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NLPES Executive Committee
Meeting Minutes
Minutes
NCSL National Legislative Program Evaluation Society (NLPES)
September 8, 2000
The executive committee met on Friday, September 8, 2000, in Austin, TX. 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 Heather Plush and Bob Boerner, NCSL, and Max Arinder, Mississippi.
Committee Meetings
From 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 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 9:35 a.m.
Austin Training Conference Update
Heather Plush of NCSL gave a budget update for the conference. She said that we expect 148 paid attendees (for total revenue of $38,600) and 52 faculty have been "comped" for the conference. The estimated budget was based on 220 participants, but it is predicted that we will be pretty close to break-even for the conference. Our goal is to break-even. NCSL absorbs losses and profits of our conferences. In CA we had a loss of $5,000 or 6,000, while in WV we had a profit of $2,700.
Craig Kinton spoke about the conference program. He mentioned the three tracks and that conferees were free to move among the tracks. He encouraged feedback on the emerging issues track, in which leading Texas executive agency heads are coming to talk about the emerging issues in their fields, with responses by NLPES/RACSS panelists. He mentioned the reception and poster session, where door prizes will go to those who visit the exhibits. He also summarized the schedule for Saturday and Sunday. He asked that we urge moderators to help keep their sessions on schedule to ensure that all participants have adequate time for their presentations. Craig also reminded facilitators for the futures sessions that they should attend a meeting at 2:30 p.m. today (or after the opening session) to further understand the process of these sessions. James Barber thanked all the committee members who volunteered to assist in the program for their willingness to participate.
After a five-minute break, the meeting continued. James distributed an NCSL calendar of meetings for the 2000-2001 year. He then asked for comments on the minutes of the July meetings, which had previously been approved electronically. There were none. Jane asked if other committee members in addition to Martha, Joel, and Kate (who had been previously identified) would prefer that their minutes be sent in Word format instead of Word Perfect. James, Shan, Wade, and Rob indicated they would also prefer Word documents. The purpose of electronic approval of minutes is to allow us to post the minutes on the NLPES website prior to our next meeting, which could be some months away. As of this meeting, the minutes of only one of the three July meetings has been posted on the website, but this is due to a health problem experienced by an OPPAGA employee. The recent delays in web postings should be temporary.
Futures Sessions at Conference
Max Arinder addressed the executive committee about the futures sessions we will have at the conference. There will be 12 groups, so all the NLPES volunteers will be needed to serve as facilitators, and we will use one RACSS volunteer. Max assigned the facilitators to the four scenarios as follows: Harassed Legislature (Kate, Rick and Wade), Circumvented Legislature (Heather, Rob, and Martha), Traditional Legislature (Joel, Shan, James) and Diminished Legislature (Jane, Gary and a RACSS facilitator). At the sessions Friday, we will work through the facilitator's guide.
On Sunday Max will go through the strategic issues that resulted from the NCSL experience with the exercise. The facilitators who worked on each scenario will get together Sunday morning and decide how their results will be presented to the whole group. Each scenario will have 10 minutes to report on the strategic issues their groups identified. The facilitators will get together on Sunday morning at 8:45 a.m. in the Congress Room to finalize plans for the Sunday session. Max reminded us that the NCSL project was a two-year project, and we are doing a "short cut" for NLPES. We are the 5th group to do this exercise. The Oregon legislature recently completed the futures exercise. They concluded that the circumvented scenario applied to them and identified eight strategic issues they will be working on. The goal of the exercise is to get discussion and insight from the participants. James asked us to turn in our completed facilitator's guides to him on Sunday.
Mission Statement
Joel presented the draft mission statement that he and his committee of Rob and Shan had developed. There were discussions about specific parts of the statement. After discussion about the use of the term "promote" to describe what we want to do for the profession, Heather suggested that we substitute the word "advance," and this amendment was agreed to without opposition. Rick raised the questions of whether our work is considered a "profession," and suggested deletion of that word. After some discussion, it was agreed not to make this change. Heather moved to accept the mission statement with the one amendment previously discussed, and this motion was seconded by Kate. Then further discussion was devoted to how the two sections of the sentence describing how we carry out our mission should be linked. There was discussion of substituting the phrase "primarily by providing" for "and providing," but this amendment was defeated. Rick proposed an amendment to change "member agencies and their staff" to "members." This amendment was approved. Rick also stated that he didn't think we were ready to adopt a mission statement because it needed to be more fully discussed. There was further discussion about whether changes should be made in the phrase "ideas and information," but no change was agreed to. Then Jane called for the question on the table, and we voted on the mission statement as amended. The amended mission statement was approved by a vote of 8 to 1 (with 2 abstentions).
The approved mission statement reads as follows: The purpose of the National Legislative Program Evaluation Society (NLPES) is to advance the profession of legislative program evaluation and performance auditing and to provide members with relevant training, opportunities for exchanging ideas and information, and recognition for superior performance.
