08/14/2001

OK, it's a day late. I was in and out of Nashville Monday so I'm a little behind schedule.

Priceline.com - Here is a point of interest to our travelers. Ronnie and I each separately used Priceline.com to make reservations in Nashville recently. Ronnie stayed at the Union Station Hotel and I stayed at the Renaissance Hotel. And we both stayed for $50 a night! (plus the $5.95 processing fee). Ronnie taught me two tricks: bid $50 (or maybe less) - even though the software says it won't work; and specify downtown Nashville. The downside is your credit card is billed when the reservation is confirmed, so if you change your travel plans, you lose.

TML policy committees - The TML policy committee meeting day will be Thursday, October 18 in Nashville. We will meet with TML and some city officials early in September to determine some of the white papers that need to be prepared before October 18.

Sharon, Mike, and I spent most of Monday discussing the policy process and ways we can support TML during the legislative session with Rae Bond, Ross Loder, Cindy Avans, and Denise Paige. We have started to work on a way for us to help review bills as they are introduced.

New budget - We have all had emails from Eli Fly and Tom Ballard about the 2 1/2% raise and about the budget reallocation process. The raise will be reflected in the August checks. I haven't heard yet about how we will receive the amount owed for July. It is likely that will be part of your September check.

Budget reallocation is harder to explain. As noted in Tom's memo, I'm a member of the IPS task force. I'm working with the MTAS management team to review several options before the IPS deadline of August 30. Nothing is firm yet. I will give you a clearer idea of the process we will follow within MTAS in my staff update next Monday. For the moment, I share Tom's sentiment that: "this is a planning exercise only."

Monthly reports - You may have forgotten that several parts of MTAS prepare monthly reports. We've moved all of these to the Bulletin Board database. In it you will find reports from: training, codes, the library, and the answer line.

Legal Consultant - We have scheduled our interviews for the opening in Knoxville for September 5.