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Monday, December 30, 2013

IPS Staff Visit UNC Chapel Hill

Guest Blog by IPS Assistant Vice President Steve Thompson:
 
December 19, 2013

 

IPS Colleagues:

 

Over the past few years Dr. Jinks has encouraged and we have discussed the need to visit and compare our operations with some of the other university-based public service organizations. On November 21 of this year we took a first step with a visit to the UNC School of Government at Chapel Hill. In this note I’ll summarize the highlights of this trip, and while I realize that this is summary is somewhat lengthy I believe that those making the trip found the results interesting and potentially useful for IPS. We will also be looking for additional ways to discuss this and future such comparisons.

 

I was joined in this visit by Macel Ely, Mike Garland, Terri Kinloch, Libby McCroskey, Robin Roberts, Jim Thomas, Jon Walden and Rick Whitehead. I hope that you will take the time to ask them about the trip and the information that we gained. The School of Government has a great operation, and is similar to and different from IPS in a number of ways. 

 

General Structure

The school is part of the UNC campus, and in addition to consulting and training it includes the MPA program. Our focus with this trip and in this summary is with the consulting and training programs. 

 

About half (49 percent) of the funding for the school is provided through a state appropriation for the campus, and the balance is raised through membership fees from cities and counties, fees from training programs, and fees from the sale of publications (a whopping $1.3 million). The school has its own foundation, and has three full-time and one part-time staff primarily dedicated to fundraising and development. The part-time staff person raises funds for the MPA program, two staff members focus on raising funds for general support as well as for special programs and initiatives, and one staff member serves as support. The school raises funds through individuals, local governments, city and county associations and private vendors for scholarships, technology and improvements to meeting and training rooms, and for specific programs.

 

Programs and Services

Programs are generally delivered by tenure-track faculty members, and the school offers the faculty model of training and assistance – there are annual programs offered, but otherwise new courses, classes and schedules are driven and developed by the faculty. The school has a staff of 150 full-time employees, about 30 part-time employees and another 30 adjunct instructors at any given time. Of the 53 faculty members 33 are attorneys. Faculty teaching in UNC-Chapel Hill’s academic programs are usually required to maintain a teaching load of four classes, but School of Government faculty teaching in the MPA program (the school’s only academic program) teach two courses, with the balance of their time spent on training, advising, and writing for public officials.

 

The blogs are extensive and provide a great supplement to the limited off-site training and consulting. I particularly recommend subscribing to Coates’ Canons, the blog of the local government legal staff. The blogs are tremendous resources for local governments in North Carolina, and are usually relevant to our work with local government in Tennessee. In addition, the school maintains a library of 136 publications, primarily books, on local government issues and topics.

 

The UNC staff is focused on training offered through the school. You see by the website (http://www.sog.unc.edu) that the school offers annual programs, including orientation for newly-elected local officials and for professional local government staff. It also assists local governments with facilitation and technical consulting. Consulting is focused on strategic and economic development planning and legal opinions, with legal opinions and advice provided primarily through e-mails and telephone calls. The school also offers training for court officials, who are considered state employees, but generally it views local government training as its primary focus.

 

The school is working to develop online training programs with cameras in each class and meeting room.

 

Marketing

Training is generally marketed both by a print postcard and one or more e-mail notifications, all with a similar template and format. They track and try not to contact the same customer more than once per week so that each note has some significance. They do require participants to register online using credit cards or purchase orders, but also offer an ability to register by telephone. They are finding that the demand for telephone registration is rapidly declining.

 

Performance Measures and Continuous Improvement

The school offers credits for continuing legal education, coordinated through the N.C. Bar Association, but does not require CEU review for training classes. Training participants are surveyed with an instrument similar to the surveys that we use, and Terri and Macel obtained a copy of the survey.  We also talked at length about performance measures and continuous improvement efforts, and the staff at the school was very interested in both, particularly performance measures in an environment of reductions in state funding. 

 

The UNC staff spent a great deal of time with us, and gave everyone ample opportunity to ask about the specifics of how the school addresses the same issues that we face. Based on the initial comments that I have heard, I believe that the consensus was that this was both interesting and provided great information for our work with IPS.

 

I appreciate your work as we serve and improve services in Tennessee.

 

 

Steve Thompson
Assistant Vice President

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Institute for Public Service
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