Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Pat Mitchell Announces Retirement
Many of you have known Pat Mitchell of the Tennessee County Services Association office for years. She has recently announced her pending retirement, effective the end of May. She has been the executive secretary to TCSA for the past 32 years, and has always been an integral part of the county associations. Pat has overseen countless events and meetings, always planning them to perfection and pulling them off without a hitch. I’m sure many of you have benefitted from the magic she works, sorting out registration problems at a hotel, sending you critical information about meetings, or just taking care of business in general. She will be greatly missed and difficult to replace. I hope you will join me in wishing her the very best in her retirement. She will be missed by all of us as well as countless county officials, both past and present, from all across the state.
Lack of Posts
As the legislature has stepped into high gear, it has become more challenging to have time to post updates on this site. Committee calendars are filling up with both bills and budget hearings. I will encourage you once again to frequent the CTAS website where there are regular Recovery Act updates. Many of these funding sources have short deadlines for application. I also encourage you to plan for attending the Post-Legislative Conference June 2 and 3 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Contact our office if you need registration information. There is a legitimate risk that the "post" legislative conference may not be "post." The Legislative Session may be continuing into June which may cause us to adjust conference schedules. Regardless, the conference will go on and information will be presented about what has happened this year.
Internet Forums for Governing Bodies
Last year, legislation passed that created a pilot project in Knox County to allow an internet forum for county commissioners to communicate with each other. This was in response to lawsuits and injunctions related to alleged violations of the open meetings act. The internet forum, which is open to public view, gives the commissioners a place to publically share information about issues before the county commission without circumventing the state's open meeting laws.
A bill is now on its way to the Governor for his signature that would extend this pilot project to cities, counties and school boards statewide. The bill is HB 533/SB832 by Rep. Dunn and Sen. McNally. The bill originally simply extended a sunset provision on the Knox County pilot project.
Essentially, as it passed, the bill allows governing bodies of cities, counties and school districts to set up a forum over the internet for sharing of information between members. There are several conditions that must be met and before using the site and you must file a plan with the office of open records on how you intend to comply with the conditions. The conditions are: 1) There must be public notice of an intent to use such a website; 2) The county must provide public access to the communications; 3) There must be control of who can communicate through the forum; 4) The posts must be archived for at least one year; and 5) Computers must be provided for public access at the public library, the courthouse or other public building so that someone without a computer or internet access can still have access to the forum.
Communication over this site cannot substitute for a meeting of the governing body, so this is not a form of teleconferencing or internet conferencing. But information shared between members of the governing body on the website will not be considered a violation of the open meetings act. I plan to get in touch with the Office of Open Records soon to see if they will be putting out any guidance on the law and what they want to see in plans filed with their office. When I get that, I’ll try and get it distributed to the counties. In the meantime, you may want to consider whether this could be a useful mechanism for your members of your county commission to become better informed about issues before they come before up in the meeting for consideration.
A bill is now on its way to the Governor for his signature that would extend this pilot project to cities, counties and school boards statewide. The bill is HB 533/SB832 by Rep. Dunn and Sen. McNally. The bill originally simply extended a sunset provision on the Knox County pilot project.
Essentially, as it passed, the bill allows governing bodies of cities, counties and school districts to set up a forum over the internet for sharing of information between members. There are several conditions that must be met and before using the site and you must file a plan with the office of open records on how you intend to comply with the conditions. The conditions are: 1) There must be public notice of an intent to use such a website; 2) The county must provide public access to the communications; 3) There must be control of who can communicate through the forum; 4) The posts must be archived for at least one year; and 5) Computers must be provided for public access at the public library, the courthouse or other public building so that someone without a computer or internet access can still have access to the forum.
Communication over this site cannot substitute for a meeting of the governing body, so this is not a form of teleconferencing or internet conferencing. But information shared between members of the governing body on the website will not be considered a violation of the open meetings act. I plan to get in touch with the Office of Open Records soon to see if they will be putting out any guidance on the law and what they want to see in plans filed with their office. When I get that, I’ll try and get it distributed to the counties. In the meantime, you may want to consider whether this could be a useful mechanism for your members of your county commission to become better informed about issues before they come before up in the meeting for consideration.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Comprehensive Recovery Act Overview
For those of you looking for more detail on all the funds in the Recovery Act, I can recommend a document produced by the Patton-Boggs consulting firm. It is available on their website www.pattonboggs.com. This overview is at the Federal level and does not provide any Tennessee specific information, but it does go department by department through the act and explains all the different programs funded, tells the level of funds available, the purpose for which the funds may be used, eligible applicants, deadlines, allocation method and any special criteria involved.
