In attendance:
John Nye (DE), Chair
J. Scott Angle (MD)
Paul Backman (PA)
W. Ronnie Coffman (NYC)
Dale K. Colyer (WV)
Daniel Decker (NYC)
Frank Greene (USDA-ARS)
Colien Hefferan (USDA)
Roland Holstead (DC)
Robert Holm (IR-4)
James Hunter (NYG)
Sue Hunter (ME)
Rachel Johnson (VT)
Kirklyn Kerr (CTS)
Ronald Korcak (USDA-BARC)
Patrick Logan (RI)
Louis Magnarelli (CT-NH)
David R. MacKenzie (NERA)
Mark Mount (MA)
Kay Obendorf (NYC)
Ralph Otto (USDA)
Steve Reiling (ME)
Jeffrey Richards (SAFER)
Daniel Rossi (NJ)
Robert Seem (NYG)
William Trumble (NH)
G. Bruce Wiersma (ME)
Gloria Wyche-Moore (DC)
Ted Wilson (USDA-CSREES)
Dennis Kopp (USDA-CSREES)
Larry Miller (USDA-CSREES)
Rubie Mize (NERA-Recorder)
Call to order and introductions - John Nye
Chair Nye called the meeting to order at 8:29 a.m. and requested the directors to briefly report exciting events going on in their respective stations.
Ted Wilson of USDA-CSREES gave the NE directors a warm welcome to USDA’s new facility here at the Waterfront Centre. George Cooper, Dennis Kopp and Larry Miller were also present during various discussions throughout the meeting.
Consideration of last meeting's minutes - John Nye
The motion to accept the minutes as posted at url--- http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/NERAMinutes9-30-99.html was seconded and approved.
Report on the Plan of Work - Ralph Otto
All states have submitted their POWs by July 15th and 80% were reviewed and approved by Sept. 31st. By the end of November 1999, 100% have been approved, some conditionally. General observations to the 2000-2004 Plans of Work is available at url--- http://www.reeusda.gov/part/areera/
April 15 is the deadline for reporting on the targeted level for multistate and multifunctional activities. This however, can be automatically extended to June 1 by informing CSREES. There are three forms of certification required for:
There are four options to consider in reporting the percentage of formula
funds used for the integrated activities:
Option A - target 25% for each program.
Option B - go back to the 1997 baseline, calculate 7% , double and report
14%.
Option C - calculate up to 10% of the 1997 baseline, and double to 20%.
Option D - use Option C plus 3 years to get to the targeted %.
R. Otto recommended using Option A to account for the 25%. The other options leave some percentages that are still to be accounted for. He noted that the report required is in a single-paged form and very straightforward. The guidance is explicit in that MOUs, letter of agreements, contracts, etc. should be documented. The intention is NOT to audit down to the last detail. The Proposed Administrative Guidance for Multistate Extension Activities and Integrated Research and Extension Activities can be found at url--- http://www.reeusda.gov/part/areera/
Concerns were expressed on the difficulty in reporting the state's share on the integrated projects. C. Hefferan noted that Research has more information compared to Extension because of the AD-419s and AD-421s, and the CRIS system. Extension made a decision to develop their own system (EIS) and not use CRIS. They felt that CRIS is not appropriate to gather the kind of data they need. She also noted that the Agency recognizes that business offices will need lots of programmatic guidelines to ensure auditability and accountability. The bottom line is for federal dollars to be accounted for.
Some states have separate business offices that deal with Research and Extension, some don’t, and might have to hire extra staff. The directors do not advocate complexity, but simplicity in reporting. C. Hefferan noted a consolidated REEIS system should eventually be able to operate from one system (EIS) to the other (CRIS).
R. Otto added that the final rule on stakeholder input came out on February 8. He emphasized that this is part of AREERA’s requirements. McIntire Stennis is not included in the POW, but reporting is also required on October 1st or March 1, 2001, in conjunction with annual reporting deadlines.
