Out of State Travel - In reaction to the state's ban on almost all travel for state employees, we are suspending all out-of-state travel for the duration. There will be exceptions for the T-18s (that's the out of state travel form) that have already been approved and maybe a couple of others. I will go through the professional development database and all our approved travel today and email you about yours individually.

Let me know if you have any questions. We just don't think it's wise for us to travel out of state while state employees are having trouble getting approval for short, in state trips.

IPS Annual Conference - The IPS annual conference is still planned for September 11 & 12. The travel is all in state and we would pay a substantial cancellation fee to the hotel if we had cancelled it. We are, however, forgoing the gift to each attendee. As the gifts received by MTAS staff (the umbrellas, the maps) have been charged back to the MTAS budget, this will save us money in the MTAS line item.

Millington CMR - We are in the middle of a Comprehensive Management Review for Millington. Mayor George Harvell asked us to conduct the review several months ago and we plan to have the final report in December. The City's population declined from about 17,000 in 1990 to a little more than 10,000 in the 2000 census. This is a result of the downsizing of the Naval Air Station. The loss in population means a reduction in state shared taxes of over $700,000 per year. In its budget process the city has taken care of most or all of the revenue shortfall, however, the Mayor and Board of Aldermen are concerned that they are not operating the city as efficiently as they should. In light of this concern, they asked us to conduct this CMR and in essence "look at everything". You may notice that lots of consultants have Millington on their travel schedules these days.

The consultants involved are: Ray, Rex, Rick, Dick, Don, John, Steve, Carole, Ronnie, Sid, Roy, and David. So far, they have all been very busy doing this project on top of their regular assignments. We appreciate it.