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2003 IASCOE/IACS/IASE CONVENTION Adventureland Inn - Altoona IA April 3rd 4th & 5th 2003
COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES
IASCOE Directors Meeting - Thursday April 3rd IASCOE Directors Meeting - Friday April 4th Membership Committee Minutes - Friday April 4th Legislation and Benefits Committee - Friday April 4th Publicity Committee Minutes - Friday April 4th Awards Committee Minutes - Friday April 5th IASCOE General Assembly - Friday & Saturday April 4th & 5th ____________________________________________________
April 3, 2003 Call
to order 8:00 P.M. Officers Present: John Landgraf-President; Tom Lane-Vice President; Sue Beemer-Secretary/ Treasurer Directors Present: Rosie Kahl, Alan Donaldson, Vicki Heeren, John Bahnsen, Tammy Eibey, Ron Mauser, Denise Dugan, Connie Safley, Steve Kennedy, Joni Birkhofer, Rich Kleppe, Dan Wells, Connie Bence, Terry Pauling, and Sandra Johnson. New Directors Present: Cherly Nickolisen and Shari Bush. Alternate Directors Present: Judy Dameron and John Bartenhagen. Guests Present: Jeff Davis and Past President Trice Smith. SECRETARY and TREASURER’S REPORT
The minutes from the previous meeting of January 17, 2003 were reviewed. Ron moved the minutes be approved and Rosie seconded. Motion carried. The Treasurer’s report was reviewed. We currently have a balance of $20,155.83. OLD BUSINESS
Web Site The web site has been updated with the current newsletter. Employees can subscribe to the website and will be prompted when new information is added. We did not have enough newsletters on the website to qualify for NASCOE judging but we will be able to next year. Brian Beach will be taking convention pictures for the web site along with any volunteers. Out of State Conventions No report NEW BUSINESS WCD Legislative Conference John Landgraf, Tom Lane, Steve Kennedy, Tammy Eibey, Denise Dugan, and Joni Birkhofer attended the Legislative Conference in Washington D.C. during February. Update from Trice There are still some discussions on P.T. classifications. Steve Morrison may have more on this item tomorrow. Overtime and compensatory time were also discussed. Some of Iowa's neighboring states paid overtime or used comp time during the DCP signup. Iowa’s stance on this issue has been if we don’t pay overtime we can keep temporary help that much longer. There was some discussion as to whether overtime has any major effect on temporary help. Trice also stressed how important it is that our COC’s belonged to NAFEC. This organization seems to have a lot of influence in WDC. Reviewed Convention Plans
We reviewed plans for convention and the duties assigned to each director. Joni and Rich will take care of the door prizes and silent auction items. Guest speakers for the Friday afternoon session will be Steve Morrison-NASCOE President; State Executive Director-Derryl McLaren; and Mary Taylor from J M Marketing. Speakers for the Saturday General Assembly will be Merlin Plagge-State Committee Chairman; Steve Phillips-STO Production Adjustment Specialist and Mark Pearson from Market to Market. There will be a buffet brunch Saturday morning. The awards presentation will follow the brunch. We are still waiting for a response from WDC about a Saturday morning speaker. The directors will man the registration table Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. Ron will pick up Steve Morrison at the airport late Friday morning. It was moved and seconded to donate $100.00 to Iowa Public Television in Mark Pearson’s name in appreciation for speaking Saturday morning during the General Assembly. The directors brought a good variety of items for the hospitality bags and those will be filled following the directors meeting Thursday evening. 2004 Convention Site We briefly discussed different locations for the 2004 convention. It was decided to keep the location in the center of the state. Some suggestions were: the Starlite in Ames or Marshalltown or Adventureland Inn in Altoona. There was a brief discussion on how to get more participation at the convention from our members. COMMITTEE REPORTS Benefits and Legislative Terry and Steve went over the benefits and legislative reports. Terry said they would try to wait as long as possible on their committee meeting, hoping to give the other meetings time to adjourn so everyone will be able to attend benefits and legislative. Steve and Joni will give a report concerning the legislative conference in WDC tomorrow. Awards Rosie will present the awards in the courtyard Saturday morning following the brunch. Terry Pauling was the MWA winner for NASCOE. Congratulations Terry!!!
Scholarships Vicki had several applications for the scholarship awards. There are 4 winners of $300.00 each. She has a picture and write-up of each winner and one of the winners will be here in person to accept their scholarship.