Solicitation of Funds Policy
Craig presented the draft solicitation of funds policy. He noted that he had received some comments after he first sent out the draft policy and had made changes based on those comments. Wade asked to whom he had sent the draft, and he said just the executive committee. He noted that it is a permissive policy (does not require any solicitation of funds). Shan commented that Arizona does not see the need to solicit funds and doesn't like the idea, but she did not think her office felt so strongly about it as to stop participating in conferences. Martha had a question about the type of consultation that was envisioned by the phrase listing the various officials who would be consulted. She suggested the phrase "with the concurrence of" to replace "in consultation with." It was agreed to accept this change and delete the chair of the training committee as one of the officials who would need to concur.
Kate asked whether NCSL could only solicit funds for NLPES at the request of the host state, which was answered by the statement that it is a permissive policy. Actions not prohibited could be considered permitted. Kate also asked if the funds solicited could be used for things other than conferences and training (the only uses specifically mentioned). Could funds be used for the web site, for example? Craig suggested that the term "program" was sufficiently broad to encompass other types of uses. Jane raised the issue of whether we really need to be required to add more specific guidelines, and James suggested that we drop the last paragraph of the draft policy. This was agreed to. Shan stated that the policy does not cover what the money can be used for. Craig said that could be discussed at a later time. In the meantime there is the safety valve, that NCSL and the chair must concur with the use of the funds. Shan asked if the use of the term "host state" limited the policy to fund raising for conferences? Craig said that one could interpret the phrase "host state" to mean whoever was taking the lead in the project being funded. He gave the example of the research study we considered undertaking with the LBJ School. They were going to ask NCSL for funds for that. Also, individual projects would probably be discussed by the executive committee, whether or not solicitation of funds was envisioned.
Kate suggested the insertion of the word "members" after NLPES in the third bullet in the draft policy. There was general agreement with this suggestion. Then Rob recommended adding the word "necessarily" in 1. of the guidelines so that it would read, ". . . shall include but not necessarily be limited. . .." This amendment was also generally accepted. Then Kate moved acceptance of the draft policy as amended and Martha seconded this motion. The motion carried with a 9-1 vote (with Shan Hays voting no). James said that the policy will be inserted in the Host State Guidelines for Planning an NLPES Fall Training Conference.
Emerging Issues Task Force
James reported that he has created an emerging issues task force with Joel Alter as chair. The task force includes Rob Krell and Heather Moritz from the executive committee and other NLPES members Don Bezruki (WI), Jim Pelligrini (MT), John Turcotte (FL), and Nancy Van Maren (ID). James reviewed the committee's charge and said that we might expect to receive a report around February. Then the report could be sent to executive committee members, and we could discuss it and its implementation at the March meeting. James remarked that the committee members who are not on the executive committee are looking forward to the task and will have much to contribute.
Committee Reports
Joel Alter reported for the communications and technology committee. He said that individual committee members have assumed responsibility for some tasks. Kate Wade will be the liaison to the OPPAGA website administration staff. Shan will be considering more broadly the content of the website. Rob Krell will act as the liaison with newsletter editor Mary Goehring. The committee has identified a backlog in posting items on the website, which has been discussed earlier. Also, they considered a suggestion to change the frequency of the newsletter from three to four times a year. At this time it is their consensus that we should stay with three. The newsletter will have a new column, "From the Trenches," featuring a discussion with a "rank & file" NLPES member. Joel distributed a sheet showing Listserv membership by state. We discussed ways to encourage more members to sign up. Some people have had technical difficulties in signing up. The online instructions for signing up have not resulted in success. We agreed to try the online instructions and let Bob know of our experience and any problems. The committee has decided there is value in having key contacts (executive committee members assigned states to contact from time to time). Committee members will get an updated list of states prior to the need to make contact calls. Martha suggested sending letters to the states to let them know who their key contact is. Joel asked that we continue to monitor the usefulness of the LPE database. Contact Joel with evidence of problems or success. The committee's performance measures include Listserv membership, messages sent on the Listserv, website use statistics (main page and others, use of LPE database), and question of the month responses (unduplicated responses). They will also look for direct feedback on the newsletter. Joel commented that the verbal feedback on the question of the month has been positive.
Shan Hays reported for the training committee. She distributed a summary of the evaluations of last year's fall training conference. Wade will spearhead an effort to get more detail from these evaluations (such as suggested topics for training). We discussed promotion efforts for the fall conference. Promotion brochures should go to all NLPES members, not just key contacts. Shan mentioned the suggestion that someone from Kansas or Missouri come to our spring meeting to work with us on conference promotion. The training committee will be compiling summaries of the sessions at this year's conference for the NLPES website. The committee will send these summaries to Shan who will see that they get published. Shan gave an update on the 2001 conference, which will be jointly sponsored by the Kansas and Missouri offices in Kansas City, MO. The dates are Sept. 5-8 (Wednesday-Saturday). Kansas and Missouri are well along in their planning efforts and already have speakers committed. They will have three tracks, and they are interested in developing a case study track, similar to that done by Dan Fenn at last year's conference. Martha suggested that they not limit the case study track to those who were willing to commit to all the sessions, but leave it open to participants who wanted to attend individual sessions. James suggested that they might want to reconsider calling the conference an "audit" odyssey, as some might be put off by the apparent focus on audit. Joel commented that the timing of the conference would be tricky, coming just a couple of weeks after the NCSL annual meeting in San Antonio, which is in August. We need to think carefully about timing promotion efforts.
