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NLPES Site Map
About NLPES
NLPES Executive Committee
Meeting Minutes
Minutes
March 23, 2001
Costa Mesa, California
The executive committee met on Friday, March 23, 2001, in Costa Mesa,
California. Copies of handouts discussed during the meeting are kept on
file with the NLPES Secretary.
Members present at the meeting were Joel
Alter, James Barber,
Gary
Brown, Martha Carter,
Rick Coleman,
Shan
Hays, Craig Kinton, Rob
Krell, Wade Melton,
Heather Moritz, Jane
Thesing, and Kate Wade.
Also present were Bob Boerner,
NCSL, and Gary
VanLandingham (FL).
Committee Meetings
From 8:15 a.m. to 9:15 a.m., committee chairs met with their respective
committees to discuss committee business.
Call to Order
The meeting was called to order by James Barber, Chair, at 9:25 a.m.
James welcomed everyone and asked for any comments on the September meeting
minutes, which had been approved electronically. Hearing no comments, we
moved to committee reports.
Committee Reports
Joel Alter reported for the communications committee. He discussed the
administration of the NLPES website. Since our last meeting, OPPAGA asked
us to find someone else to handle website administration, and NCSL volunteered.
Everything is going well with updates and the members were asked to submit
items for the website to Janna
Goodwin at NCSL. Joel distributed statistics on web hits for various
pages of the site. He noted that activity was lower at the end of last
year, which could reflect agencies' work schedules or that the site was
not actively managed for a few months. We can monitor the use statistics
regularly. As to website content, they are moving up the links to the states
(formerly buried under About NLPES). We were asked to let communication
committee members know of suggestions for change in website content. NCSL
has started an internal look at their website, so that might have a positive
effect on our site as well. Joel expressed continuing frustration with
the legislative audits database. We may ask NCSL to give us more guidance
on how our offices should submit items for the database.
The Question of the Month responses have been running between 6-10 each
month. People feel that it has been helpful and we plan to continue this
initiative. Committee members should suggest questions to Joel. We then
discussed listserve enrollment. When we make our calls to key contacts,
we can encourage listserve registration. Bob said that approximately 250-300
people are now enrolled. We discussed other ideas to increase enrollment,
such as having listserve registration at conferences, perhaps having 3x5
cards available. Heather volunteered to follow up on this idea. We also
discussed different offices' internal policies on listserve membership
and coordination of responses to listserve inquiries. We briefly discussed
the possibility of sometimes communicating directly with the members (not
just through key contacts). We could collect the e-mail addresses of the
membership and identify times when direct communication would be beneficial.
Joel also discussed the NLPES newsletter. He was the guest editor for
the most recent issue (following Mary Goehring's departure). James thanked
Joel and all who helped with the newsletter. Joel said that James has expressed
interest in editing the newsletter starting with the May issue, and this
transfer of editorship was accepted by acclamation. We discussed an inquiry
about publishing letters to the editor, and agreed that it is a good idea.
Also, to increase reader interest, we might continue having some editorial
content in the newsletter.
Shan Hays reported for the training committee. She distributed a tentative
agenda for the Kansas/Missouri conference to be held in Kansas City September
5-8. The conference planners have acquired their main speakers, but have
not yet contacted NLPES members for panels. They plan to have some sessions
(roundtables) where attendees will break into groups by size of office
(small, medium, and large). We discussed the need to plan in advance as
much as possible, and Wade has prepared a list of comments based on previous
conference evaluations that the training committee will forward to Kansas/Missouri.
We also discussed budgeting concerns, and the possibility of developing
moderator guidelines or training to help ensure that sessions will be successful.
Shan will try to attend a conference call that the host states are having
with NCSL in early April. We discussed having the executive committee members
contact the key contacts in their assigned states in May. James, Joel,
and Shan will get an agenda for those calls to the other committee members.
Shan then distributed a planning report for the training conference
to be held in Arizona in September 2002. The Arizona planners have a conference
theme and tracks defined. They have started negotiations with hotels, who
have all agreed to give us the federal per diem rate. A local organization
of evaluators, AzENet, is interested in a partnership with us in planning
the conference. Committee members agreed that this is a good idea and could
raise attendance. Shan led a discussion of possible sites for the 2005
training conference. Because Pennsylvania had expressed interest in hosting
an earlier conference, Jane will follow up with them to see if they might
be interested for 2005. We discussed other possible sites including Washington,
Minnesota, Utah, or Colorado. We will try to have a potential site identified
by the time of the San Antonio meeting.
We discussed joint training conferences with other sections of NCSL.
James will write a letter to the other sections expressing our interest
in doing this. In response to an inquiry, we discussed the possibility
of offering a reduced rate to retirees who want to attend our training
conference. After some discussion, Wade moved and Heather seconded that
we have a trial for the 2001 conference and offer up to 15 slots to retired
evaluators or students at a rate of $175, which would cover variable costs.
This motion passed on a voice vote. We will include this rate in the conference
brochure. Rob offered a training-related point. He stated that we need
to be aware in planning conferences of the audience of our sessions. If
we are encouraging all levels of staff to attend, we need to be sure that
there are offerings for the different audiences. Gary Brown then briefly
discussed plans for the 2003 conference in Michigan. They plan to have
the conference in East Lansing and already have preliminary proposals from
their two first choice hotels. Gary stated that the Michigan staff want
strong input from the NLPES training committee. We need to think about
how to achieve continuity as the training committee changes from year to
year.
