapters and maintains quality control through a credentialling process. But it has no formal ties to any Hawaiian government agency.

2. The Connecticut Economic Resource Center is a nonprofit entity founded by Connecticut utility companies in partnership with the Department of Economic and Community Development. It acts as the business community's gateway to state services and includes state agency representatives on its board of directors;

3. Any state agency can, by statute, create a foundation to accept and use funds to further the agency's purpose. State laws govern the fiscal and management relationship between the agency and the foundation. Many state higher education institutions have established such foundations, but currently they use them primarily for fundraising.

HEALTHY FAMILIES AMERICA

Healthy Families America, now operating in 300 communities nationwide, began as a promising state practice in Hawaii. There, child abuse advocacy groups worked to replicate an early risk-identification home-visitation program begun in 1975 by a local nonprofit organization. By 1984 they had expanded to six sites across the islands using local fundraising events, foundation grants, and state funds.

In 1984 the Hawaii legislature began a three-year pilot program in which the state Health Department collaborated with the founding nonprofit organization. The state pilot, Healthy Start, expanded the concept, developed broader and more detailed service protocols, and intensified and professionalized staff supervision. Evaluations of the pilot sites were generally positive, and the legislature gradually expanded the program statewide.

In 1993, after favorable reports on home visitation generally by the General Accounting Office and specifically on the Hawaii model by the U.S Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA) established Healthy Families America (HFA) as a training and technical assistance program to help localities develop home visiting programs of their own. HFA is not, strictly speaking, a replication of Hawaii's Healthy Start. NCPCA (which has since changed its name to Prevent Child Abuse America) had no formal relationship with Hawaii agencies or officials. But NCPCA's Healthy Families planners designed their program in partnership with the Hawaii Family Support Center, the nonprofit organization that had developed the model in 1975.

PCAA and HFA use a credentialing system to assure that local HFA sites adhere to the critical program elements research has shown to be most effective. The credentialing process includes a peer-reviewed self-assessment and on-site visit. Peer reviewers compile a preliminary credentialing report, which is sent to the site for a response and a credentialing subcommittee of the PCAA board. After a site meets all standards, the board grants a four-year credential.

CONNECTICUT ECONOMIC RESOURCE CENTER (CERC)

CERC is a nonprofit organization founded in 1992 by several of the state's major utility companies (SNET, CNG, NU, Yankee Gas) in partnership with the Department of Economic Development (now Economic and Community Development (DECD)). A 1993 law (PA 93-382, CGS § 32-4a) specifically authorizes DECD and other state agencies to provide financial assistance, lend staff, or provide in-kind contributions to CERC. James Abromaitis and Rita Zingari, DECD's commissioner and deputy commissioner; Jack Goldberg, Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC) commissioner; and Guy Mazza, DPUC consumer counsel, sit on CERC's board of directors.

CERC does not replicate or administer state programs, but it does provide services to Connecticut's business community that in other states are provided by an executive agency. These include acting as a single gateway for businesses seeking state financial and other assistance, marketing the state as a business site, providing information on available commercial and industrial sites, and providing economic data.

STATE AGENCY FOUNDATIONS

State law allows any state agency to set up a nonprofit foundation to receive or use private funds for educational, charitable, cultural, or related purposes that support or improve the agency. Over 25 such foundations currently exist, most are related to state higher education institutions or Department of Mental Retardation facilities. The Secretary of the State's Office also created a foundation to support its citizenship education efforts. While these foundations' principal purpose is raising funds for the agency, the statutes governing them may be instructive for your purposes.

The statutes require a governing board to oversee each foundation's operations. The agency and the foundation must establish a written agreement that:

1. addresses the foundation's use of the agency's facilities and resources;

2. exempts the state agency from liability for the foundation's acts or omisisons;

3. requires the foundation to reimburse the agency for expenses it incurs as a result of foundation operations, if the agency would not have otherwise incurred such expenses; and

4. establishes procedures in case the foundation ceases to exist, including procedures for disposing of its assets.

All employee salaries, benefits, and expenses must be paid solely by the foundation, and the foundation is prohibited from compensating any state officer or employee without the written approval of the parent state agency's chief executive. The foundation must use generally accepted accounting principles in its financial management. Depending on the amount of its receipts, the foundation must be audited every one or three years (CGS § 4-37e to -37j).

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