CTAS continues to provide regular updates on the recovery portion of their website as more information about specific programs in Tennessee becomes clearer. From my discussion with administration officials, there is hope that many of the details of how the Recovery Act funds may be distributed and spent should be available over the next few days. Continue to check the state site and the CTAS site for more information.
CTAS continues to provide regular updates on the recovery portion of their website as more information about specific programs in Tennessee becomes clearer. From my discussion with administration officials, there is hope that many of the details of how the Recovery Act funds may be distributed and spent should be available over the next few days. Continue to check the state site and the CTAS site for more information.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Information Sessions Scheduled For ARRA Law Enforcement Grants
With ARRA, the Byrne Justice Assistance "Direct" Grant Award will be available to many more local governments than usual. The Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police (TACP) has teamed up with the Office of Criminal Justice Programs to bring informational seminars to three locations. County sheriffs and/or their representatives have been invited. OCJP will be available to answer questions. Agencies that have not an opportunity to apply and receive funds in the past are likely to be eligible for these monies. Additional information can be found at www.tacp.org. The three locations include: JACKSON - March 23 10am to 12noon at Highland Park Conference Center, 615 West Forest Avenue, Jackson (Next to Jackson General Hospital) NASHVILLE - March 25 2 offerings: 10am to 12noon and 1pm-3pm at Metro Nashville PD North Precinct, 2231 26th Avenue North, 615.862.4410 KNOXVILLE - March 26 12noon to 2pm at Knoxville Family Justice Center, 400 Harriet Tubman Street, Knoxville 37915.
Check the recovery section of the CTAS website for more updates and information on Recovery Act developments like this.
Check the recovery section of the CTAS website for more updates and information on Recovery Act developments like this.
Disturbing Education Statistics
The Tenessee State Collaborative on Education Reform (SCORE) has released a sobering report of education facts for Tennessee. Included are findings like:
This group was started by Sen. Bill Frist to begin a series of discussions on how to move education in Tennessee forward. The second meeting of its steering committee will be on Monday, March 23 in Nashville. The organization also holds town hall style meetings across the state. A recent event was held in Jackson on March 9. At that meeting, SCORE Executive Director Brad Smith and Tennessee State Board of Education Executive Director Gary Nixon heard from education leaders from that region about the challenges they are facing, solutions they have found that work, and advice on how SCORE can assist with local education reform efforts. One of the meeting's key takeaways was the importance of making education Tennesseans' top priority and helping raise students' expectations for themselves.
- 77% of Tennessee 8th graders are not proficient in math and 75% are not proficient in reading according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
- 21% of Tennesseans over the age of 18 cannot read well enough to fill out an application, read a food label, or read a simple story to a child.
- 67% of Tennesseans who receive a HOPE lottery scholarship fail to keep it for four years.
This group was started by Sen. Bill Frist to begin a series of discussions on how to move education in Tennessee forward. The second meeting of its steering committee will be on Monday, March 23 in Nashville. The organization also holds town hall style meetings across the state. A recent event was held in Jackson on March 9. At that meeting, SCORE Executive Director Brad Smith and Tennessee State Board of Education Executive Director Gary Nixon heard from education leaders from that region about the challenges they are facing, solutions they have found that work, and advice on how SCORE can assist with local education reform efforts. One of the meeting's key takeaways was the importance of making education Tennesseans' top priority and helping raise students' expectations for themselves.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
CTAS Debuts Recovery Act Portion of Webpage
The UT County Technical Assistance Service now has a portion of their website up and running that will direct county officials to information on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. To find the resources, go to the main CTAS page at http://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/ then click on the Recovery Act emblem in the upper right corner of the page. There you will find brief paragraphs describing elements of the act and linking you to different sources of information. Check this page regularly for updates.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
