NFA Graduation

We recently graduated the 28th Session of the National Forensic Academy. These men and women spent 10 weeks with us learning all the latest crime scene investigation techniques. We had participants from Alaska, Washington, New Mexico and New Hampshire, just to name a few of the states who participated. We continue to receive outstanding feedback about their experience.

Mark Gwyn, Director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, was the graduation speaker. Chief Owen of the Knoxville Police Department also attended the ceremony. It was his last graduation before his retirement and he had one person in the class. Dr. Bill Bass presented the outstanding student award.

LEIC continues to provide a high-quality, cost-effective program.

Budget Update

Who would think about celebrating a budget cut? Well, when you are expecting more and you get less, that's cause for celebrating! Early last fall some people were predicting as much as a 25% reduction in state funding. The out-going governor asked state agencies to plan for 1- 3% reductions. Of course, this is in addition to all the other cuts we've already taken. In the end, the reduction for the three IPS line items is only about 1%, so yes we have reason to celebrate!

In addition to the cut in funding, we received an increase to fund the rising costs of retirement and health insurance. On top of that we received salary and benefits dollars equivalent to 1.6% of our state-funded positions.

All in all, this is a much better budget picture than we were expecting, at least on the state side. Now we're hoping our federal funding picture turns out as rosy!

More details to come as we work toward completing our proposed budgets during the month of May. The Board of Trustees will officially approve the budget in June.

Best Wishes!

This month we are saying good bye to three outstanding staff members.

Nathan Lefebvre has been with LEIC for 9 years helping increase the reputation of the National Forensic Academy. He has, no doubt, been successful and we wish him well in his new endeavor in the private sector.

Gary West spent many years in the active fire service before coming to MTAS as a Fire Management Consultant. His impact is seen across the state of Tennessee and now
he will carry that expertise to the state Department of Commerce and Insurance as the State Fire Marshall. We will definitely be seeing Gary again!

Melanie Purcell is leaving MTAS for the lure of "doing" city management rather than "advising" about city management. As Melanie leaves for the great state of Virginia, we thank her for her service to MTAS, IPS and the cities of Tennessee. We wish her and her family well..

Bingham Fund

Monday, March 7 we celebrated a milestone with the Tennessee Municipal League and the cities we serve.

During a fund raising campaign some years ago we set up an endowment account to fund special projects and activities for cities across the state. Many cities as well as individuals contributed to this campaign. Herb Bingham was the long-time director of TML and it was fitting to name the fund for him.

Recently the endowment reached $1,000,000! That's fantastic. We appreciate all the individuals, organizations and cities who made this possible and we look forward to serving them for many years to come.

Compensation Advisory Board Announcement

STARTING JULY 1, 2011 UT’S MINIMUM STARTING PAY RATE WILL INCREASE TO $8.50 per hour for Regular Full- and Part-time Employees.

This is the first initiative recommended by the Compensation Advisory Board in its advisory role assisting in the development of the University’s first strategic compensation plan. The idea to increase UT’s minimum starting pay rate came from UT employee comments and suggestions to the Board of Trustees’ Effectiveness and Efficiency for the Future Committee and to the President’s UTalk forum for employees. These employees expressed concern about pay levels of their co-workers in the first three pay grades.

CAB will continue its work in identifying best total compensation practices, developing a multi-year compensation strategy and developing the infrastructure for competitive compensation at UT.

“ALL OF OUR EMPLOYEES - FACULTY AND STAFF - ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SUCCESS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE.” President Joe DiPietro

Although there are no employees in IPS affected by this new policy, it is an important first step in our comprehensive compensation review.

UT Hill Day

Wednesday March 9 was UT Day on the Hill. Susan Robertson set up our display and staffed the booth. Our legislative intern, David Samples, also assisted.
Maggie McLean, Executive Director of the Tennessee Association of Chiefs of Police, represented IPS stakeholders and visited with UT Board of Trustees member Andrea Loughery.

The president's staff visited with Speaker Harwell and the chairs of the house and senate education committees and then attended the Senate Education Committee meeting. While IPS is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, the UT Health Science Center is celebrating 100 years and UT Chattanooga is celebrating 125 years. There's a lot of celebrating going on!

New IPS CBO

Please welcome Gail White to IPS! Gail joins IPS today as only the third CBO in our 40 year history. That's amazing.

Gail has tremendous experience in the UT's Treasurer's Office as well as private sector experience before coming to UT. She is a native Tennessean and holds a CPA.

I look forward to Gail providing leadership in our business services area.