Membership Denise
gave an update on membership. Our
percentage is a little better this year than it was last year. We are at 85% 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. If it is possible to e-mail your article to her it makes it easier for her to arrange the articles in the newsletter. The next newsletter is scheduled for June. OTHER ITEMS Tammy made a motion to have Jeff Davis get some Iowa pins to take to National Convention. Terry seconded the motion. Motion carried. Upcoming convention sites are Minnesota April 11th, the Mid West Area Rally in Wausau, Wisconsin on May 2nd and the National Convention in Salt Lake City July 23rd -26th 2003. The room rates for the National Convention are $89.00. IASCOE will reimburse three people’s travel and motel room for the National Convention. Those that might be interested in going need to contact Tom. The director’s will meet Friday morning at 11:00 A.M. for the election of officers for 2003-2004 and to discuss any last minute convention issues.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:10 P.M. Respectfully submitted Sue Beemer IASCOE Secretary ________________________________________________________
April 4, 2003 11:00 A.M. Officers Present: John Landgraf-President; Tom Lane-Vice President; Sue Beemer-Secretary/ Treasurer Directors Present: Rosie Kahl, Alan Donaldson, Vicki Heeren, John Bahnsen, Ron Mauser, Denise Dugan, Cheryl Nickolisen, Connie Safley, Steve Kennedy, Joni Birkhofer, Rich Kleppe, Dan Wells, Connie Bence, Shari Bush, Terry Pauling and Sandra Johnson. Tammy Eibey was absent due to attending her IACS Meeting. Guests Present: Becky Marcum. President John Landgraf called the meeting to order. ELECTION OF OFFICERS First on the agenda was the election of officers. Rosie nominated Tom Lane for President and Ron seconded the motion. Motion carried unanimously. John nominated Alan Donaldson for Vice President and Steve seconded. Terry nominated John Bahnsen and Alan seconded. Rich nominated Terry Pauling and Dan seconded. John removed his name from the nomination. Terry then removed his name from the nomination. Alan was then unanimously elected Vice President. Tom nominated Sue Beemer for Secretary/Treasurer and Ron seconded. Motion carried unanimously. OTHER BUSINESS John thanked retiring directors, Denise Dugan and Connie Bence for their long time devotion and support of IASCOE. It has been greatly appreciated by everyone. Todd Warner the MWA Executive Committee Person was in an accident and has withdrawn his name as committeeperson. Dan Root has taken his place and will be our contact person. Terry brought a get-well card for Charolette Saunders the NASCOE Secretary-Treasurer. She is battling a serious illness and we all want to send her our prayers and encouragements. John explained he had been sending sympathy cards to families of FSA employees who had lost loved ones. After a brief discussion we decided to continue the practice to include all employees regardless of IASCOE membership.
We discussed last minute convention plans and everything seems to be going fine. We took pictures of the 2002-2003 directors and the 2003-2004 directors. We also took pictures of the officers. Brian will update the web site with these pictures. Meeting adjourned at 11:45 A.M. Respectfully submitted Sue Beemer Secretary ________________________________________________________
APRIL 4, 2003 The meeting of the membership committee was called to order by Denise Dugan at 1:00 p.m. Represented were 7 of the 9 districts in Iowa. District 1 – Mike Houston for Ron Reuvers District 2 – Vicki Pederson District 4 – Becky Marcum for Judy Vos District 5 – Rod Biensen District 6 – Carma Reiss District 7 – Jolene Fechter District 9 – Lisa Taylor Also present were Cheri Nickolisen and Dan Wells. Vicki Pederson was appointed secretary for the membership committee. Handouts were presented to the committee and Denise asked that the membership drive should start on May 1st. The committee recommends that we once again offer 5 - $50 early bird incentives to those whose membership is paid by June 15, 2003. The winners will be drawn at the September Directors meeting and will be published in the newsletter. Looking back over last year’s goals we were happy to report that we did in fact make our goal of exceeding 85% membership. Next year we will set our goals even higher. Some ideas discussed were: Positive visits with non-members explaining the importance of IASCOE. Personal contact with non-members could be helpful. Point out payroll deduction, as the per-pay period deduction is so minimal that it is not so noticeable. It was announced that Dan Wells, CED of Adair County will be the new state membership chairperson. All dues transmittal should be sent to Dan as well as a transmittal to the secretary-treasurer, Sue Beemer. Meeting adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Vicki Pederson, Acting Secretary Denise Dugan, Membership Chair _______________________________________________________
Legislative & Benefits Committee Minutes April 4, 2003 The
Legislative & Benefits Committee meeting was called to order by Terry
Pauling at 1:15 p.m. Members
present included Jeff Davis, Steve Abbas, Pat Warmbier, Bob Wegand, Kathy
White, Cindy Bebout, John Bartenhagen, Steve Kennedy and Terry Pauling. Guests
present included Tammy Pruin, Minnesota; Jake Bourchet and Tom Olson,
Wisconsin; and Mary Taylor, J&M Marketing. NASCOE
Benefits available to IASCOE members were reviewed, with a list available
on the NASCOE Website and also in the March 2003 IASCOE Newsletter, which
is available on the IASCOE Webpage at www.IASCOE.org Members
were reminded that a new Employee Assistance Provider, EAP, named ComPysch,
took over the duties of FSA’s EAP program on April 1, 2003.
