Extension Leadership Team Meeting Minutes August 8, 2022
Extension Leadership Team Meeting Minutes
August 8, 2022
Virtual Meeting 8:30-10:30 AM
Facilitator: Melissa Arndt
Note taker: Dennis Harrington
Please note: Due to the confidentiality and sensitivity of some agenda items, these ELT minutes do not represent the full content of each meeting.
Advice/Discussion/Action
Administrative Support staff for ELT members and Faculty
We had a conversation around current and future support staff needs for members of the ELT and also faculty. Fran clarified that ELT members have general support from Ella Glatter and hiring support from Beth Hawkyard as well as faculty evaluation and professional promotion support from Angela Hart. There is some tension in County offices for providing support to statewide staff, although Extension’s budget is partially supporting all County-based support staff. There are some challenges related to capacity/workloads in County offices. We will ask Ella to prepare an org chart and we will ask Beth to prepare a survey to support staff asking about their capacity; and to staff asking about their needs. Fran shared a job description for support staff via email.
Program and Position Support Fees, Administrative Overhead
We will be framing the issues around fees that are charged to program participants to support program-specific and administrative staffing commitments, some of which are already in place (ex: Home Hort coordinator, Instructional Designer, Salesforce) and some of which are aspirational (ex: increased development/fundraising, program design and evaluation). The intention of this discussion is to finally kick-start the development of a policy. At a future meeting we will present a list of questions to the ELT to help identify issues that will help in crafting this policy. This is only a ‘heads-up’ so that ELT members can understand the situation, survey the organization, and begin thinking of challenges.
Simple solutions are hard to apply to a complex organization such as Cooperative Extension. This process will involve significant consideration of many different situations and types of programs. Dennis, Monica Palmer, and Mari Glatter, with input from others will frame the issues and unique situations that encompass the development of a successful policy and bring them to the ELT at a future meeting. It was suggested that “Developing a Budget for your Program” might be a good presentation at the next Org meeting.
FY22 Grants Report
See file in the folder for this ELT agenda – here
Professional Staff Salary Stress
Hannah, Fran, and Ryder met with the Extension Professional Committee, on July 22, to discuss professional salary stress and the impacts of that stress. The faculty would like us to address this issue as well and they outlined their thoughts in a letter sent to us from the ELT. We are being asked to revisit professional salaries and determine what our options are.
New Indirect Distribution Formula
On July 1st a new indirect distribution formula was adopted. Michael will share information on this new formula.
- VPR Calculation
Every fiscal year-end (June 30th), the VPR’s office applies the following formula to research totals from the previous fiscal year. In the current FY2023, the total Indirect Cost of UMaine for FY2022 will be used.
- R/PI/Project = Amount of indirect returned to a specific PI/Co-PI of a project
- FGCDB = the Fractions Responsibility reporting in the Grants and Contracts Database (from PARS)
- FUMEIDC = total Effective IDC of UMaine for that Fiscal Year
- Constant = $250,000 = minimum returned to faculty staff every fiscal year
And the formula:
R/PI/PROJ = FGCDB x FUMEIDC x $250,000
- Cooperative Extension’s Role
In mid-July, individual entries are made for each PI to the following chartfield:
Dept 5400100 / Fund 13 / Project 5255999 / Class Code “FL” – Where “F” is the first initial and “L” is the last initial: Michael Bailey, would be “MB”.
Annual calculations, award entries, and expenses against each balance are tracked within this chartfield “indefinitely”.
Recipients are notified of their annual award and current balance each year, typically at the time of the award.
Source: Vice President of Research, Return of Indirects
Updates
Here is a link to the Annual Report submitted to the Provost on July 29th.
Salesforce Update from Monica Palmer
- Our Salesforce implementation is now on Plugged In! More information will be added including current projects and more information about the tools we will use in conjunction with Salesforce.
- Efforts to procure additional tools for Salesforce are still underway. A suite of tools has been identified that will provide Extension with tools for web-forms, document generation and event management, all of which will integrate with TouchNet. These tools are necessary for the work the Extension does to extend the power of Salesforce. The event management tool will eventually replace the CDMS. New payment gateways are also being discussed.
- Review of the custom solution for volunteer management is underway. As a reminder, this custom solution has been built in Salesforce to support volunteer management. This includes tools for tracking specific volunteer events (i.e., Farm to Table Camp 2022) as well as program-level information (i.e., Master Gardener). It also allows for tracking of an individual’s participation in one or many volunteer programs. The solution is intended to be an easy way to get volunteer information in one place that will allow for better tracking and reporting of volunteer efforts.
- The Communications and Marketing team has decided to move forward with Salesforce for internal ticket management. Conversations are starting around modifications that will be needed to support their work.
- The Plant Disease Diagnostic Lab (PDDL) internal portal continues to thrive. We have implemented automatic emails to clients when cases are opened or closed, as well as the ability to automatically close cases when a response from the client is not received after two weeks.
- Significant progress has been made on the Mailchimp-to-Salesforce integration. A schema is included below. This is an entirely custom integration.
- As a note, many departments (including DLL) are currently using UMaine’s Admission Office’s TargetX CRM, which will be unavailable after June 2023. As part of our strategic goal, we will be advising and assisting some groups to migrate out of TargetX.
Search Updates
JD & RTF in process
AgrAbility FT position
CRM System Support Professional (Orono/Remote)
Waiting for HireTouch Approvals
Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory Manager (VDL)
4-H Youth Development Professional (Washington)
Potato Plant Pathologist (Faculty) (Aroostook/PI)
4-H Community Education Assistant (Waldo)
Advertising
Administrative Specialist CL3 (Cumberland)
Administrative Specialist CL3 EFNEP (Orono)
Postdoctoral Extension Associate in PFAS Research and Outreach (Orono/Statewide)
4-H Community Education Assistant CL2 (Cumberland)
Manager of Operations and Finance
Associate Dean of Extension (Orono)
Administrative Specialist CL2 (Tanglewood/Blueberry Cove)
Director, Bryant Pond/Greenland Point 4-H Centers
Parent Education Professional, Maine Families Visitor (Knox/Lincoln)
Interviewing/Offering
Administrative Specialist CL3 (Highmoor Farm)
Accounting and Operations Professional (Orono)
Dairy Forage Educator
Sustainable Ag and Hort Professional (Aroostook)
Hired
4-H Youth Development Professional (Aroostook) – Megan Cook
Asst. Extension Professor, Maine Sustainable Ag and Maple Industry Educator (S. Maine) – Jason Lilley
Program Coordinator, Bryant Pond & Greenland Pint 4-H Centers – Nicole Nelson
4-H Science Professional – Gabrielle Brodek
Administrative Specialist CL1 (Hancock) – Andrea Mahoney
4-H Community Education Assistant CL2 (Oxford) – Tania Collette
Administrative Specialist CL2 (Cumberland) – Maire Lenihan
Administrative Specialist CL2 (Orono) – Ella Glatter
Community Education Assistant (Hancock) – Leah McCluskey
Community Education Assistant CL2 (Magic Lantern) – Rebecca Mosely
Sust. Ag & Hort Professional (Somerset) – Brett Johnson
Sust. Ag & Hort Professional (Franklin) – Nick Rowley
Webmaster (Orono) – Michelle Snowden
2022 ELT Meeting Dates
| Dates | Facilitator | Notes | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 12 | Bailey | Bolton | Virtual |
| October 11 | Bolton | Carter | Virtual |
| October 20 | Fall Retreat | 10 AM – 2 PM | Hutchinson Center – Belfast |
| November 14 | Carter | Dill | Virtual |
| December 12 | Dill | Harrington | Virtual |