CSREES Update on Sections 401 and 406 - Colien Hefferan
C. Hefferan noted that it is an interesting trend that the Administration and Congress agreed on how to implement the program. There was agreement that stakeholder input is required, and programs be focussed around problems. The 1999 President’s budget under 406 has six programs, 3 from pre-existing special grants and 3 from the extension 3-d lines:
The RFPs were all under review and were expected to come out on March 15. The url for the 406 RFP is---- http://www.reeusda.gov/integrated/
401 programs should be problem focussed, and should demonstrate usefulness of discovery. It is important to look at the final outcomes to the farms. The Administration would like to see how we design programs under this multi-funding that address multi-problems. The National Program Leaders (NPL) will have the responsibility for the pesticide programs. The 18 NPLs under Rodney Foil’s leadership will review the stakeholder inputs for the programs.
IFAFS intends to fill gaps and requires integration across functions. RFP is focussed on 5 areas:
The RFP can be found on url---- http://www.reeusda.gov/ifafs
The $120 million funding was authorized in 1998, every year for 5 years to culminate in 2003. On 10/1/98 authorization was granted to spend for two years, but was not allowed by the appropriators the following year. This however, did not stop spending leftover of 1999. Authorizers do not necessarily agree with Appropriators. The Agency is now administering 1999 funds using 2000 fund. There is a risk that the fund may not be available next year, but the probability of losing the fund this year is very low. Because of this, there will only be one infusion. That is, the project (that may run for 4 years) will be fully funded on the first year.
IFAFS is looking for consortia-type projects that demonstrate true collaboration across states/regions and functions. Funding is expected to be awarded to a few large consortia projects. C. Hefferan underlined that proposals should be designed to enhance what is already being done, and build on collaborations that are existing. "Agreement to Collaborate" ("Letters of Intent" is not sufficient) will be required. Institutions have to sign off on their commitments.
Public meetings for prospective applicants are scheduled. Check the CSREES web page for schedule. Delaware will be hosting a web-mediated workshop on April 7, and proceedings of the workshop will be posted at url---- http://ag.udel.edu/workshop/
Interim actions by the Chair - John Nye
Chair Nye took the following actions in the interim (these were not verbally reported at the meeting, but included here for the record.):
1. Formally thanked the Chair and Members of the External Review Panel that conducted the review of the Northeast multistate portfolio on September 8-10, 1999.
2. Charged the following Directors to take action on the Nine Recommendations
from the External Review:
- Dan Rossi (Chair, NERA Regional Priorities Committee)...Initiate presently
the development of a NERA Strategic Plan that builds upon the panel's nine
recommendations, and the issues identified in the ED's visit to member
campuses in August/September '99. The target completion is by the Summer
Joint Session, if at all possible. This should be a companion document
to the OED Stategic Plan.
- Bob Seem (Chair,RRC)...Evaluate the current NE portfolio for project
redundancy both within and outside the NE region, and report the findings
to members at the March meeting.
- David MacKenzie (NERA) to follow-up with Richard Jones (Chair, ESCOP)
our request that an ESCOP task force be formed to explore the NERA external
review committee's recommendation to create a national plan for germplasm,
working with Will Blackburn (ARS/Great Plains Director/National Seed Storage
facility in Ft Collins), and with Chuck Laughlin (CSREES), the status report on the required regulations for
stakeholder listening that were to be completed by 10/1/99, as required
by the AREERA '99. The final rule was published in the Federal Register
on February 8.
3. Appointed Kirk Kerr to the ESCOP Planning Committee and himself to the ESCOP Advocacy and Marketing Committee.
4. Attended the February meeting of ESCOP and delivered a report on behalf of the Northeast Region.
5. Actively worked with CSREES to host at Delaware the WWW workshop on Sections 401 and 406. The delay of the release of the RFP has resulted to the postponement of this activity to March 16.
