2002 IASCOE/IACS/IASE CONVENTION

Best Western Starlite Village – Fort Dodge, IA

Saturday April 4th 5th & 6th 2002

COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

IASCOE Directors Meeting - Thursday April 4th

IASCOE Directors Meeting - Friday April 5th

Awards Committee Minutes - Friday April 5th

Benefits and Legislation Committee - Friday April 5th

IASCOE General Assembly - Saturday April 6th

IASCOE DIRECTORS MINUTES

Thursday April 4, 2002

Call to order 7:50 P.M.

Officers Present:  John Landgraf, President; Tom Lane, Vice President; Sue Beemer, Secretary/ Treasurer

Directors Present:  Rosie Kahl, Alan Donaldson, John Bahnsen, Tammy Eibey, Denise Dugan, Twyla Brede, Bob Wegand, Joni Birkhofer, Rich Kleppe, Terry Pauling, and Sandra Johnson.

New Directors Present:  Connie Safley,

Alternate Directors Present:  Kevin Keegan

Guests Present:  Steve Morrison, NASCOE Vice President; Trice Smith MWA Director; John Baird, Illinois State President; Guests: Jolene Fechter, Mike Houston, Jeff Davis and Judy Dameron.

SECRETARY and TREASURER’S REPORT

The minutes from the previous meeting were reviewed.  Rosie moved the minutes be approved and John seconded.  Motion carried. The Treasurer’s report was reviewed.  We currently have a balance of $18,050.70.

OLD BUSINESS

Web Site

The web site is updated with the current newsletter.  We have converted to a new private website and the address is IASCOE.org.  John purchased a new digital camera and Brian Beach will be taking convention pictures for the web site. 

Donald Gardener

A letter was sent to the Donald Gardener Family in appreciation of Don’s long continued support of IASCOE.  He was one of the founders of the IASCOE organization.

Out of State Conventions

Bob Wegand attended the Wisconsin Convention.  John Chott, Acting Director of EDSO was the speaker.  He talked on workload and staffing.  We should be working at full staff.  They will increase temporary hours this year and next year to implement the new farm bill.  EDSO is very supportive of the COC system. John Baird gave some highlights of the Illinois’ Convention.  John Chott was also the guest speaker there.  CED’s working together with loan officers will have farm loan approval authority in counties where it is needed.  John is a very informative and positive speaker.

Other Items

Bob made the motion and Denise seconded to reimburse Jeff Davis for the cost of printing the annual yearbook.

NEW BUSINESS

Legislative Conference

Trice Smith and Tammy Eibey attended the legislative conference in Washington D.C.  The MWA sent 14 people and made over 45 contacts.  They stressed the need for staffing to implement the new farm bill when passed.  Temporary help is needed for intermittent work, but we must remain an agency with institutional knowledge.  They also discussed the Freedom to E-file Act of 2000.  Representative Lahood from Illinois introduced the E-file bill and his intentions were for the E-file to come directly to the County office. At this time the E-LDP’s will go to Kansas City for processing.  Concern was expressed with this routing of the E-files.  FSA’s role in Homeland Security was also discussed. It was stressed that FSA has the infrastructure that could be used if it was needed and that we are here to help.     They felt it was a good conference and the senators and congressmen understand and are trying to help with the items that were discussed.

Reviewed Convention Plans

We reviewed plans for convention and the duties assigned to each director.  Twyla and Connie will be in charge of registration, Kevin Keegan will be the MC for the skits, Jeff Davis and Tom Lane will be in charge of the hospitality room.  Joni and Rich took care of the door prizes and silent auction items.  The speaker will be Ken Nagel from Washington, D.C. representing John Chott from EDSO.  There will be a buffet brunch costing $5.95 on Saturday morning.  Everyone brought items for the hospitality bags.   It was moved and seconded to pay Noble Popcorn Farms for the bags of popcorn to go in the hospitality bags. 

2003 Convention Site

We briefly discussed different locations for the 2003 convention.  Some suggestions were: Fort Dodge, Ames, or Adventureland Inn.  It was moved and seconded that John check into the best location and a decision would be made at a future director’s meeting.

