Prince George's County Maternal Health Advisory Board Meeting - May 9, 2026
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Prince George's County Maternal Health Advisory Board Meeting
On May 9, 2026, the Prince George's County Maternal Health Advisory Board met to finalize recommendations for allocating $250,000 in funds from legislation CR99 2025. The funds were originally intended to support doula services, but the health department identified separate doula funding, leaving the full $250,000 for the advisory board to allocate to community organizations. The board discussed using Healthcare Dynamics International (HCDI) as a fiscal manager to expedite spending before the June 30 deadline.
Discussion Items
- Overview and Process: The chair reviewed the legislative requirements: recommendations must include expenditure rationale, alignment with equity goals and documented community needs. The board agreed to proceed with allocating the funds to HCDI as a pass-through entity.
- Overhead Costs: HCDI typically charges 10–15% indirect costs. The board settled on a 10% fee ($25,000) for technical assistance and coordination.
- Child Resource Connect (CRC): Jennifer, representing CRC, noted she had been told since August of $400,000 in additional county funding that had not materialized. She described severe cash flow issues, including lack of a purchase order for the current contract, and warned she might need to shut down her home visiting program in May. The board discussed allocating $95,000 to CRC for home visiting services, with the flexibility to pivot to other approved services (e.g., mental health, postpartum education) if the $400,000 arrives.
- She Rises: A smaller, first-time grantee. The board allocated $30,000 for activity kits for children and postpartum/prenatal webinar series, pending a meeting with She Rises on the following Monday.
- Additional Funds: A $100,000 bucket was created for other services (blood pressure machines, home equipment, respite care, transportation stipends). HCDI will manage this bucket, with disbursements requiring advisory board approval and a 12-month spending timeline.
- Meeting Schedule: The board expressed hope to meet again soon to advocate for larger funding in FY27.
Key Outcomes
- Motion and Vote: The chair moved to recommend the following allocation to the health department: $25,000 to HCDI (10% overhead); $30,000 to She Rises; $95,000 to Child Resource Connect (for home visiting or alternate services); and $100,000 for additional services as identified, with HCDI managing disbursements subject to board approval and a 12-month spending window. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously (no opposition, no abstentions).
- Next Steps: The recommendations will be sent to the health department. The chair will contact the Office of Management and Budget to follow up on the missing $400,000 promised to CRC. Meeting notes will be distributed immediately to finalize HCDI's contract by the Monday deadline.
Meeting Transcript
So I was asking if there were any um any additions, questions, or changes to the minutes that we should um we should be advised about. Seeing none, thank you. And the next thing on the agenda, I know we've talked about the legislation that initiated this, but I always like to just take a look back to make sure that we're keeping in track, and based upon what I see, we are um the legislation, of course, calls for recommendations from this group that will be submitted to the health department, and um the recommendations should uh of available funds um and there should be a rationale for the expenditure and the alignment, they should align with equity goals and documented community needs. Those are some of the requirements uh that were spelled out in the legislation uh CR99 2025 that we can keep in mind as we move on through the agenda today with the uh the main um piece of business that we have is of course reviewing the recommendations that were discussed at the last meeting, and um think we should begin to review those at this time, unless there's other business that we should move to first. Sorry, I'm stalling as I get to my notes here. Okay. And I can go over um the chair did get a chance to look at them. Um, and then she just had a few follow-up questions, not necessarily changing anything. Um, and she should jump in at some point here when she finishes her other meeting. Um, but she suggested as the next step for this um is to identify the dollar amount for each of the recommendations and um for each organization. And I think she actually just came on. Yes. I apologize. Um back to back meetings, but Aaron, I'll let you continue where you are. Yeah, so you just missed us voting on minutes, so that was it. Um we have the total amount of 250,000. Um part of that will be toward the health health department's doula uh comp and fringe, uh, right, Dr. Young? Well, we've identified additional money in the health department budget, so we won't need to do that. Okay, got it. So the the whole 250 would be for what the advisory board proposes. Okay, perfect. Thank you for that update. Um then so then the suggestion was because we have such a short amount of time to spend it, uh, was to give it to HCDI Healthcare Dynamics International as the the manager of the fund, and then for them to allocate it out to the nonprofits that um that would receive it. Um so do we know about how much HDC H C DI would keep as overhead cost for this. I would have to look back at their contract to see, but that there it's negotiable because for us at the health department, they never charge us more than 10 to 15 percent for the indirect rate because our grants don't allow a higher rate. Okay, so you're thinking maybe 10 to 15 percent of the 250 would be perfect. Thank you for that. Um then if we think of them as the umbrella, right, that would fund the different nonprofits. Um it looks like we have identified child resource connect and she rices as the two primary nonprofits that could receive this funding. Um, and then from the from I guess there were 16 recommendations. We're taking off the doula, so that leaves 15, and two were the names of those nonprofits that can provide the other services. Right. So we are at uh 13 different services, right? 16 minus one minus two, uh 14 different services. So she rises. We have identified possibly being able to provide the layouts, activities, activity kids for kids and postpartum slash perenatal webinar series. Does that sound about right with their scope of work? And then uh child resource connect, uh transportation stipend, postpartum education and staff support home visits and scheduling. Does that sound about right with your scope of work, Jennifer? Um I don't think uh say that again, which three were ours. Uh we were thinking the transportation stipend, uh postpartum education and staff to support home visiting scheduling. Okay. That um I think the transportation, like the idea was connected to what because I know Dr. Young said that the county also already had transportation options in place. So the transportation, so I don't think I think that if the county already has that in place, then doing it directly from the county might be better for transportation. Gotcha. Although I guess we would we could move it off to additional organizations. Because I think the issue is we we need to spend it from the county side, right? So that it doesn't go into the fund balance if it's not spent.
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