Wisconsin Association of Land Conservation Employees

WALCE BOARD MEETING MINUTES

Thursday, December 2, 2004

Holiday Inn, Stevens Point

Board Members Present:  Jean Schomisch, Perry Lindquist, Tom Sweeney, Rick Mechelke, Bryce Richardson, Penny Pohle, Dan O’Connell, Mark Jenks, Diane Hanson.

Others Present:  Pat Murphy, NRCS; Greg Baneck, Outagamie County, Keith Marquardt, Winnebago County, Gorden Stevenson, DNR;  Dale Olson, Sawyer County, Keith Foye, DATCP, Diane Daulton, ABDI Counties.

Call to order:  Jean Schomisch welcomed everyone and called the WALCE Board meeting to order at 8:35 am.

Approve Appointment of Lake Winnebago Area Representative:  Motion by Penny Pohle/Dan O’Connell to approve the appointment of Keith Marquardt as Lake Winnebago Area Representative to the WALCE Board.  Motion carried by a voice vote.  Prior to Brad Robole’s resignation from the Board, he had also served on the Administrative Committee.  Greg Baneck was on the Administrative Committee as a representative for the Northern Area.  He has now relocated to Outagamie County and is still interested in serving on the Administrative Committee.  Motion by Perry Lindquist/Tom Sweeney to have Greg Baneck remain on the Administrative Committee as a representative from the Eastern Area.  Motion carried by a voice vote.   

Approval of Minutes:  Motion by Dan O’Connell/Penny Pohle to approve the September 9^th, 2004 minutes.  Motion carried by voice vote. 

Treasurer’s Report:  Tom Sweeney reviewed the budget report.  Dan O’Connell mentioned that the Conservation Hall of Fame dues will be increasing.  Motion by Rick Mechelke/Mark Jenks to approve treasurer’s report as presented.  Motion carried by voice vote.

Audit Report:  Tom Sweeney distributed a report of the audit that was completed by Diane Hanson, Lisa Trumble, Tom Sweeney and Shawn Stocks.  Motion by Rick Mechelke/Dan O’Connell to accept audit report as presented.  Motion carried by voice vote.

Report on Distribution of “White Paper”:   Area representatives reported on distribution and responses to the “White Paper”.  Discussion followed on developing an initiative to distribute the paper to legislators and tracking its impact.  Each area representative should contact their counties and track what legislators have been contacted and what the response has been.  Discussion followed on reprinting additional hardcopies.  Bryce Richardson will check into costs of printing another 1000 copies of the “white paper” and other board members that have contacts with local printers may also want to check into printing costs.  Tom Sweeney will contact WLWCA to see if they would be willing to pay for half of the printing costs.     

Technical Committee Report:  Dan O’Connell updated the board on the technical committee work.  They are currently compiling a list of LCD staff with technical expertise in particular conservation practices to be distributed statewide.  There will be a Technical Roundtable at the WALCE Conference.  The committee also spent quite a bit of time on the draft Guiding Principles.  Dan distributed the draft and discussion followed.  Gordon Stevenson suggested that a statement regarding the Standard’s Oversight Council be added to the Guiding Principles.  Discussion followed regarding adding an additional principle or modifying the fourth principle.  Motion by Perry Lindquist/Mark Jenks to amend the fourth guiding principle by adding “through the Standards Oversight Council process” to the end of the sentence.  Motion carried by voice vote.  Motion by Rick Mechelke/Bryce Richardson to approve the Technical Committee Guiding Principles as amended by the Board.  Motion carried by voice vote.

Currently, Bob Micheel is the chair of the Technical Committee and Paul Sebo would like to replace Dale Konkel on the Committee.  Motion by Tom Sweeney/Bryce Richardson to approve Paul Sebo as Eastern Area Representative to the Technical Committee.    Dan requested clarification on the process that the Technical Committee needed to follow to correspond with agencies.  The Board recommended that all correspondence from the Technical Committee to the agencies be copied to the Board.   

Professional Improvement Committee:  Tom Sweeney updated the Board on the work of the Professional Improvement Committee.  There have been a few membership changes and there is a need for some additional members specifically from the Central and Western Areas.  Mary Fagen, Juneau County is currently chairing the Committee.  The Committee is currently working on presenters and schedules for the Conference. 

Administrative Committee Report:  Andy Johnson is currently chairing the committee.  The last meeting was spent discussing the distribution of the “white paper”, the Conservation Tax Program proposal, the Boards decision regarding the bylaws, agency and association relationships, legislative outreach, funding and staffing issues.  In addition, the Committee discussed the Livestock Siting Legislation which should be going to public hearings in February or March, 2005. Perry Lindquist also noted that WCA is taking the position that staffing grants should be salary and that no fringe benefits should be covered by staffing grants.   The committee has forwarded a request to the WLWCA Board to assemble a platform on staffing grants based on resolutions that were passed by the Association and to develop a history of grant funding. 

2005 Awards:  Perry Lindquist will be handling the awards process this year and will write out the process for the awards and it will be made part of the Policy Manual.

Policy Handbook Committee:  Jean briefly reviewed the draft WALCE Policy Handbook and stated that additions such as scholarship, awards, conferences, reimbursements, guiding principles, etc. needed to be added.  Jean requested volunteers from the Board to review the policies.  Penny Pohle, Bryce Richardson and Perry Lindquist volunteered to work on the Policy Handbook. 

Advisors Reports:

DATCP – Keith Foye distributed and reviewed a written report.  He updated the Board on the Livestock Siting Committee, 2006 Funding Strategy, the transfer of cost share dollars among counties, LWRM plans, reimbursements for county technical assistance, CREP and Farmland Preservation Program Conservation Standards.

DNR – Gordon Stevenson distributed and reviewed a written report.  Items covered included NR 216, implementation of the nonpoint rules, NR 243 and TRM and Urban Nonpoint Source Grants. 

NRCS – Pat Murphy updated the Board on the NRCS budget, EQIP, the Conservation Security Program, Technical Service Providers and Toolkit. 

Wisconsin Buffer Initiative – Jean distributed a report submitted by Mike Dahlby regarding the Wisconsin Buffer Initiative.

Land and Water Conservation Board – Jean also updated the Board and the recent LWCB meeting.  The LWCB passed a motion to allow for the transfer of $25,000 of cost share dollars between counties without all of the proposed DATCP steps.  They also approved the 2006 Funding strategy on a trial basis for one year.  In addition, the LWCB is looking for some improvements within county LWRM plans and have identified specific information that they are looking for.  The specific information will be added to the checklist. 

Other Business:  Rick Mechelke questioned the representation on the Board now that the areas will be changing.  Discussion followed on verifying who has been on the Board and for how long.  The Board felt that individually each Board member could look back for there own records. 

Greg Baneck reported that the national employees association is raffling off a Harley in an effort to raise funds for the National Don Aron Memorial Scholarship.  He is also serving on the nominating committee for the national district employees association.

Next meeting date was discussed.  The Board decided to meet on January 26^th after the Administrative Committee meeting in Stevens Point. 

Motion by Tom Sweeney/Dan O’Connell to adjourn at 11:35 AM.   Motion carried by voice vote.    

Respectfully Submitted,

Diane Hanson

Secretary