More information can be obtained by visiting their website at www.guidanceresources.com Members
were reminded to review the new Flexible Spending Accounts, FSA’s, that
will become available July 1, 2003. FSA’s
include two types of accounts: The
Dependent Care FSA (DCFSA) allows participants to be reimbursed on a
pre-tax basis for child care or adult dependent care expenses that are
necessary to allow the employee (and his/her spouse) to work or seek work. The Health Care FSA (HCFSA) allows pre-tax reimbursement of eligible medical costs not covered or reimbursed by insurance. Examples include FEHB plan deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance, dental and vision services not covered by FEHB plans, etc.
Eligible employees will be able to voluntarily elect to participate in the HCFSA, the DCFSA, or both, during an open enrollment period. Employees will elect to contribute an amount, up to a maximum, to their FSA(s). Each pay period, the employing agency will process as an allotment a portion of the total amount of the employees' contributions. For instance, if an employee elects to contribute $1,040 to his HCFSA and $520 to his DCFSA and is paid biweekly, the agency will allot $40 and $20, respectively. These allotments will be made before Federal, state and social security taxes are calculated. Employees can draw upon their FSA accounts for reimbursement as they incur eligible expenses.
Employees will enroll in HCFSA and/or DCFSA accounts on an annual basis. Each year an employee will estimate the total expenses and then agree to have those expenses deducted from their paycheck. Everyone is reminded to estimate their total expenses low, as any money in either the HCFSA or DCFSA that is not used by the end of the calendar year will be forfeited.
More information on the Flexible Spending Plans can be found on the OPM website at www.opm.gov/insure/
The Legislative and Benefits Committee would like to extend a hearty Thank You to Brian Beach for his work on the IASCOE Website. Brian has done a remarkable job in creating and updating our organization’s website.
Steve Kennedy provided an update on the NASCOE Legislative Conference held in early February. Six IASCOE members attended the conference, including John Landgraf, Tom Lane, Denise Dugan, Joni Birkhofer, Tammy Eibey, and Steve Kennedy.
NASCOE is very well respected on Capital Hill.
NASCOE/IASCOE delegates visited all members of Iowa’s
congressional delegation and provided copies of NASCOE position papers on
EEO, Civil Rights, FSA Homeland Security, Crop Insurance Reform, Freedom
to E-File and County Committee Structure. They also discussed the need for additional employees, including both full time and temporary employees. A letter was recently provided to all states addressed to both the Secretary of Agriculture and the director of OMB asking them to consider FSA’s continued need for additional employees as we serve the farm producers.
The 2004 FSA Budget which was recently announced by Secretary Venneman, holds county office staffing levels the same as 2002 and 2003, increases GS staffing levels about 50 positions and decreases temporary office positions by 2700.
Members are concerned about the downtime computer equipment failure is causing. Denise Dugan stated that this issue will be discussed at the May NASCOE negotiations in Washington D.C. The group expressed a need for one extra monitor in every office that is compatible with the computers in that office and for service agreements to repair the equipment in a timely manner.
John Landgraf moved to submit a resolution to the Iowa State FSA office addressing the IT shortcomings as they affect our internal functions. The motion was seconded by Jeff Davis. Motion carried.
All FSA Offices are encouraged to watch for press releases announcing congressional visits to the county. When a congressional representative is scheduled for a visit, contact the representative’s local office and invited him/her to visit the County FSA office.
FSA Offices should also stay in contact with other community leaders such as financial institutions, and encourage all County Committee Members to become members of NAFEC.
