Oregon NRCS/FSA Civil Rights Committee Minutes
 

SUBJECT:   Meeting Date - November 06 - November 07, 2007

Purpose:  The following minutes were recorded at the quarterly civil rights committee meeting held
in Redmond Oregon USDA Service Center.

Attendance:

• Misty Vega Falcon, Chair, Hispanic SEPM
• Ginny Cairo, FWPM (minutes)
• Kacee Lathrop, Disabilities SEPM
• Cory Owens, Black SEPM
• Darca Glasgow, Civil Rights Coordinator, FSA (Tuesday only)
• Phil Morton, SEPM, FSA (Tuesday only)
• Trent Luschen, Member at large, FSA (Tuesday only)

Important Dates

December 3rd: Calendar months due to Misty for 2008 Civil Rights Calendar
January 15th-16th: Training for most recent Civil Rights Compliance Review Checklist, Portland
January 29th: Photo due to Misty for Civil Rights Team poster
February 13: teleconference, 10 am-noon
February 18-22: Preparation for National Civil Rights Review
February 25: National Civil Rights Review, all CRT members to Portland
February 25-29: National Civil Rights Review, details TBA
May 14: meeting, details tba
August 21: teleconference, 10 am-noon

New Compliance Checklist Pending

A new checklist has been developed for use by NRCS, FSA, and RD. It has already been released for use for FSA and RD, but not yet officially released for NRCS use. Kacee Lathrop will be getting training on how to use the new checklist in December.

A uniform checklist between agencies can assist NRCS with achieving its annual Civil Rights Field Office Compliance Review goals because we may be able to use review information completed by FSA or RD.

Darca will contact the FSA District Director (with Pedro Ramos’ approval) to invite them to participate in the checklist training.

Since the National Office may be using the new checklist for the Oregon Civil Rights review in February 2008, a training for the new checklist has been planned for the Civil Rights Team in preparation for the National Office visit.

National Civil Rights Review Preparation

Statewide

Misty and Cory are going to work together creating educational submittals extracted from the Civil Rights Compliance Review Guide (CRCRG) for the Oregon NRCS NEWS E-Mail.

Employees need to update or develop current Individual Development Plans. Ginny mentioned that the Idaho NRCS has links to IDP’s for a variety of series.

Civil Rights Team

The format in the past has typically been as follows:

• Day 1 in Portland. All Civil Rights Team members need to be present for interviews.
• Day 2-4 Field Office visits. These visits have typically been along the I-5 corridor, but that cannot be assumed to be true. Big programs may now be the emphasis, like Pendleton and Klamath Falls, for example. The actual field offices chosen will not be announced until 3 weeks prior.

Misty emphasized that drivers may be needed to accompany the team/teams to the chosen field offices. Those drivers would preferably be CRT members. The team is usually comprised of 4-5 members, and it is unknown if they will travel together or prefer to split into separate teams.

If SEPM’s have made any recruiting efforts at job fairs and colleges, send information to Misty, who will forward to Sue Brandt. This is one of the questions Sue will probably need to address during the interview process.

Misty requests that all SEPM’s review the following written material:

• Sample Questions for SEPM’s in the new Civil Rights Compliance Review Guide (dated November 2006) in preparation for the National Office visit. Please note this is NOT the version that was distributed at the April 2007 training in Pendleton and there are changes to the 11/06 version.
• GM 230 part 405 (handed out at meeting)
• Part 1614 Federal Sector Equal Employment Opportunity (Misty will send CRT a link)

The week prior to the National Office visit should be left open because informal compliance reviews will be performed at the chosen offices. Make these informal reviews educational during the question portion to help prepare the field offices.

Field Offices

Misty is going to find out what the D.C.’s are supposed to be doing with the S.W.C.D.’s with respect to Civil Rights and Program Delivery.

The Civil Rights binders will be reviewed and updated. More on this later in the minutes.

The week prior to the National Office visit CRT members will be performing compliance reviews at the chosen offices. These informal reviews are meant to be educational in preparation for the following week.

Compliance Checklist Standards

There was discussion about which compliance checklist will be used for which offices. This will depend on when the lease is due to expire. Lease length for offices in Oregon vary from 5-10 years.

The appropriate compliance checklist will be used depending on what point in time the building’s lease is due to expire, as some structural access issues can only be negotiated just prior to that time.

Field Office Civil Rights Binders

Bob Graham supports the continued utilization of the Field Office Civil Rights Binders. These binders are 5 to 6 years old, and the maintenance level is expected to be highly variable due to lack of information released regarding them, employee turnover, and the 5 year compliance review cycle. The binders were organized based upon the CRCRG that was current at the time. Misty will be putting a bulletin together that will be released under Bob Graham’s signature addressing the binder maintenance.

Binder issues the CRT discussed include:

• Every D.C. should have one binder.
• D.C.’s with more than one county or SWCD can use additional tabs in the binder
• D.C.’s will be responsible for binder clean-up/maintenance
• Five years of documentation will be kept in the binder, and no more
• Include a laminated Table of Contents for the binder, which will include reference to updated CRCRG
• Fiscal years will be separated by colored paper

SEPM Term

Misty would like to change the SEPM terms to 3 years from the present term of 2 years. This is also a recommendation made during the USDA graduate school “How to manage a special emphasis program” course.

A 3 year term increases program implementation efficiency. It takes about a year to get training and learn the duties of a SEPM. Implementing the SEP for only one year keeps half the Civil Rights Team on a steep learning curve.

The other advantage to a 3 year term is that only 1/3 of the team will change membership annually. Having more experience available for the Civil Rights compliance review field office visits will increase the efficiency and quality of completing such a large workload item.

Oregon Civil Rights Team Poster

The poster format is going to change from a group photo to individual photos to better include all members. Submit individual head and shoulder photos to Misty by January 29th. She will coordinate the building of a new poster with current members.

Educational Video

Kacee Lathrop presented a video titled “The 10 commandments of Communicating with people with disabilities”. It was 20 minutes in length, and CRT members generally agreed it would be a good tool to promote awareness. A good venue could be an NRCS basin staff meeting or basin team meeting. The video can be requested by contacting Kacee.

Oregon Leadership Development Program

Ginny presented her findings regarding the program applicants vs. program participants. Misty asked Ginny to type up a formal letter for Misty’s review, which Misty plans to present to Bob Graham and Pedro Ramos.

2008 Field Office Civil Rights Compliance Review Assignments

Cory requested that the Eugene and Tangent reviews occur after February and before June. That request will be incorporated into the letter that will be sent to the District Conservationists requesting a review date. However at this time, that letter is being edited and is not available for distribution yet.

Meeting adjourned at approximately 10:00 a.m.

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