07/31/2009

THIS MONTH’S MEMO

I wanted to start this Update with a get well wish for John Chlarson. We are thankful that John was able to get to a hospital and that everything went well thereafter. Keep John and his family in your thoughts and prayers as he recovers and prepares to return to work in a couple of weeks.


Update on New Initiatives and Programs:

Sharon Rollins moves to Knoxville – Effective August 17, Sharon will have relocated her office to Knoxville. She and Ray have bought a home in the Kodak community and this move will allow her to more effectively function in her supervisory and consultant roles. We look forward to Sharon’s move and welcome her to the Knoxville office.

Website – Again I would encourage you to visit our website. If there are items that should be on the website, please contact Frances with your suggestions. Encourage cities to use the website. We received some very good compliments on the website from the Loss Prevention Department of the TML Risk Management Pool. They use the website extensively.

Newsletter – The latest edition of the MTAS Municipal E-Newsletter has gone out. Just a reminder to be on the lookout for innovations and report them to Frances. It may be a small item or something huge, in either case it can be very beneficial to other cities, but they have to know about it and that is our job. As always, as you interact with your customers, ask them if they are getting the newsletter and if so are they reading it. If they are not getting it, let us know and we will add them to the list. If they are not reading it, encourage them to do so.

Job Postings – As noted in the last update, we are advertising to fill the positions of management consultant, training consultant and legal consultant. All three positions will be based in Knoxville. In addition we are advertising internally (within IPS) to fill the position of Training Program Manager, which will also be based in Knoxville. Please check our website. I would appreciate you encouraging people, that you would recommend, to apply .

Supervisor’s Survey – Sometime in the first week of August, IPS will be emailing the supervisors survey to all IPS employees and asking for everyone to respond. I want to echo that request and ask you to respond. I know many of you prefer to deal with your supervisor (the person who approves your leave requests) one on one if you have a problem and I am not suggesting you do otherwise. However, in order to have a complete picture of how the total workforce of MTAS rates their respective supervisor (negatively and positively), we need to hear from everyone. This year’s survey is totally electronic, so take a few minutes and complete the survey when you receive it in August .

Just a reminder that payroll goes green – You are aware that effective August 1, 2009, pay stubs will be on line and you will need to print it if you want a hard copy. They will no longer be distributed by mail. Justin and Lisa have put together a full explanation of the issue, especially as it pertains to your NETID and password to access your information. A copy is in the policy and procedures database. Please contact Justin if you have questions.

Teamwork:

Examples of teamwork. If I missed an example you think should be noted, please let me know.

1. Compliments to Melissa and the Codes Team (see the Kudos below) for greatly reducing the waiting list on new codes and for greatly exceeding budget expectations for Codes revenue.



Mark Your Calendars:

1. As noted in the last update, save September 9, Knoxville and September 10 Nashville for the IPS Annual Event . If you haven’t registered, please do so.

2. Reminder that September 30 is the deadline for completing conflict of interest forms and submitting them to your supervisor. You must complete a new form even if you completed one for the same interest last year provided it meets the following criteria:

An interest must be disclosed if it:
1. exists at the time of this filing;

2. existed during the previous twelve months; or

3. you expect to acquire a conflict during the next twelve months.

3. Please save the following dates for an Open House to celebrate MTAS’s 60^th Anniversary. They are:
Friday, October 2, Knoxville
Wednesday, October 14, Jackson Note the change from last month’s update.
Friday, October 9 Nashville area TML Building corner room on street level.
We will let you know the time and location on each of these as we get closer to the day. Consultants from the respective regions should plan to attend the Open House in your region.

4. A train the trainer session is scheduled for September 29 and 30 in Nashville. If you facilitate any of our training courses, I would encourage you to
consider this opportunity to improve your facilitation skills. More information will be made available as we get closer to the dates.



Staff Birthdays for July :

July 14 – Kurt Frederick
July 28 – Linda Winstead

Staff Birthdays for August:

August 6 – Richard Stokes
August 9 – Dick Phebus
August 23 – Josh Jones


Kudos:


- The Codes Team; Linda Winstead, Nancy Gibson, Doug Brown, Emily Keyser and Melissa Ashburn, they have reduced the waiting list on starting on new codes to 7 months. A very impressive reduction of the old list. Way to go TEAM.

- To Josh Jones for presenting the annual Public Acts class while he was still receiving and summarizing public acts as they were being signed and doing all of this with a sick computer.

Please email me Kudos suggestions and I will make an effort to include them in future staff updates.

As always, thanks for all you do for MTAS and Tennessee cities.

Mike