09/22/2016

· Why Thursday? I’m going to Kansas City tomorrow for ICMA. Probably not a good idea to type and drive. And, by the way, thank you Wilbert Harrison for a great song and Fats Domino for how you sang it.

· At last week’s IPS Leadership Team meeting, we heard from Gail White that the UT Treasurer’s office is considering (in fact, testing) a newer, easier, faster travel advance process. Folks, I’m telling you what I know so don’t shoot the messenger quite yet. As I understand it, the employee will fill out an online form where an estimate of travel expenses for an upcoming trip / trips is recorded. After approval, the estimate goes electronically to the Treasurer’s office for processing. 80% of the approved estimate will be electronically transferred to the employee’s bank account at least two business days prior to the beginning date of the travel indicated on the employee’s electronic request form. I’ve never filed for an advance under the current system so I personally don’t have a frame of reference. If you have, then you’re ahead of me. Stay tuned for more about this. Sounds like a really good thing to me.

· Ah, yes! Thirty-two (32) hours of professional development. As of the end of August, thirty (30) of us had met or exceeded the annual requirement and a few are within an hour or two of wrapping it up. Tremendous effort! Thanks. There are some…well, let me say, no time like the present to get working on this. We’re a little over three months away from the end of the calendar year. By the way, the end-of-August summary included the IPS Conference twelve hours for everybody.

· IT training…Securing the Human…As of today, almost every MTASer has completed the IT security training. October 21 ^st is the deadline to do so. Add it to your “to do” list if you still need to take care of this.

· Several times over the past year, I have met with folks from the Tennessee Department of Health to learn more about the department’s and the governor’s community health initiatives. My role primarily has been to teach them a little bit about municipal government…who it is…what it is…how it works (or doesn’t sometimes). They are keenly interested in getting to know folks at the city and county governments better and to find collaboration opportunities with local governments to heighten the awareness of how they can help bring about better general overall health in Tennessee. In a meeting earlier this week, I committed to polling you all to find out about “good” or “better” local government community health projects you may be aware of. Those of us who are in the field may be better able to respond, but I don’t want to miss anybody’s input that would be helpful. So, if you know about a local government project that is directly related to improving community health, please let me know about it and a contact name and phone number / e-mail address that I can pass along for the Department of Health to follow up with. Thanks in advance for giving this a few minutes of thought.

· Lastly, remember a few things…
o What each of you do every day for our customers and each other is recognized and appreciated. Really! It is!
o “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
o Will Rogers once opined, “I guess there is nothing that will get your mind off everything like golf. I have never been depressed enough to take up the game, but they say you get so sore at yourself you forget to hate your enemies”.

· A comfortable weekend for all! Go Mocs! Go Skyhawks! Go Vols (please)!

Jim Thomas, Executive Director
(O) 615. 532.4950 (C) 615.972.9219

jim.thomas@tennessee.edu

www.mtas.tennessee.edu