6. Contacted Tom Payne regarding the possibility of combining multistate activities between the Northeast and North Central.
7. Reviewed and commented on the draft OED Strategic Plan.
8. Conducted a survey to evaluate the OED.
On item #6 above, Chair Nye has been in discussions with Tom Payne about the idea of a structure that will totally merge North Central and the Northeast regions, or with the West, with one Executive Director. This may prove positive in terms of coordinating project activities, which are now in reality, beyond the scope of the regions. He opened the discussion about the possible benefits and liabilities of such structure.
There will definitely be savings on the part of the AES members because assessments will be smaller, but services will also correspondingly be reduced as the clientele grows larger. There was general agreement that this idea needs serious thoughts, and a suggestion was made that the Executive Committees of the regions concerned should meet. The Chair proposed putting something in paper for input and approval from the NERA membership before further discussions outside the region.
Another factor to take into consideration in the proposed merger is the merit for some common issues like ecology. A merger will be positive for ecology for instance, but may not be for dairy and maple syrup.
RRC Report Delivered - Bob Seem
R. Seem distributed the report. The report consists of the Committee's recommendations on the projects, and action taken by the Committee on the task assigned as part of the implementation of the External Reviewers' recommendations. Discussion of the Multistate Guidelines will take place in the afternoon.
New Perspectives for the Future of IR-4 - Robert E. Holm
R. Holm delivered a report on the Future of IR-4. Copies of his PowerPoint presentation are available at the NERA office.
L. Magnarelli noted that private crop protection companies and commodity groups, like the cranberry growers, are benefiting from this project. How do we as SAES get credit for its accomplishments? IR-4 is funded from special grant and off-the-top from the Formula Fund. J. Hunter suggested that other ways of paying for direct costs should be explored. Participating AES may be asked to cover overheads.
Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development (NERCRD) – J. Scott Angle
J. Angle distributed copies of the report. Stephan Goetz is the new Executive Director. J. Angle is concerned that only 30% of $180,000 are being used for competitive funds and the rest for administration. The Center should be encouraged to seek other funding, say the 406, and they should be more involved in information dissemination. He noted that the Northeast Center has the smallest budget in the nation compared to the other regional centers.
D. Rossi commented that NERCRD could have a facilitating role in integrated projects (for example "Land Use"). It could also be the focal point for social scientists to share information, may be through the web.
R. Coffman suggested that NERCRD should be reviewed and be compared with its sister centers in the other regions, and see what issues they are dealing with. D. MacKenzie noted that the Center should be converted to a regional coordinating committee so the Northeast AES can take credit for its multistate integrated activities.
Executive Director's Report - Dave MacKenzie
D. MacKenzie delivered his report, posted at url---- http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/March2000OEDAnnualReport.html
There was discussion about the intentions of the New England states (ME, MA and RI) to leave NERA, as shared by B. Wiersma. This is due to their frustration with working with Extension, and they believed that they could work better with Extension outside NERA. After this decision was made, the two remaining deans begun questioning this decision. Although the three states remained with NERA, this is a possibility that should be considered in the future structure of the association.
D. MacKenzie underlined the following points in his report:
NERA will have to go back to the "basics’ and redirect effort to the paperless management system. This should be on track to facilitate the implementation of the new guidelines. The project summaries posted on the web could easily be transformed into the new project format under the new guidelines.
Resources of NERA will be used to attract other resources to the Northeast. SUNEI, SAFER and the Pasture Research and Extension Consortium are in place to apply for 401 and 406 funding.
SAFER Report - Jeff Richards
J. Richards gave a brief presentation on the accomplishments and strategies of the Northeast Food Safety Consortium (SAFER-Safe Food and Agriculture through Education and Research). Copies of his presentation slides are available at the NERA Office.
The Directors were impressed on the progress of activities and encouraged J. Richards to move forward with getting the scientists together to draft a proposal for the 401. Sue Snyder (DE) is the Chair of the Technical Committee. Chair Nye noted that this consortium is a great opportunity to make something happen.
