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Oregon NRCS/FSA Civil Rights Committee Minutes
 

SUBJECT:   Meeting Date - January 15 - January 16, 2008

Attendance:

  • Misty Vega Falcon, Chair, Hispanic Emphasis Program Manager
  • Ginny Cairo, Federal Women Program Manager
  • Kacee Lathrop, Disabilities Emphasis Program Manager (minutes)
  • Cory Owens, Black Emphasis Program Manager
  • Dave Dishman, Asian/Pacific Islander Emphasis Program Manager
  • Gina Kerzman, American Indian Emphasis Program Manager
  • Leo Preston, Member At Large
  • Pedro Ramos, Leader – Field Operations
  • Bob Graham, Oregon State Conservationist
  • Cec Cullison, Executive Assistant

Important Dates

January 22, 2008: Revisions to Civil Rights Performance Element due to Pedro
January 29, 2008: photo due to Misty for Civil Rights Team Poster
February 13, 2008; teleconference, 10 am – noon
February 25, 2008: National Civil Rights Review, all CR Team Members to Portland
February 25-29, 2008: National Civil Rights Review, details to follow
May 14, 2008: Civil Rights Team Meeting, Redmond 8 am-2 pm
August: teleconference, 10 am – noon

New Documents

Misty has revised the preliminary and final letters that are used when completing the annual civil rights compliance reviews for the field offices. She will be sending them to the team electronically.

The preliminary letter is to be addressed to the District Conservationist for the field office being reviewed, with a carbon copy to the Basin Team Leader. The final letter is to be addressed to the Basin Team Leader, with a carbon copy to the District Conservationist for the office reviewed.

The final letter is to be sent to Cec Cullison at the state office electronically along with the Compliance Review Write-up with interviews and the Write-up without interviews. A carbon copy should be sent to Misty. Bob Graham and Pedro Ramos will review the reports and send to them to the Basin Team Leader when approved.

All letters can be sent electronically.

Give ‘Em the Pickle

Misty presented the video “Give ‘Em the Pickle”. This video provides awareness on how to treat customers.

Compliance Review Process:

What has worked? What could be improved?

Accessibility:

The question was brought up concerning the definition of agreed to items versus recommended items.

The team came to the consensus that all accessibility issues should be agreed to items.

  • Agreed to items should come into compliance or be addressed within 30 days of receiving the final report. The DC should state actions taken in their close out letter.
  • Leo brought up the concern that as a BTL and the receiving end of the compliance review reports that he is often blindsided by the issues discovered and is sent into panic mode. What should he do? Who should he contract?
    • The review team should sit down with DC’s following the review to notify them as to what was found during the review
    • Team can assist with suggestions to possibly alleviate the problem until a permanent fix can occur.
  • Question – who pays for necessary improvements for the office to come into compliance? NRCS, FSA, landlord
    • depends on the issue. Contact Lesley Kelly at state office.
  • The team has concerns that out of compliance issues that are unable to be addressed within the 30 day timeframe may be forgotten as staff changes, when leases expire, etc.
    • building leases are 5 years with 5 year extensions available. Pedro stated that is would be to our benefit to align the compliance review schedule with the lease expirations.
    • Kacee volunteered to work with contracting officials and FSA on the lease expirations.
  • Review team should ask for last review conducted in the field office to make sure agreed to and recommended items from that review have been addressed.

Kacee present a draft of the new accessibility checklist that is currently under review at the national level. They are hoping it will be released for use within the next couple weeks. The new checklist will be utilized by NRCS, FSA and RD. Kacee will send the memo and new checklist electronically to the CR team when it is approved and available.

  • It is still up in the air as to which checklist the national review team will use during the review.

Training

Majority of the Civil Rights Team are new and have not received proper training.  It would be to the benefit of the team to receive training prior to the 2008 compliance reviews.

  • Misty will work with State Office to try and set this up for the Civil Rights Team as well as Leadership Team.

Ginny was approached by a DC regarding any training that may be available for DC’s to use for working with Conservation Districts on civil rights policies.

  • Misty said that she has several power point presentations and will pull something together along with Leo and Gina for DC’s to potentially use a tool for this purpose.
  • The power-point will be posted on the civil rights webpage
  • Misty will work with Jill and Sara at Public Affairs to make sure the power-point is compliant with all necessary regulations.
  • It was also brought to the attention of the team that the required posting for SWCD’s and RC&D’s is different than NRCS and that the team should be aware of this when assisting and reviewing offices.

National Compliance Review Preparation

Misty went over the last national review from 2003 with the CR Team. Gina and Misty suggested that the Oregon Civil Rights Team prepare any questions they may have for the national review team.

In preparation for the national review the team has assigned members to do a quick review and prep the staff in the offices being reviewed.

  • Cory and Dave will prep the state office by presenting them the questions from the review guide that pertain to them and doing a quick run though of the accessibility check-list so the state office is aware of any issues and can take steps to correct or address them prior to the review.
  • Gina will complete the same process as above for the Redmond Service Center and John Day Field Office.
  • Misty and Kacee will complete the Pendleton Field Office, Columbia Blue Mountain RC&D, Mission Satellite Office, and La Grande Field Office.

