01/02/2007

New APR schedule - Remember, we are converting to a calendar year schedule for our annual performance reviews (APR). Our first full calendar year will be 2007. In the meantime, we need to go through the APR process for the period of July - December 2006. Here's the schedule:

Wednesday, January 17 - We will send the APR forms and instructions to you. We have an IPS meeting on Friday January 12 to review the APR process and if that meeting results in very many changes to the APR forms we may push this part of the schedule some.

Monday, January 29 - 5 PM - Deadline for all APR forms to be completed in the APR database and your supervisor to be notified. Also, as noted below, complete your professional development requests for the rest of 2007.

Tuesday, February 13 - Supervisors will start the face-to-face APR interviews. Your supervisor will notify you of the schedule for your APR interview. We are a little pressed for time so please be flexible.

Monday, March 12 - The completed and signed originals of the APR and the UT cover sheet are due to me.

Project Reporting - To prepare for the APRs and for several other reasons, you need to remember our deadline of January 10 for completing your entries for 2006. That's very quick but it's critical. Thanks.

Professional Development Plan - We're converting this to a calendar year also. You have already made entries through June, 2007. Please review your entries and add any professional development opportunities for the last half of 2007. This should be done by January 29 so you can complete your portion of the APR form. ALSO, you and your supervisor should discuss your plans for a "certification point" in our salary plan during your APR interview. People with a law license, a CPA, or a PE already have a process of required continuing education. We need similar plans for the rest of us. I'll send some guidelines for this later.

Janet Kelly - Janet joins MTAS full time effective January 1 as Finance and Accounting Consultant taking Al's position concentrating on the performance measurement project. (You'll remember Al has transferred to Bill's position as finance and accounting consultant for east TN.)

Janet has a PhD from Wayne State with a concentration in public finance. She was Professor of Public Service with Cleveland State University (Ohio). Prior to that she was associate professor of political science with UTK. Most recently she served as interim city manager in Collegedale.

Janet is very well qualified to work with our performance measurement project having recently written a book: Performance Budgeting for State and Local Government with Bill Rivenbark, the coordinator of the NC performance measurement project. She has also served as a trainer with GFOA and is a certified internal auditor, a certified government financial manager, and a certified fraud examiner. We're very glad she has joined MTAS.