Shan said that the 2002 training in Arizona probably also will be in early September, due to hotel rates. At this point Wade moved for acceptance of Arizona as the site for the 2002 training conference. Joel seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved. We then briefly considered issues involved in having a joint training conference with another staff section. In Madison in 1996 we had a joint conference with RACSS, but with the exception of the plenaries, the sessions for the two staff sections were separate. In 1997 we had a joint conference with legal services in Mississippi, but all the sessions were combined (open to both groups). At the current conference there are 50 or fewer RACSS participants and again we have combined all the sessions. We need to look at evaluations and consult the other sections if we plan additional joint conferences. James then distributed participant roster statistics from the past few years. We can use this information as a tool when we develop marketing efforts for upcoming training conferences.
Jane Thesing reported for the awards committee. We discussed the issue of allowing contracted audits to be considered for awards. The criteria are currently silent on whether contracted reviews are eligible. The committee felt that it would be advisable to add a sentence such as the following to the award criteria: "Submissions involving contracted work must demonstrate that office staff were integrally involved in all aspects of the project or product." This recommendation was accepted by consensus. The awards committee also considered whether any change needed to be made to the criteria in response to a situation where one state submitted two applications for impact certificates, although the criteria state, "Offices are limited to submitting only one report in consideration for a Certificate of Recognition of Impact." The committee decided there was no need to change anything at this point, because the criteria are clear. The committee also reviewed the criteria and process for the lifetime achievement award. James commented that the select committee may feel under pressure to make this award every year, and since many of the pioneers of our profession are still working, it may be difficult to always identify a candidate. The committee noted that the criteria say that the committee may elect not to give an award. We also noted that the current process seems to prohibit the committee from getting outside advice or suggestions of candidates. The committee proposed adding the following sentence to the description of the select committee's process: "At its discretion the select committee may seek outside input with regard to eligible individuals." This was also accepted by general agreement. The committee also noticed that there is currently no information about the lifetime achievement award on the NLPES website. We will post descriptive information and previous winners. There was some discussion of the criteria for the impact award. Some felt that the time specified (report published in the most recent 2 years) was insufficient for some reports to have registered their ultimate impact. On the other hand, we have plenty of submissions and committee members did not notice any problems with the required publication date. The awards committee has at this point identified number of submissions for each award as a performance measure for the committee.
Heather Moritz reported for the Annual Meeting Committee. The committee identified the need for bigger rooms for our sessions as an important matter to follow up on. Heather asked for committee feedback on NCSL suggestions that we might change the format of the annual business luncheon sessions, either by having a combined lunch and then splitting up to individual staff sections to do business, or by staggering the time periods for the lunches of various staff sections. The committee expressed a strong preference for eating with our own staff section. We also prefer having the lunch set up outside the meeting room as a more efficient system than trying to distribute lunches within the room as we did in Chicago. Bob will take our ideas back to NCSL. Heather said the committee thought that the lunch meeting should have an agenda, and there was general agreement that this was a good idea. The committee has also considered a need to get more evaluation information for our sessions. We need feedback on who attends our sessions and their opinions of the programs. Heather will draft a new evaluation instrument that should enable us to capture this information. The committee identified performance measures to include satisfaction ratings, head count of attendees (including staff or legislator), and perhaps the number of mailings or Listserv reminders about the annual meeting activities. Heather asked that committee members give her suggestions for session topics. We discussed the roundtable format, which was well received in Chicago. Jane suggested that we include sessions of this nature in our fall training conference and James asked Shan to forward this idea to the KS/MO staff who are planning next year's meeting. Also, Joel suggested we could do a newsletter article about the roundtable.
Rick Coleman reported for the Professional Liaison committee. He noted the list of organizations we have liaisons with and the three organizations that we target. Rick asked the committee for ideas on where we should go with liaison activities. James pointed out that as a "blended-skills" group, we are trying to identify issues of relevance and training of relevance from the organizations we have identified. Kate pointed out that offices often have local and/or regional opportunities in these other organizations. Shan pointed to the value of the AEA conferences in giving us good ideas for topics. James suggested that Rick might want to make a proposal about the liaison role after thinking it through and getting input. Joel said that he would try to get newsletter articles about the targeted liaison groups.
NLPES Spring Meeting
We discussed the time and site for the spring meeting. It was agreed to have the meeting in conjunction with the ASI/AFI meeting at Costa Mesa, CA, from March 22-25. We also discussed the possibility of doing the spring meeting via video conference in the future. James announced that NLPES would have three members going to Hong Kong in November as part of a legislative staff delegation, Craig Kinton, Max Arinder, and Jane Thesing. James and Joel originally submitted five names to Diane Bolender and John Phelps, who selected the three names. Bill Thompson is the first alternate if one of the designees cannot attend. The meeting was adjourned at 12:55 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Jane Thesing
Secretary
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