The
weather delayed the arrival of NASCOE President Steve Morrison, so the
meeting adjourned at 2:50 p.m. Respectively
submitted Terry
Pauling and Steve Kennedy _______________________________________________
April 4, 2003
The meeting was called to order by Tammy Eibey, IASCOE Publicity Chair at 1:15 p.m. The first item of business was to elect a secretary. Dee Ann Lehn volunteered. Roll Call: District 1: Larry Niles, Emmet Co. District 2: Julie Hall, Kosuuth Co. District 3: District 4: Candy Hoyle, Greene Co. District 5: District 6: District 7: Carole Dawson, Taylor Co. District 8: District 9: Dee Ann Lehn, Keokuk Co. Review and approval of the IASCOE publicity meeting minutes from the April 2002 convention. Larry Niles made the motion to accept, Dee Ann Lehn seconded, motion carried. Those present reviewed the last year’s newsletter. Many good comments about the quality and quantity of the newsletter was received. We discussed the order of how it gets done: Tammy reminds the publicity committee members and the IASCOE Directors about the need of articles. Items received are then saved to a disk in order of presentation, somewhat in a Newsletter format. Items are forwarded to Brian Beach, PT in Sac County and IASCOE webmaster. He then re-formats the articles and arranges to fit the web site boundaries. He then notifies us of a completed project. It was agreed by all that Brian is doing an excellent job with the newsletter and maintaining the web site. The change has saved IASCOE both time and money. New Business: We reviewed the way CO’s are being notified of the newsletter posting to the web site. The Committee determined that it would be nice to continue as is. Brian notifies Tammy and then she would in turn notify the Publicity Committee. They would then get to their district counties. Each county would be encouraged to designate one person to print and distribute the newsletter. They would be encouraged to print on a color printer. (set up contact list) Next newsletter will be in June. Items need to be to Tammy by May 20th. No format changes at this time. Continue with Perils of Polly PT if Rose agrees. Request counties to submit articles about unique things or sites in their county. Awards for Midwest Area submitted: Rose Woerner for Best Feature Story-Humor “Perils of Polly PT” (series) Lisa Forburger for Best Feature Story- Human Interest “Blessed are the Elderly” John Landgraf for Best Feature Story-Human Interest “Don Mason BIO” Brian Beach for Best Web Site Meeting adjourned with motion by Julie Hall, second by Candy Hoyle. Motion carried. Adjourned at 1:50 Respectfully submitted Tammy Eibey Publicity Chairperson ____________________________________________________
April
4, 2003 The
Awards Committee meeting was called to order by Rosie Kahl at 1:00 pm.
Members present were Judy Dameron, Jan Wiemers, Cindy Pistek,
Connie Safley, Vicki Heeren, Phyllis Reineke and Rosie Kahl. Judy
Dameron was appointed secretary. Rosie
announced that she will not be Awards Chairperson next year.
Connie Safley is the new Awards Chairperson. Vicki Heeren is still Scholarship Chairperson. There
is one distinguished service award this year.
Tammy Eibey will receive Service
to FSA – Agriculture Award.
Eighteen sick leave awards will be presented.
In the past year 5 certificates of appreciation were issued to
IASCOE members who retired. Terry
Pauling will be receiving the 2003
MWA award for Service to
NASCOE. The
committee agreed that IASCOE will continue to issue certificates of
appreciation to retiring IASCOE members.
Someone will need to notify Connie of any retirees timely so that
she can get a certificate ready for presentation. Vicki
discussed the scholarship program. There
were 14 applications returned. We
felt participation was good. The
four winners this year and Ashley Mensen, Lindsey Larson, Callie Berry and
Debra Lorimor. The
meeting was adjourned at 1:30 pm. Judy Dameron, Secretary ____________________________________________________
Adventureland Inn – Altoona IA April 4th & 5th 2003
Call to order 3:30 P.M. April 4th Mary Taylor, a representative from J M Marketing, opened the session this afternoon. She briefly discussed prepaid legal, a new item being offered to IASCOE members. The cost will be $7.36 a pay period, which will cover the entire family. Mary will be going to each office within the next several weeks to explain all the different insurance policies offered by J M Marketing. On behalf of J M Marketing, she presented a donation check of $100.00 to IASCOE. NASCOE President, Steve Morrison was the next speaker for the afternoon. He brought greetings from all the NASCOE officers. Some of the items he discussed where: 1. Permanent Employees – The county offices need more help with the delivery of the new farm bill. NASCOE is continuing to work on this. 2. Program Technician Classification – This item still has top priority but the initial review from the department was not positive. NASCOE is going to have the recommendations reviewed and go back again. The basic disagreement is the knowledge it takes to administer our programs. 3. Membership – Iowa has had a high percentage of membership in the past and has attained an 85% this year. Steve would like all the County Committee Members to consider joining NAFEC. This organization has a lot of influence on the hill. Next SED, Derryl McLaren spoke. He gave a big thank you to all employees for the work that has been accomplished in connection with the farm bill. Iowa is at 85-87% complete on CCC-515’s signed. This program has made farmers realize the complexity of work we do. In the next several months we will have certification, a new disaster program including LCP, a CRP sign-up and getting started on GIS. Derryl also discussed the budget and he thought there should be monies left over for the 2004 year. He encouraged all employees to participate in their respective organizations. He and the State Committee have completed all their district meetings with COC’s. We will resume the General Assembly Saturday morning at 9:30 A.M. Saturday April 5th Tom Lane, Vice President, opened the Saturday morning session. HQ STARC had the presentation of colors and Becky Marcum, PT from Monona County, sang the Star Spangled Banner and God Bless the USA. Julie Hall, CED from Kossuth County acknowledged military personnel of FSA employees and their families.
