Wisconsin
Association
of
Land
Conservation Employees
|
Wisconsin
Association
of Land
Conservation Employees |
WALCE Secretary
P.O. Box 39 Durand, WI 54736-0039
FAX: (715)672-824
sstocks@co.pepin.wi.us
Approved Draft
08-21-03
WALCE MEETING MINUTES
Thursday, August 21, 2003
Schmeeckle Reserve, Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Board Members
Present: Dale Olson, Tom
Sweeney, Shawn Stocks, Mark Jenks, Rick Mechelke, Dan O’Connell, Greg Baneck,
and Greg Cleereman
Others Present:
Don Houtman, Andy Yencha, and Pat Murphy
Call to Order:
Dale Olson welcomed everyone to the WALCE Board Meeting.
Approval of June 19,
2003 Minutes: Motion made by
Dan O’Connell to approve the revised June 19, 2003 minutes.
Motion seconded by Greg Baneck. Motion
carried by voice vote.
Treasurer’s
Report: Tom Sweeney handed out the Register Report and Budget Report.
The committee reviewed both reports with little discussion.
Sponsored event coming up will be the county conservationist meeting
which will be brought up later in the meeting.
Balance of the checking account is $10,714.58.
A possible increase in the scholarship account was discussed and will be
talked about at a later date. Motion
made by Shawn Stocks to accept the Register Report and Budget Report.
Motion seconded by Mark Jenks. Motion
carried by voice vote.
2004 Professional
Improvement Conference Update: Shawn
talked with the Milwaukee City Center Hilton and verified the contract.
Changes needed to be made on room reservations and she will keep working
on this until the contract is complete. September 8, 2003 was set for the first
planning committee meeting with location to be centralized.
CREP Contract Pricing: Pat Murphy began the work load analysis a year ago for the CREP Program process of contracts. Discussion on rates and the time to complete one of the contracts for cropland were looked at. NRCS’ workload analysis had 10 hours in mind for this.
Senate Bill 215:
Concerns over senate bill 215 were discussed at length.
WALCE supports the additional funding being earmarked for conservation
programs but feels that the funding should be applied towards individual County
Land and Water Plan implementation rather than being targeted for a few specific
uses. This is consistent with
previous positions taken by WALCE regarding “pigeon holing” of funds.
Report on
Conservation Partners Meeting: Dale
Olson updated the board on the Conservation Partners Meeting. They discussed the
old county conservationist agreements. The
Conservation Partners would like to have more professionalism with the county
conservationists. NRCS and DATCP
have had a struggle working with some counties and feel they should not shell
out the problem county. The feeling
is that counties that do not participate in various programs are not out
anything. An audit on needing more
assessment on monitoring – USGS personnel for breakout sessions is an option.
It was a good meeting and one more to go.
The goal of the meetings is to get everyone to quit disagreeing and get
back into conservation as a whole.
Confirmation of NR
243: Received an e-mail from
Jim Bauman and wanted to have an individual on NR 243 Team Reps. Committee –
two people expressed interest Steve Olson St. Croix County and Bruce Olson from
LaCrosse County. Dan O’Connell
suggested that Bruce Olson would only do it through SOC.
SOC is not the appropriate place to go through for this at this time.
Andy Johnson – Marathon County and Steve Olson from St. Croix County
would be good to be on this committee for the rewrite NR 243 Team
Representatives. Tom Sweeny
recommended that one of the two be on the technical committee and have Perry
Lindquist review the administrative papers. Greg
Baneck made a motion to have Andy Johnson to be the primary representative on
the rewrite team and Steve Olson as an alternate.
Dan O’Connell seconded. Motion
carried by voice vote.
CREP Core Team
Representative: Keith Foye
asked to have Tom Sweeney be the CREP Core Team Representative.
Tom Sweeney agreed to this appointment.
Motion made by Shawn Stocks to have Tom Sweeney be the CREP Core Team
Representative. Motion seconded by
Greg Cleereman. Motion carried by
voice vote.
Advisor Reports:
DATCP – Don Houtman handed out a new CREP report that they are busy
working on for updating the state on acres and dollars.
A survey of county conservationist showed that most are concerned about
funding cuts and several county conservationists will have job cuts because of
the loss of funding. Tom Sweeney asked Don if he could put together spreadsheet
on the potential revenues from counties that are in CREP.
We have new Land and Water Board Members. Don Houtman will follow up on a joint letter that Troy Kuphal
previously worked on about RUSLE II; Don Houtman will follow up on this letter
and see where it is at.
NRCS:
Pat Murphy – TSP – Certification tech reg is available; Pat has told
LCD’s to go to the National tech reg. As
of March 1, 2004 you have the choice to be certified through the state – a
conservation planner with 5-6 years of experience could be nationally certified.
Kevin Erb is now working with Pat to get conservation planners certified
with CNMP, Pest Management, and Forest Management. Planning certification maybe available and NM or what
ever type of certification that WALCE decides to have at the WALCE Conference.
The farmers can directly contact an agronomist that way NRCS would pay
the farmer and the agronomist. Flat
rate is on the Tech Reg NRCS web site.
Funds will be put into the farmers contracts; it will be 6 months out to
be fully functional. If NRCS does
not have enough time for this they would go to the county and make an agreement
for contribution to the counties. (50%)
plus the administrative and vehicles reimbursement from NRCS and the fee will be
negotiated. The fees from county to county through the LCD’s (depending on
EQIP or Watersheds in that county). County conservationists could be negotiating
with DC’s for an agreement on this. If
you would go this route you cannot use your job approval you must have engineer
approval. This is still in the negotiations to find out the funding. A
small signup for acres is Sept 1 or 2 and these acres have to be approved by
September 22-24 by the committees. FSA
will be handling it this time for the signup.
2 million dollars for grassland grazing, it will be some kind of long
term management. Two to three
easements will burn up 2/3 of the funding dollars right now.
So the rest of the remaining funding will be left for grazing.
UWEX:
Andy Yencha – Will bring progress reports on partner team efforts for
the next meeting. Basin educator
position for central area has been filled.
Grant applications are going to be coming in and one dead line is this
Friday. (Grazing Education) Centralized warehouse from Milwaukee area is where the
informational products are being distributed from. Materials can be sent out with counties being charged for
postage. Many of the materials can
be downloaded directly from the internet. Rain garden brochure is the last
publication to be listed and they haven’t printed a lot so it can be down
loaded on the web through UWEX.
Any other business:
NACD Regional is in Hawaii for 2004. Motion made by Rick Mechelke to
allow $1,000.00 per person or split the $2,100.00 for Greg Baneck and Dale Olson
to go to NACD for the 2004 Conference in Hawaii. Motion seconded by Dan
O’Connell. Motion carried by
voice vote.
County Con Meeting: October
23 & 24th with the Conference Planning meeting on Thursday
morning. Don Houtman will check on
rooms and facility and get back to the committee through e-mail on this.
Adjourn:
Motion made by Tom Sweeney to adjourn.
Motion seconded by Greg Baneck. Motion
carried by voice vote.
Respectively
submitted by: Shawn Stocks, WALCE
Secretary
Approved Draft:
10-24-03