National Legislative Program Evaluation Society
Executive Committee Meeting Minutes
October 27, 2004, Tallahassee, Florida.
The Executive Committee convened at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, October 27, 2004, at the DoubleTree Hotel. Copies of handouts discussed during the meeting are kept on file with the NLPES secretary.
Members present at the meeting were Priscilla Anderson, Philip Durgin, Steve Hendrickson, Joe Lawhon, Ken Levine, Wade Melton, Rakesh Mohan, Tim Osterstock, Manu Patel, and Jan Yamane. Also present was Bob Boerner (NCSL). Kate Wade participated via phone. Wade Melton chaired the meeting.
Subcommittee Meetings
The Awards and Communications and Technology subcommittees met from 8:30 to 9:00, and the Annual Meeting, Training, and Nominations/Elections/Memebership subcommittees met from 9:00 to 9:30.
General Business
Opening remarks: Gary VanLandingham made some brief opening remarks welcoming NLPES to Florida. The Committee expressed sympathy for Martha Carter who was unable to attend due to the death of her mother.
Annual Meeting: Tim reported that we received limited useful feed back from the sessions sponsored or co-sponsored by NLPES. The subcommittee will contact Washington, the host state for next year’s Annual Meeting, to see what speakers they might have available for NLPES-sponsored sessions. The Committee discussed the NCSL policy on having speaker registration fees waived. The general policy, as explained by Bob Boerner, is that NCSL does not provide complementary registrations for legislators, legislative staff, or private sector representatives. NCSL will consider paying the registration for someone whose participation is solely as an invited speaker, but this is done on a case-by-case basis and must be approved in advance by NCSL.
Awards: Joe reported that the subcommittee wants to look at the criteria for the Excellence award to be sure the criteria do not adversely affect small shops from receiving the award. They also plan to look at the criteria and how they are applied when assessing reports for the Certificate of Impact award to ensure that the awards are meaningful.
Communications and Technology: The subcommittee reviewed the latest efforts by NCSL staff to make the audit database more complete and user-friendly, but it was difficult because the new system is not yet operational. Subcommittee members volunteered to test out the new NCSL report database before it’s made available to everyone, if that would help. The subcommittee would also like NCSL to develop guidelines for our offices so we know how to format our website reports so that the NCSL robot gets the information it needs. Subcommittee members are also going to review the NLPES website to see what needs to be updated and develop a plan for how to keep the website current.
Nominations/Elections/Membership: Staff rosters are to be mailed mid-to-late December and candidates will be solicited in March. The subcommittee discussed Manu’s replacement; Gerry Schwandt (MI) was the next highest vote-getter. If he is unable to join, there was discussion that it might be useful to get someone from Colorado to help out if the mega-conference is held there.
Training: Ken reviewed the subcommittees concerns/questions regarding a mega-conference in 2006 and/or 2007. Key questions were: How do we match up with other sections with regard to length of the conference and number of training sessions held? How do we deal with limited home state attendance? Who recruits the moderators and panelists? Would this responsibility fall on the Executive Committee? How could we incentivize a state to be “host”? After discussing these and related issues, the Committee was of the general opinion that we needed to make a decision by early to mid-December so that Utah, the host state selected for 2006, is not left dangling. If by that time the Committee did not feel comfortable with the mega-conference in 2006, we would be willing to commit to trying it in 2007. Ken noted that given the timing, we may need a Committee conference call in December to finalize a decision.
Tallahassee Conference Update: Flora and Wade reviewed the schedule for the conference and answered questions.
Next NLPES Executive Committee Meeting: The Executive Committee will meet next spring at a time and location to be decided later.
The meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Philip Durgin, Secretary
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