Jane Thesing reported for the awards committee. The awards information
on the website has been updated and we are ready to proceed with this year's
awards. In the next week or two awards committee members will be looking
for judges. Wade will head up the methodology award judging and Heather
will coordinate judging for the excellence award. Jane will coordinate
the impact certificates. If any executive committee member has suggestions
for judges, please let the awards committee members know. James reported
on the lifetime achievement award. James and Joel will serve on the committee
and James has also appointed Jane, Marion Higa (HI), and Jan Mueller (WI)
to the committee. Executive committee members were asked to suggest nominees
to James by April 6.
Heather Moritz reported for the annual meeting committee. They have
chosen the theme of how program evaluation/auditing adds value to the legislative
process. She distributed a list of possible session topics and asked that
committee members contact Rob with ideas on these topics. She also distributed
a tentative annual meeting schedule and mentioned that we have a possibility
of getting a concurrent session time slot. We will plan 4 sessions with
at least one roundtable. We may also have a joint session with ASI. The
committee is looking for a hot topic session similar to the session on
economic development at last year's annual meeting. The committee is working
to get bigger rooms and better logistics for our lunch. Heather also distributed
an evaluation form that the committee has developed for our annual meeting
sessions. Heather will make sure that the forms get distributed and will
tabulate the results. Martha will coordinate the roundtables at the annual
meeting.
Rick Coleman reported for the liaison committee. He said that all the
website links to pages of our liaison organizations have been updated.
John Schaff (UT) has agreed to be our liaison to the GAO. There are currently
two liaison slots vacant, the Association of Government Accountants (AGA)
and the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB). Craig volunteered
to be the liaison to GASB, and Kate and Craig will attempt to identify
a liaison for the AGA. We discussed ideas for improving the liaison connection,
including regular reports in the newsletter.
Craig Kinton reported for the elections committee. The ballots will
go out next week. We have eight candidates running for six slots.
Emerging Issues Task Force
Joel Alter reported for the task force. He discussed the scope of the
committee's work, to identify emerging issues for the NLPES executive committee.
He discussed the committee's process and recommendations. The committee's
first recommendation was to do a regular formal survey to solicit ideas
of best practices and potentially useful evaluation topics. James appointed
a coordinating committee of Joel, Heather, and Kate to undertake the first
survey.
The committee also recommended that the executive committee should provide,
via the website, information on approaches to agency peer review that are
alternatives to the traditional approaches used by organizations such as
the NSAA. A first step for this would be for those states that have undergone
alternative reviews to develop case studies of their experiences. The executive
committee agreed that this recommendation would be a good idea. Wade and
Rob will work on developing information about the case studies.
The emerging issues task force also recommended that we obtain and make
available better information about ASI activities. Various suggestions
were discussed; some committees already post information about their activities
that we could link to. NCSL staff are good potential contacts for information
about the committees. Shan will follow up on this idea with Joel's input.
We then discussed the task force idea of considering the merits of an
NLPES-sponsored advanced methods institute or Awar college. Executive
committee members had several questions. We should consider the target
group of the training, its content, and methods. Some methods were discussed,
such as offering regional training to cut down on costs, a track at a fall
conference, or one-day session prior to a fall conference. We also discussed
the potential use of different technologies for training, such as CD ROMs,
video conferencing, videotapes, and other distance learning techniques.
We also discussed the idea of a partnership of the offices that have full-time
training positions. We discussed perhaps defining this training as skill
development, as opposed to the sharing of information that occurs at our
training conferences. James reported that NCSL has a trainer database that
may become available to us. Several ideas were expressed. In conclusion
we decided to ask questions about what type of training is needed and what
methods are preferred in the first best practices survey that we conduct.
We will also try to continue to encourage voluntary efforts to share training
ideas and resources among our member agencies.
The other recommendations in the task force report were briefly discussed.
James asked that each committee take on the recommendations directed to
it and follow up on the task force recommendations.
Ensuring the Public Trust Survey Update
It was discussed that this survey has been very useful and we need to
keep it updated. For this year, we will ask for updates when we submit
the best practices survey discussed earlier.
LSCC Meetings
James referred the committee to the summary he prepared of the Savannah
LSCC meeting. There were several good ideas of relevance to our section
discussed at this meeting.
Upcoming NCSL Executive Committee Election
James discussed the importance of NLPES representation on the NCSL executive
committee. Max Arinder (MS) is running for NCSL staff Vice-Chair and will
no longer be on the NCSL executive committee. The NCSL seven-person nominating
committee selects the nominees. When the nominating committee members=
names are available, we might contact them about Max's candidacy or the
candidacy of our members who are interested in being on the executive committee.
James asked the executive committee members to encourage NLPES members
to run. However, there can be no more than one staff person from each state
on the executive committee.
Next Executive Committee Meeting
James announced that the next meeting will be August 11 in San Antonio.
The meeting adjourned at 12:15 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jane Thesing
Secretary
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