The rest of the afternoon was devoted to brainstorming on two topics:
1. Multistate Research Guidelines - Bob Seem
2. Priority Setting: Inventory of Stakeholder input activities in
the Northeast – Dan Rossi
March 8, 2000 (Wednesday)
Chair Nye opened the session by asking R. Seem and D. Rossi to give summaries of yesterday's discussions.
On the Multistate Guidelines:
R. Seem noted that there is consensus on what are contained in the guidelines, and that there are supplementary items that need to be addressed and revised. D. MacKenzie was tasked to address these items and to make the revisions outlined. R. Seem proposed a motion: "The National Guidelines for Multistate Research Activities have sufficiently developed that NERA should adopt them as interim regional guidelines, along with the NE Supplement, and give final consideration to the finished guidelines electronically at a later date." He also clarified that the National Guidelines supersede the Regional version, and the NE Supplement will fill the gaps not covered in the national version.
The motion was seconded and approved.
Chair Nye noted that if CSREES will not allow the use of the updated version of the national guidelines as our interim regional guidelines, he will request for an extension of all projects terminating in 2000 and 2001 to allow transition of these projects to the new guidelines.
On the Stakeholder Input discussion:
It is apparent that the Northeastern stations are engaged in different activities to collect stakeholder inputs for their state programs. Among these activities are:
There was great interest in sharing this information. The variability of the processes used indicates that acceptability for methodology varies, such that a standard activity may not be feasible. P. Logan suggested that rather than sharing methods, outcomes should be shared to identify activities that really impacts programs. It would also be ideal to link these outcomes to the POWs.
The NERA-OED was tasked to create links from the NERA homepage to the Northeast stations’ stakeholder activities and POWs that are posted on the web.
Chair Nye charged D. Rossi to proceed with the NERA strategic plan and set regional priorities. A report is expected from the Committee at the summer meeting in June.
RRC Report Considered - Bob Seem
R. Seem read the report
http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/workshop/RRCReport3-6-2000.html
A motion was made to accept item nos. 1 to 5 of the RRC Report (as posted on the above url). The motion was seconded and approved.
On the requests for off-the-top funding, the RRC had ceased using the "tricky wording" because it puts NERA at a disadvantage when it comes to voting by the four regions. A non-committal statement is considered neutral and hence do not carry any weight. The NRSPs will be considered at the Summer Meeting.
It was noted that NE-9 is a national project and should be recognized as such. D. MacKenzie commented that ESCOP is currently forming a sub-committee on germplasm.
On the reported overlaps, RRC did not find substantial evidence to conclude that the projects overlap. However, there is danger that they are "perceived" to overlap. The projects have very distinct objectives, but may complement each other in some areas. RRC recommends that to avoid the perception of redundancy:
There is a need to look at the regional portfolio and package the small projects as programs. The AD-416, AD-417 and AD-419 are useful, but AD-421 fails to capture the collective accomplishments under the project. ARS has revised their accomplishments reporting to answer three basic questions: What? How? So what? This is still experimental, and length of reports varies. However, ARS is able to get more meaningful reports that are translatable to impacts and outputs.
There was consensus among the directors that individual approval of projects should no longer be required since the POW is already approved. There is also no need to report on AD-421 since the POW Report should satisfy the reporting requirement. Chair Nye proposed a resolution that would eliminate approval of individual projects and the use of AD-421 for reporting.
A motion was made to accept the resolution and for the Chair to submit this to C. Laughlin. The motion was seconded and passed. Please see the text of the resolution under the Resolution Committee Report.