COMMITTEE REPORTS

Benefits and Legislative

Terry and Bob went over the benefits and legislative reports.  Their meeting will not start until 2:00 P.M. on Saturday, hoping to give the other meetings time to adjourn so everyone will be able to attend benefits and legislative.  Long-term care was briefly discussed.  We discussed benefits that CO employees would not receive unless NASCOE requests it from the Administration each year.  Our health insurance was discussed concerning Wellmark’s position on physician assistants.  Currently they aren’t paying unless the bill is billed through a doctor.  They are reviewing their position and hopefully some changes will be made.  There is also new legislation to increase the government’s portion of our insurance premiums from 75% to 83%.

Awards and Scholarships

Rosie discussed the awards and scholarships that would be presented on Friday and Saturday.  We had applications for quite a few scholarships and an award in each category.

Membership

Denise gave an update on membership.  Our percentage is a little better this year than it was last year.  We hope we can improve our percentage even more for the 2002-2003 year.  We discussed how important membership is to our organization.  When we go to the hill they are very interested in knowing our percentage of membership and it is very impressive when we can say we have over 90% membership. 

Publicity

Tammy gave the publicity report.  Anyone having an article or pictures they would like to have in the newsletter would need to contact Tammy. 

Emblems

Sandy will see about getting a state pin made – possibly in a red, white and blue theme.  The cost would be approximately $1.05 per pin.

OTHER ITEMS

We also discussed other State Conventions and the MWA Rally in St. Louis April 19^th and 20^th. 

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 P.M.

Respectfully submitted

  Sue Beemer

IASCOE Secretary   

IASCOE DIRECTORS MINUTES

April 5, 2002

Call to order 10:15 A.M. 

Officers Present:  John Landgraf, President; Tom Lane, Vice President; Sue Beemer, Secretary/ Treasurer 

Directors Present:  Rosie Kahl, Alan Donaldson, John Bahnsen, Tammy Eibey, Denise Dugan, Twyla Brede, Bob Wegand, Joni Birkhofer, Rich Kleppe, Terry Pauling, Dan Wells, Connie Bence and Sandra Johnson. 

New Directors Present:  Connie Safley, 

Alternate Directors Present:  Kevin Keegan

Others Present:  Trice Smith MWA Director; John Baird, Illinois State President; Guests: Jolene Fechter, Mike Houston, Jeff Davis and Doug Leet and Tammy Pruin from Minnesota.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS

Sue Beemer was nominated for Secretary/Treasurer.  Terry moved nominations cease.  Tom moved and Denise seconded that Sue be appointed to the position.   There were no objections.

Tom Lane was nominated for Vice-President.  Terry moved nominations cease.  Richard moved and Tammy seconded that Tom be appointed to the position.  There were no objections. 

The meeting was adjourned at 11:00 A.M.

 Respectfully submitted

Sue Beemer

IASCOE Secretary

 Rosie Kahl called the meeting to order at 1:15 pm.  Committee members present were:  Judy Dameron, Cindy Pistuk, Phyllis Reinke and Jan Wiemers.  Vicki Heeren was also present.

The awards manual was briefly discussed.  It is available on the NASCOE website.

There will be four scholarship awards given this year in the amount of $300.00 each.  Seventeen applications were sent out.

Respectfully submitted,

Judy L Dameron

The Benefits and Legislation Committee convened at 2:05 p.m.  Committee members included Jeff Davis, Steve Abbas, Karen McNeal, Dianna Mann, Steve Kennedy, Kathy White, Cindy Bebout, Connie Bence, Judy Dameron, Bob Wegand and Terry Pauling.

Guests included Steve Morrison, NASCOE Vice President, and John Baird, IASCOE  (ILL.) President.

A short discussion of benefits available to NASCOE members was held and a “Summary of Benefits to NASCOE Members” was made available to all present.  The Summary of Benefits can also be found on the NASCOE Web Site.

Legislative issues included federal employees health insurance benefits, the prescription program, cost of insurance, as well as Funding and Staffing for 2003.  NASCOE continues to address understaffing in county offices.  Finally, NASCOE’s position papers, which may be found on the NASCOE web site, were discussed.

