07/16/2001

Introduction
Yes, it says weekly. That may be hard to believe since my last Staff Update was May 11, but from here on, the Staff Updates will be weekly and shorter. In addition, I will save a copy in the bulletin board database.

Mid Year APRs
We will NOT schedule any mid year annual performance reviews this July or August.

Management Team meeting

Yes, we had a management team meeting last week at the Garden Inn in Monterey. And we did more than admire the Garden Inn's new butterfly garden. Frankly, it was a little hard to notice the butterflies at 9:30 PM. Working with a facilitator, we developed a six page management team work plan for next year. Here's a summary of some of the issues we addressed:

We are going to communicate better with a weekly Staff Update.

We will prepare an annual list of MTAS accomplishments and milestones.

We will develop a strategic plan with TML to cover ways to improve our joint services to cities.

We will continue to have joint management team meetings with CTAS from time to time.

We were not so happy with the results of the customer satisfaction survey. We will get a copy of the raw data and use SPSS to do some cross tabulations to see what we can learn from more specific information.

We will redesign a couple of our computer support positions as more fully explained below under "personnel changes."

We will include members of the management team in all support positions selections in the future.

We intend to make fuller use of the available student positions on the Knoxville campus.

We will prepare a revised MTAS strategic plan and we will update it annually in the future.

We are going to charter a design team to make some adjustments and corrections to our orientation process for new employees.

We will soon start work on a revision to our pay plan.
We won't get all of this done by next week, but we have made some assignments (and we'll continue to make some) and we plan to have the major elements complete within six months.

Personnel Actions

We have completed the interviews, made a tentative offer, and we're doing the paperwork to fill the Technical Services Librarian position.

We have decided on the five people we will interview for the Systems Analyst position.

We will advertise this weekend for our public works consultant position.

State Budget
I'm sure you heard that the General Assembly adopted the state budget late last Thursday. I spent about four hours with the TML lobbyists watching the Senate Thursday, but I left Nashville late in the afternoon and long before the fireworks started. You may have heard that the Governor may veto this budget. He has ten days to decide. If he does veto it, all bets are off. Although I would guess that the General Assembly would override the veto.

The budget includes a 2.5% increase for all state employees (that includes us). We'll know the details about how and when this will apply soon. In the meantime, don't spend it until you know you have it.

Three items in the state budget are of concern to us.
1. The General Assembly required the administration to balance the state budget by cutting an additional $100 million. So far, we haven't heard if this impacts higher education.
2. The General Assembly cut many of the Governor's improvement items. MTAS was scheduled to receive an additional $60,000, but now we won't. We have hardly ever received any improvement dollars in the eleven years I've been here.
3. The General Assembly made it clear that it intends to freeze the state shared taxes to local government beginning in FY2003 using the FY2002 levels. This will mean a potential reduction to cities of almost $19 million next year. It would also mean that the $50,000 to $60,000 in growth in the sales tax revenue that MTAS receives each year will be stopped. This is not automatic and will require legislation next year.

Thanks
We're going to send letters to all the city officials who helped us by making phone calls after we heard about the potential of cutting our budget by 100%. They were successful in convincing the General Assembly to take us off the cut list. And THANKS to all of you who call city officials.

Personnel Changes
We don't have approval for all of the following, but this is what we plan to do.

We plan to convert the vacant computer support position in Knoxville to an administrative assistant position to assist with our training program and to provide additional support for consultants.

We plan to start recruiting for two attorney positions in Knoxville soon.

We will convert the vacant computer support position in Nashville to an administrative assistant position late this Fall.

We will use our contract with John Erdman to provide computer support in Nashville and once a quarter in Jackson. We will contract with the Agriculture Department to use some of their computer support in Jackson.

We will use more students in several different areas in Knoxville.

OK, that may be too much communication. Next week, I promise it will be shorter.