08/14/1996

The MTAS grapevine is much, much quicker than I am in doing the Staff Update so you already know we have three recent promotions. Mike Tallent is now Assistant Director ; Sharon Rollins is Regional Manager ; and Mike Pentecost is Regional Manager . The assistant director position was effective in May, but the Regional Manager positions were only effective August 1st, so I’ve waited until now to announce and explain them.

The easiest way to do that is to share portions of the job descriptions for each position.

Each Regional Manager :

- serves as team leader for the consultants assigned to the grand division, provides supervision and training as necessary
- coordinates service delivery within the grand division by reviewing all projects and developing overall priorities for the team
- conducts periodic team meetings
- conducts annual performance reviews for all consultants on the team including a review of past performance and the work plan for the coming year
- advises executive director on raises for team members
- makes recommendations to the executive director on the selection of individuals to be hired
- approves T-3's for team members
- approves annual and sick leave for team members
- represents the executive director and MTAS at various meetings within the grand division
- recommends capital budget items to executive director
- serves on the MTAS management team (attends quarterly management team meetings and weekly management team conference calls)
- assists executive director with MTAS advisory committee meetings
- assists executive director with other matters as assigned

Sharon’s duties also include:

- serves as MTAS liaison to the Tennessee Municipal League. Maintains weekly contact with the TML office in Nashville.
- provides direction to and establishes priorities for the delivery of public works technical
assistance including assistance in utility management within the State of Tennessee.
- manages the staff and budget to accomplish the terms of MTAS' contracts with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
- assists executive director with pursuit of outside grants and contracts
- serves as Senior Public Works Consultant and delivers public works/utility management technical assistance to approximately 100 cities in Middle Tennessee.

MikeP’s duties also include:

- serve as leader for MTAS efforts in community and economic development consulting
- assist Middle regional manager with TML liaison duties
- delivers municipal management technical assistance to approximately 50 cities in West Tennessee.

MikeT has all the duties of a Regional Manager and in addition as Assistant Director his duties include:

- serves as liaison with CGT’s leadership initiative, hot topics, public policy forums, and UTMT (municipal training program.
- coordinate the MTAS current issues process by ensuring that consultants are assigned to all areas of interest to cities and that the MTAS response ranging from memos to city officials, articles in Tennessee Town & City , MTAS Hot Topics, Technical Bulletins, major publications, or CGT training programs are appropriate to the issue
- delivers municipal management technical assistance to approximately 50 cities in East Tennessee.
- assumes all the duties of the Executive Director in the absence of the Executive Director or as delegated by the Executive Director. This includes signing authority for all personnel and fiscal documents.

Some of these duties require that we change the way we route forms. All leave forms need to be signed by your regional manager before being sent to Judy. Until we go to an electronic T-3, please continue to handle your travel forms the way you do now.

I think these changes will improve our internal organization and make it easier to serve cities. I’d appreciate your comments.

PS. I’ve enclosed an organization chart. We have six teams and six team leaders.