12/15/2003

IPS Exchange - You may not know it but for the last several years Armintha has served as the MTAS reporter for the IPS Exchange. It's not easy to get us to brag about ourselves or our projects and Armintha does it well. Please help by sending her information about a project of interest every now and then. If everyone sent two projects a year, we would have more than enough. And, oh yes, please keep sending me the letters of thanks and praise you receive from city officials. Thanks.
Urban Forestry - John Chlarson recently made a presentation at the state Urban Forestry Conference.


TAMCAR - IIMC has notified TAMCAR that they (IIMC) have approved and recognized the new institute for clerks and recorders being offered by MTAS. They granted only provisional recognition when it was first moved but Kurt, Sally, and Jennifer have done such a good job, that the recognition is now official.

Benefits questions - Alan Chesney, Director of Personnel has announced that University Benefits and Retirement Services has a new e-mail address where employees can direct any benefit question(s). Since benefit questions are very personalized, they will be routed to the appropriate person and will be quickly answered. The e-mail address is benefits@utk.edu.

Web site redesign - During January and February, Frances, Lisa, and our contractor - Digital AV will accelerate their work on our new web site. It should be done by the end of February, but if you'd like a sneak preview, look at www.mtas.tennessee.edu.

C2k - You may not know what this stands for (and I don't), but it is the IPS wide record keeping system for training. Jennifer deserves a big thanks for all the work she has done lately to help get the old training records in yet another system (CDS) ready for transfer to our current system (C2k). Are you keeping up with this? The whole point of what Jennifer has done is that we will have a consolidated record for every city official who has had training provided by either MTAS or CGT in the last ten years or so.

Additions to our web site - Even though we are changing the design, we continue to add material. Recently Frances has added:

MTAS Hot Topic by Steve Lobertini on Updating Occupational Safety and Health Programs

Link to “Sewer Safer Trees” document by Brett Ward (front page and Wastewater page)

Link to Copyright Law at the U.S. Copyright Office (Resources on Internet –Legal Resources page)

Link to 1915 public domain version of the Robert’s Rules of Order (Resources on Internet –Legal Resources page)

Link to Nashville/Davidson Code on the web (Information Resources page)

Notice re: the MS4 Working Group meeting announcement

Surveys - The library has done three surveys recently:

Selected Cities’ and Counties’ Hotel/Motel Tax Rates

Parks and Recreation Budgets and Number of Employees

Solid Waste Collection Salaries