Successful Connections with MTAS and CTAS

MTAS Municipal and Finance Program Manager Angie Carrier discusses the Successful Connections program. Successful Connections is a joint venture with MTAS, CTAS and the Tennessee Comptroller's office. It brings together city, county and utility officials to discuss issues that are keeping them up at night. 

Transcript

Transcript

00:00:03 Speaker 2

Hi and welcome to In Touch with Tennessee, a podcast of the University of Tennessee Institute for Public Service.

00:00:10 Speaker 2

Today's guest is Angie Carrier Municipal Management and Finance program manager for our municipal technical Advisory service or MTAS. Welcome.

00:00:20 Speaker 1

Thank you for having me.

00:00:23 Speaker 2

So tell us a little bit about your role at MTAS

00:00:27 Speaker 1

OK, in municipal management and finance we provide General Services across the state.

00:00:37 Speaker 1

We have several management consultants and finance consultant management usually.

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Works with city managers or the governing body to help them with laws or ordinances.

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Strategic planning finance is pretty obvious.

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It's budgeting and purchasing.

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Thing and end of the year details and and audit.

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So we provide those services to all our municipalities across the state.

00:01:04 Speaker 2

So let's talk about.

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Successful connections, what is this program about?

00:01:11 Speaker 1

Well, first I'd like to say what what happened to bring it to light?

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The Comptroller's office, the director of the local government Finance Office, Betsy Knotts, came up with the idea of this program and she wanted to involve MTAS and CTAS to implement it and and help plan this event so.

00:01:38 Speaker 1

What she had in her vision for this was to bring counties and cities, and.

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Utility districts or or utility providers together and look at what we have in common and learn from each other and build relationships one with the state and the controller's office. 'cause all three of those entities have a relationship with the controller controller's office.

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And then also to look at what we all have as cities, counties and utilities.

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What we have in common rather than what we have, as far as what makes us different, because sometimes we compete for funds and and we we have different perspectives when it comes to serving.

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Our customers.

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And she wanted to create this platform where we could all talk about what we have in common and learn from each other about those things we have in common and just build better relationships across the state.

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So I think that's a great program and I am I feel grateful to be involved with it.

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Because I think that it's going to do great.

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Things for our.

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State and bring these entities closer together rather.

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Than farther apart.

00:02:59 Speaker 2

Great, OK, well let me ask.

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How do utility districts figure into this?

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You mentioned that they are involved as well.

00:03:07 Speaker 1

Well, the Comptroller's office also audits utility districts and utility providers so.

00:03:15 Speaker 1

Those entities also work within our city limits or within our county boundaries, and they're also run by a governing body, and they may not be elected.

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They may be appointed, but there's still a governing body and they still have the same type.

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Of employee and skill sets and decision making abilities so.

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Comptroller's office wanted to bring them in as well.

00:03:43 Speaker 1

And we've even.

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Discussed at some point of bringing in school districts or that sort of thing 'cause we have.

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Those types of things in common.

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If you look at it, our.

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Our first session was about what keeps you up at night.

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Right and one of those items was succession planning and retention of employees.

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And all of those entities have that issue right now, so that's a common thread, and so bringing all of these entities together, I think it is a good thing.

00:04:20 Speaker 2

Have you all met so far?

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You've mentioned  ‘in our first session.’

00:04:27 Speaker 1

We started meeting in January of this year and the planning Committee involved myself as a representative of end task and then see task is.

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Involved in that.

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There's a few people from the controller's office.

00:04:43 Speaker 1

Yes, and we had initially thought, well, we'll have roundtable discussions and have an in person meeting and we thought, well, how are we going to get everyone across the state to drive and be involved?

00:04:58 Speaker 1

And that's when the brainstorming happened and we decided to have a hybrid event.

00:05:03 Speaker 1

In January we we met and we came up with the topic of what keeps you up at night.

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And so we do an in person meeting in at Polk Ave in Nashville.

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And then we do the the hybrid event.

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So it's on Zoom

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Uhm, situation to where everyone can log in and see the panelists and and see everything.

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So we had our first kickoff meeting in February and that was the topic.

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Of what keeps?

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You up at night and all of these things came out of that.

00:05:38 Speaker 1

That was a great.

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Initial meeting and there were mayors from across the state and utility district directors.

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As our panelists and then following that event, we did a survey.

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And asked everyone that participated and those that even didn't that same question so we could come up with the topics for the rest of the year.

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So we've decided to do this quarterly.

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We just had one this month earlier with the succession planning and retention, and there was a lot of participation.

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There and that was great.

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We meet again in June to plan our October event.

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Our next event is October 7th.

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And we've decided this format has been very successful and we're going to continue with it and do these quarterly sessions and base that on what we've heard from the people across the state of what they want to learn about and talk about.

00:06:38 Speaker 2

Great, that's great, so I know you've you said the attendance has been well both online and in person.