Cory has taken on the task of preparing all the NRCS staff on Civil Rights through the use of the weekly e-notes. Cory will send the entire questions and answers document to the CR team.

Misty will be calling in to the next Leadership Team Meeting to again help prepare the state office and those present and answer any questions people have.

Misty needs to notify each office being reviewed by the national team that all staff must to be available during the review. As well as the district manager, a district board member, and landowner. She will provide more details to the field offices as to which day the national team will be at their office when she receives the final schedule.

In preparation for the national review the CR Team needs to be will educated on the current review guide and questions within, the accessibility checklist and the EEO complaint process.

Civil Rights Binder

Misty has taken a lot of time to go through, purge and compile the correct information that should be kept in the Civil Rights Binders for each field office.

  • The Civil Rights Binders follow the current compliance review guide dated Nov. 2006.  The purpose of the binder is to be a tool for DC’s that could replace their 230 files if they chose to adopt the binder fully.
  • How the DC’s chose to utilize the binder is up to them but they need to keep in mind Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
    • Lock binders up if PII is accessible.
    • Misty will show the completed binder to Lesley Kelly to double check for any PII information.
  • Information not located in the binder should be referenced in the binder where it is located.
  • The binders are to consist of 5 years of information. Compliance Review to Compliance Review.
  • Misty will provide guidance to all DC’s on the Binders
    • She is preparing a table of contents
    • Required posters, policy, directives, etc are located on the Oregon Civil Rights Webpage.
  • Cec described to the team what she keeps in her State Office 230 file as required by the General Manual.
    • Cec will send the regulations for the GM to the team.
  • As we went through the compliance review guide and the binders a few points were discussed by the team.
    • Kacee will provide Misty with some documentation on reasonable accommodation,
  • The team discussed whether EEO was considered when awards were given.
    • Misty will get current media and outreach lists from Public Affairs to include.

First Amendment Discrimination

Cory asked the question that if someone feels their 1st Amendment Rights have been infringed what should NRCS tell them since this is not a Civil Rights or EEO issue.

  • Refer them to the employee assistance program.

Peace Corps Video

Cory presented her masters documentary on Indigenous soils in Senegal from her Peace Corps experience to the CR team and Bob Graham.

Bob Graham – Watershed Approach

Bob stepped in on the CR meeting to see if the team had any questions for him. He also thanked the entire team for volunteering to be a part of the Civil Rights team and taking on the additional responsibility.

The main purpose for Bob’s attendance was to ask the team to provide outreach techniques and suggestions to identify groups of producers that aren’t typical players in our programs. There is a lot of emphasis in the new farm bill on socially disadvantaged groups and the watershed approach to planning. Bob asked the team to think about how we can implement the watershed approach as well as socially reach all the groups involved in those watersheds. The watershed approach needs to address the social concerns and resource concerns on the natural resources in the target watersheds. Fore example; utilizing soil scientists for outreach. Soil scientists are often the 1st contact some producers have to NRCS. Should soil scientists, etc be trained to briefly discuss programs to these new potential customers? Bob suggested that Meta provide the CR Team with a briefing on the new farm bill and its emphasis’ and Tom Makowski to describe watershed planning following the National Review in February.

  • the team suggested the May CR Meeting for Meta and Tom to present their topics to the Team.

Bob was asked by Leo whether or not this watershed approach would change the services we currently provide? For example, do we only provide assistance to the target watersheds? Bob stated that politically, no, but our service may be different. We can’t drain resources from our base assistance; the new farm bill may incorporate new staff and more monies for watershed planning.

Civil Rights Performance Element

Pedro presented the new performance element that will be a part of each member of the Civil Rights teams’ performance plans for this fiscal year. The new performance plans are narrower and fit the employees’ position description better than previous plans. Pedro asked the team to review the new element, track our changes and suggestions and email it back to him by close of business Tuesday, January 22. The new Performance plans will be completed by each of our supervisors by the end of this month.

SEPM Annual Plans

There was a discussion as to whether the SEPM annual plans could be incorporated into the Oregon Business Plan. Doing so would not require signatures from each SEPM and Bob. Pedro was going to check on this.

Civil Rights Team Vacancy

There is currently a member at large position open on the Civil Rights Team. Misty mentioned that the vacancy had to be extended because no applications were received.
The CR Team will work on outreach for this position and suggested targeting geographic areas of the state not currently represented as well as DC’s since there is not one currently on the team and DC’s are highly affected by the Compliance Review Process. Misty stated that as we do outreach to remember that the employee needs to be a full-time, permanent employee due to the time commitments required. Dave suggested putting together a fact sheet explaining the advantages of serving on the Civil Rights Committee. Cory volunteered to put something together.

Student Vacancy

The student vacancy has been extended until March due to the Human Resources Staff only receiving on application. Misty suggested that the CR Team continue to work really had on outreach and stressed that face to face means a lot.

  • the team asked to be notified sooner when problem like this are occurring.
  • the team suggested Misty bring up the CR Teams concerns to Jay Gibbs who is the lead for the student program and suggested that Jay bring it to the attention of the leadership team.

Adjourn

The meeting was adjourned at approximately 11:30 am.
 


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