An open discussion included the cafeteria health benefits plan, convergence from County Office to federal.  It was noted that the new farm bill addresses proper staffing of county offices, but we will not know the outcome until after the farm bill is approved by Congress .  IASCOE members are urged to contact their congressmen about proper staffing levels and what FSA’s role is in the agricultural sector.  IASCOE members are also urged to support NAFEC as they have been a very strong FSA partner.

IASCOE members were reminded that NASCOE must request COLA’s for county office employees each year.  Membership levels in IASCOE and NASCOE is very important when congressmen look at our requests, thus it is critical that all employees become members of IASCOE.

Trice Smith, Midwest Area Exec, and Tammy Eibey attended the mini-legislative conference in Washington D.C. March 9 – 13.  Five of Iowa’s congressional delegation were visited and received a very favorable response.  It was noted that all USDA employees should understand our common goals and purpose in an effort to work together. 

IASCOE President, John Landgraf, called the meeting to order and IACS President, David Hoaglund, delivered the welcome.  The Fort Dodge Iowa Army National Guard had the Presentation of Colors and Kathryn Sievers did a beautiful job of singing the national anthem.

Administrative Officer, Dennis Olsen opened with some comments concerning our benefits.  They are working on the government making a larger contribution for our health insurance.  Some employees have been treated by Physician Assistants and have been refused a claim by BCBS.  This isn’t a problem if the claim is filed under the doctor’s BCBS number.   State Office will keep us informed on any updates of this issue.

There will be more information concerning Long Term Care before an enrollment decision has to be made.  Dennis then introduced Merlin Plagge, State Committee Chairperson.  Merlin gave an overview of himself and the other State Committee members.  Merlin stated he had a new understanding for people on the “other side of the counter” since being appointed STC Chairperson. 

Chairpersons respectfully submitted the minutes from their committee.  Kevin Fitzpatrick moved and Tom Lane seconded that the minutes be accepted as read. 

Minnesota presented a skit on the National Convention in July.  Wednesday will be activity day.  Thursday will be a joint session with all three organizations.  Thursday night will be a riverboat cruise with dinner on board.  Friday will be smaller group meetings with representation from Washington, D.C.  Friday night there will be a classic car display with a 50 and 60’s dance.  Saturday will be the banquet and dance with the theme Winter in July.

John introduced Ken Nagel from the EDSO Office in Washington, D.C.  Ken gave an overall view of EDSO and what they do and the items it entails.  All agencies will be one FSA.  A consolidation of county offices is being looked at to make the agency more cost-effective.  We are to have the procedures in place for E-filing by June 20, 2002.  To date 169 forms have been converted to omniform with 49 more to go.  As it currently stands, E-LDP’s will go to Kansas City for processing and payment with the county office doing the necessary spot-checks.  Iowa ranks 2^nd in the nation for LDP’s, with $751million dollars being paid out to Iowa farmers.  Ken also discussed how GIS won’t replace people but should make life easier for employees in the county office.  Iowa farmers have received $326 million if Production Flexibility Payments.  He gave an overview of the Farm Loan Program and discussed how delivery of the new Farm Bill would be very time consuming for all county offices.  He then entertained comments, questions and answers from the audience.

John introduced Patti Judge, Iowa State Secretary of Agriculture.  In 1998 Patti was the first woman to be elected in Iowa to serve as secretary.  She and her husband have a cow/calf operation in southern Iowa.  She stressed the importance of two things that must work together – profit for Iowa’s farmers and protection for Iowa’s environment.  Ninety percent of Iowa is farmed in which we lead the nation in corn and soybean production.  Twenty-five of all pork nationwide is produced in Iowa and we are fifth in cattle production.  Iowa leads the nation as exporter of feed grains.  Patti was a very interesting and dynamic speaker.

Twenty-five dollar raffle winners were:

Twyla Brede  - Dallas

Renee Schultz - Cedar

Sheila Smith - Delaware

Cindy Bebout - Fremont

One hundred dollar winner

Jeannine Christensen - Cass

Two hundred fifty dollar winner

Carole Dawson – Taylor

The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 P.M.