00:06:45 Speaker 2

So I I guess the interest is is really there for this type of training.

00:06:49 Speaker 1

So far our participants have been between 200 and 300 people for each event, and that's great numbers, and if those continue.

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Then I think that we'll be able to maybe spin something off of this.

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Of of we've asked, would you like to meet with people in your same field?

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And maybe we coordinate some special meetings and things like that, so there's so many things that can happen with people just talking.

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And getting others perspectives, I think it's going to be a success and I know that's connection with the successful connections title, but I think it's it.

00:07:29 Speaker 1

It's a good event.

00:07:31 Speaker 2

It sounds like it and you.

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Said these sessions are going to be held quarterly.

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Do you think at any point, and maybe you know, I know you don't have a crystal ball, but that this might be a monthly thing.

00:07:43 Speaker 2

There may be a larger version as an annual conference type of event.

00:07:49 Speaker 1

I could see a larger event happening.

00:07:52 Speaker 1

I don't know about monthly because it is.

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Time consuming to get panelists in person to drive there across the state.

00:08:03 Speaker 1

I think quarterly is a better.

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It's just a better solution right now because the panelists need to be in person, right?

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And we're bringing people from West Tennessee, up recency and Nashville area to this event and it lasts about an hour and a half.

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And what's great about it too?

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And I think why we get a lot of participation.

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That is that they get CPE credits.

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Uhm, for finance credits for their certifications.

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So I think that this is going to remain quarterly, but I can see an annual event in the future.

00:08:42 Speaker 2

That's great.

00:08:43 Speaker 2

That's great.

00:08:44 Speaker 2

So what types of comments have you heard from some of the attendees, oh.

00:08:48 Speaker 1

They're very thankful for getting these comments and from hearing from.

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People that are in the same situation as them, especially if say you're in a small rural county or city and sometimes you don't get to see what's happening in the larger cities.

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Or see you know the other mayors talk about their issues and think that it's.

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Saying, OK, we're all in this together and I'm not alone and I'm seeing these same thing.

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Things, and here's how they're handling it.

00:09:24 Speaker 1

Oh, I haven't tried that.

00:09:25 Speaker 1

So especially in those rural communities where you know you have that option of seeing someone online and listening to someone with those same problems, it makes you feel better.

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And so I mean, and we all know this is human beings so.

00:09:42 Speaker 1

I think that.

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It's great to bring in some some of that emotional connection, but it's also good to bring in specialists that can give people some advice on how to approach certain situations, especially with HR and knowing what the trends are and.

00:10:03 Speaker 1

What employees are doing and it's good for some mayors and city managers to hear the HR specialist point of view and say hey?

00:10:14 Speaker 1

To keep employees, now you have to be flexible and those sorts of little tidbits that may be like, well, we don't have to do that well if you're going to retain and keep your good employees, you're going to have to do certain things.

00:10:27 Speaker 1

And I just think that everyone appreciates that and appreciates hearing that knowledge that they can get.

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You know, with a quick click on a button and listen to that online and so.

00:10:41 Speaker 1

I think that it's a success because people appreciate that knowledge.

00:10:45 Speaker 2

What are some of?

00:10:46 Speaker 2

Or expert speakers that you've brought in.

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To talk about.

00:10:49 Speaker 1

These issues, (Knox County) Mayor (Glenn) Jacobs was on our panel for the first first session.

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Mayor Jill McKenzie

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We've had.

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As far as our panelists, John Grubbs (MTAS HR consultant).

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Within tests, our HR consultant there was Cheryl Lewis Smith with Sumner County, the HR director for them.

00:11:11 Speaker 1

So we just had a wide perspective of just different folks there and.

00:11:18 Speaker 1

County Mayor Rogers Anderson with Williamson County.

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Was was on their panel last time, so those those people have different perspectives and it's good to see that.

00:11:32 Speaker 2

Yeah yeah, I.

00:11:33 Speaker 2

Bet it is well.

00:11:35 Speaker 2

Is there anything else that you'd like to discuss about successful connections today?

00:11:39 Speaker 1

Well, I just want everyone to know that October 7th is our next event.

00:11:45 Speaker 1

We don't know what the topic is yet, but it's going to come from the survey of the participants themselves and in June we should probably.

00:11:55 Speaker 1

Have selected a topic and we're going to be recruiting panelists for that topic, so.

00:12:01 Speaker 2

Great, great, well and I'm sure we'll see.

00:12:03 Speaker 2

More about that on.

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The MTASt social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

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So we look forward to finding out more about it.

00:12:11 Speaker 2

So thanks for joining us.

00:12:12 Speaker 2

It's been great to hear about this program.

00:12:15 Speaker 1

Thank you.

00:12:17 Speaker 2

And thanks listeners for tuning in, we will be back next month for another episode of In Touch with Tennessee.