OED Strategic Plan (Draft) - Dave MacKenzie
The OED Strategic Plan was posted on the web for the directors to review before the meeting, at url---- http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/STRATEGICPLAN2000.htm
The following decisions were made after some discussions:
The directors recognized that dialogue with Extension should continue. The NERA Executive Committee was charged to meet with the NEED (Northeast Extension Directors) Executive Committee. It was suggested that a Facilitator (Lavon Bartel or Chuck Laughlin) may be needed. Chair Nye will initiate the activity and report on this at the Summer meeting.
There are already collaborations existing: SAFER, SUNEI and Pasture Research and Extension Consortium that can be capitalized on. The OED was charged to move forward with his 2000 goals, and submit at least 2 proposals, one each for the 401 and 406 funding.
Revisit the 2001 activities at the Summer meeting and discuss the milestones for all the years.
The OED Strategic Plan will be revised and will be posted on the same url. http://www.agnr.umd.edu/users/NERA/STRATEGICPLAN2000.htm
Northeastern Multistate Research Award for Excellence (NE-183) – Win Cowgill
The 2000 NE Multistate Research Award for Excellence went to NE-183: Multidisciplinary Evaluation of New Apple Cultivars. Professor Win Cowgill, member of the NE-183 Technical Committee, Professor and County Agricultural Agent of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Hunterdon County made a brief presentation about NE-183. The directors were impressed with the accomplishments of NE-183. Because of this project, apples developed from the Northeast are gaining popularity nationwide. Northeastern growers are also given a lot of support in deciding what cultivars would grow well in their orchards. The growers are also given tips in marketing. Prof. Cowgill shared the url for the project’s homepage--- http://www.virtualorchard.net/ne183
Proposed 2000/2001 NERA Budget - John Nye
The proposed NERA budget has not been finalized because of some missing elements. Chair Nye requested the directors to give him the annual average salary increase used in their stations. The proposed budget will be circulated by e-mail for approval, but if a face-to-face meeting is necessary then it will be discussed at the Summer meeting.
Annual Review of the Executive Director and the OED - John Nye
Chair Nye received 12 responses from the evaluation survey. The outcome is positive. He urged the directors to contact him directly if they have questions.
Resolutions Committee Report - Jim Hunter
The resolution on the elimination of individual approvals of projects and the AD-421 was seconded and approved. The text follows:
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, the 1998 AREERA required approval of Plans of Work to authorize the expenditure of Hatch funds for research, and
WHEREAS, the member stations of the Northeast Regional Association of State Agricultural Experiment Station Directors (NERA) have obtained approval for their Plans of Work, and
WHEREAS, the Plans of Work include requirements for annual reporting, peer and merit reviews, stakeholder input, and other measures of accountability, and
WHEREAS, these requirements were to replace unnecessary duplication and to comply with the federal government’s Paperwork Reduction Act, and
WHEREAS, the current AD-421 is focused on reporting of annual outputs and, accountability is best measured with outcomes and impacts that are already required in the Plan of Work report,
NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that NERA advocates that these new requirements for reporting accomplishments under the Plan of Work replace the submission of AD-421, and
FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED, that NERA advocates that approval of the Plan of Work replace the approval or each Hatch funded project by USDA-CSREES.
March 8, 2000
John C. Nye, Chair
Nominations Committee Report – John Nye
The Committee recommended the following:
Dan Rossi – NERCRD Representative
Paul Backman – NE Priorities Committee
The motion to accept the above nomination was seconded and approved.
The slate of officers for next year will be discussed at the Summer meeting. The new dean at West Virginia is being proposed for the Vice-Chair position.
Discussion of Proposed Summer Joint Session Agenda - John Nye
Rachel Johnson, earlier at the meeting, distributed packets for the Summer meeting to be held in Basin Harbor Club, Vergennes, Vermont. The meeting will be held on June 25-28. Room reservations should be made by May 25. More information about the venue is available at url---- http://ctr.uvm.edu/cals/jointmeeting
The Planning Committee will soon meet to discuss the agenda for the Joint Session.
Chair Nye adjourned the meeting at 1:55 p.m.