Merlin Plagge, State Committee Chairperson, brought greetings from the rest of the State Committee. The State Committee has been continuing to meet with the County Committee in each district. They feel these meetings give each party a chance to get acquainted, thus making a better working relationship. During the month of March Derryl accompanied the State Committee to 8 district meetings. The State Committee had a national meeting in W.D.C. recently in which Washington gave sincere thanks to the county offices for all the work that had been done on the new farm program. Next on the agenda was Steve Phillips, STO Production Adjustment Specialist. He also told us what a fantastic job the county offices had done on the program. Iowa is 87% enrolled with CCC-515’s signed. Iowa did very well nationwide – with Nebraska and South Dakota just barely ahead of us. Steve did an overview of the process to come up with the procedure of sign-up. There was a Task Force established which met 3-4 times and gave feedback to W.D.C. He closed with a slide presentation that was enjoyed by everyone. Words
from our State President President John Landgraf introduced the out-of-state guests that were present. They were: Steve Morrison NASCOE President from Missouri Tom Oasen, Jake Bourget and Deb Esselman from Wisconsin John Baird from Illinois Tom Bonk and Lisa Everman from Ohio Tammy Pruin from Minnesota He also introduced the IASCOE past presidents that were present. They were: Trice Smith, Jolene Fechter, Mike Houston, and Larry Niles President Landgraf read a letter he had received from Gary and Charlene Cooper. Then he introduced the IASCOE directors for the 2003-2004 year. They are as follows: District 1: Rosie Kahl and Alan Donaldson District 2: Vicki Heeren and John Bahnsen District 3: Tammy Eibey and Ron Mauser District 4: Cheryl Nickolisen and John Landgraf District 5: Connie Safley and Steve Kennedy District 6: Joni Birkhofer and Rich Kleppe District 7: Sue Beemer and Dan Wells District 8: Shari Bush and Terry Pauling District 9: Sandra Johnson and Tom Lane John presented Vice-President Tom Lane with the President’s pin and gavel after which Tom presided over the remainder of the meeting. President Lane reported on the results of the election. The results were: President – Tom Lane Vice President – Alan Donaldson Secretary/Treasurer – Sue Beemer
Committee Reports Chairpersons respectfully submitted the minutes from their committee. Sandra Johnson moved and Dan Wells seconded that the minutes be accepted as read. Rosie Kahl will no longer be the chairperson for the Awards Committee. Connie Safley has accepted the position. Denise Dugan will no longer be the chairperson for the Membership Committee. Dan Wells has accepted this position. Denise handed out certificates to the counties for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, and 40 years of continuous membership. Raffle Winners Twenty-five dollar raffle winners were: Jean Oswood – Poweskiek County Kevin Fitzpatrick – Greene County Nelda Wolthuis – Clay County Doug Larson – Jackson County One hundred dollar winner Joan Helmers – O’Brien County Two hundred dollar winner Coelet Hammen – Pocahontas County Congratulation to all of the winners!!! Mark
Pearson – Market to Market President Tom Lane introduced our guest speaker Mark Pearson. Mr. Pearson has been the host for Market to Market for 13 years which airs in 28 states. Mr. Pearson’s comments were very much enjoyed by everyone. Adjournment President
Lane adjourned the meeting at 11:45 A.M. Terry Pauling moved and Tammy
Eibey seconded the motion. Respectfully submitted Sue Beemer IASCOE Secretary
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