NASCOE's NAFEC Committee - Report of Activities

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NASCOE's NAFEC Committee - 

I.  All Area Chairs have been very involved and effective to the team's efforts in:

    A.  Communicating NAFEC's Membership Drive - asking all NASCOE state leaders these past 4  months to put forward all the membership material to their states' county offices.

    B.  Surveying every state with regard to 3 questions:

1.   Did the NAFEC Membership documents get sent out in your state?
2.   What is the status of COC training in your state, and if it is occurring, how?
3.   Is your state limiting the number of COC meetings?

    C.  Participating in Monthly Conference Calls of this committee these past 3 months. Brandon Wilson has been on each call to assist in answering questions and provide NASCOE guidance, thoughts, and ideas.  Craig Turner, NAFEC President has also been able to be on one of the calls, as well as President Dennis Ray.

    D.  Increasing NAFEC membership. NAFEC has several new regular and associate members since December. Sixteen new members and 64 renewed memberships have been processed so far with both new and renewals continuing to come in. It is anticipated that NAFEC will have 75 brand new members by June. Both new and renewed members are receiving welcome letters and membership cards after they have been received and processed. It is very important that all new and renewal members complete the membership applications i  detail and legibly.

    E.   Members who have supplied e-mail addresses and/or joined NAFEC's Facebook page have occasionally been receiving updates of interest.

    F.   Assisting NAFEC Leadership prepare for their WDC Joint Association meetings.
 

II    NAFEC leadership has also directly reached out to the Department and FSA management in the past few months with letters. Those include:

    A. Two letters to Secretary Perdue. The first was the concern about workload data, having an accurate and  transparent workload tool for staffing decisions. The second letter was regarding local County Office/Service Center Leasing, 33-AS, and that returning leasing authority to the County Committee would help FPAC meet a goal of being much more efficient and practical in our rural areas in which most USDA county offices are located.

    B.  PM-2993  Concerns  -A detailed listing of concerns about this notice related to the 2018 Performance Plan changes were sent to FSA Management requesting clarifications and inclusion of the COC's supervisory role of the CED.

III.  In Addition to the above - Items of joint interest/concern to both NASCOE and NAFEC include;    

• Annual structured COC Training- Important that all county and state level  employees know all COC duties and responsibilities to improve program delivery, reduce appeal problems, and reduce HR/personnel problems. COC would also be  served better by knowing more FSA program specific details.  
• County Office Staffing as well as FPAC Organization and Service Center Plans for Supervision Budgeting for COC training and COC Meetings -  Separate these line item expenses from the budgeted Temporary CO FTE's so that "flexing away COC funds" does not continue.

Submitted by Billy Denison, NASCOE's  NAFEC Committee Chairman

NAFEC Website http://fsacountycommittees.org/