12/19/2017

Hi MTASers,

We’re on the home stretch now for the remainder of the year. Since the University is closed next week, this will be the final Mustard for 2017.

Did you know… that December 5, 2017 was Ralph Cross day in the city of Lebanon? Yes, it was! The mayor presented him a lovely proclamation (attached) that extolled his contributions to the city. Way to go Ralph!

Keeping in the celebratory mood, shout outs go to Ronnie who had a birthday on the 12 ^th and Justin who had a birthday on the 14 ^th . If my records are right, we had no work anniversaries to celebrate this week.

Many of our staff attended TML district meetings over the last month. Here is a summary from the District 2 meeting I attended last week:
· Many state legislators will not be returning in 2019. This will have a significant impact, and that impact is yet to be determined
· A study committee is looking into 9-1-1 fees to see if the $1.16 per phone line is adequate to fund services
· TML is making several technological upgrades to its website and registrations
· We received updates from the Pool and the Bond Fund. Both entities are doing well
· A concern for the upcoming (2018) legislative session is preemption of local control, particularly regarding the issues of short term rental properties, small cell towers going into rights-of-way, deannexation, and zoning design standards
· Other issues to note include proposed tweaks to the IMPROVE Act, sales tax collections on a couple of different fronts, business tax collections, and open records

Also of note, the new MTAS website has debuted in its soft launch. Please give it a try and let Lisa know what you think. She welcomes your constructive comments. We’ll go “live” with the new site once she’s had a chance to make changes based on your feedback. Here is a link to the test site:
http://test.mtas.tennessee.edu/

One more thing you’ll want to know: at the IPS Leadership Team meeting last week, it was decided to replace the word “touches” with “contacts” when talking about/recording our interactions with our customers. Lisa will be making the change in our project reporting system. This will take a little getting used to, but I think we’ll adapt pretty easily.

Additionally, I understand that the link I used in last week’s Mustard regarding UT Policy HR0480 (flex time) did not work for everyone. So, here is the pertinent section in text form:

Objective: To establish standards for work schedules which accommodate both the business needs of the university and, as feasible, employee requests.
1. The work week is a regularly recurring period of seven consecutive twenty-four hour periods or work days beginning Monday at 12:00 a.m. and ending Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Full-time employees are scheduled to work 40 hours in each work week. Part-time employees are scheduled to work less than 40 hours per work week. An employee's status as full-time or part-time is recorded in the university's human resources and payroll system to determine eligibility for benefits and for other purposes. The supervisor is responsible for setting the work schedule and may alter it based upon the needs of the department.
2. Alternate work schedules may be developed and approved by the supervisor.
They include, but are not limited to, the following:
o Job Sharing. Two or more people share a single job for which they share accountability.
o Flex Time. A work schedule composed of "core time" (e.g., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.) when employees are required to be at work and additional regularly scheduled work hours outside of core time.
o Flex Year. Defined in Policy HR0126 as "...any time period, greater than 9 and less than 12 months, which is scheduled to accommodate the cyclical workload of university departments."
3. Human Resources should be consulted when developing ongoing alternate work schedules.
4. If the employee's scheduled hours are reduced, eligibility for benefits plan may be affected.

In closing, I’m looking ahead to the opportunities in the upcoming year and thought a quote from “Back to the Future” might be appropriate:

“Your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one.” – Doc Brown

I hope you have happy and safe holiday celebrations; and I anticipate accomplishing great things for Tennessee municipalities with you next year. Here’s to a happy and successful 2018!
Margaret