Effective Extension educational work requires that reports be timely, accurate, concise, and complete. Reporting is an element of Extension work that you may be the most favorite part of your job. Our County Extension Agents do an excellent job of programming, but some fail to capture their accomplishments in monthly reports. John Campbell (1995) in his book Reclaiming a Lost Heritage emphasized the public accountability importance of reporting by stating, “taxpayers deserve to know that their money is being prudently extended in society’s best interest” (p.140). The Legislative Budget Board (LLB) receives your TEXAS reports. If you did not report it did not happen. If you don't get your reports in prior to end of the quarter those reports are useless.
It is extremely important that Texas AgriLife Extension Service account for all educational activities and contacts. Failure to report these performance measures can severely impact appropriated funding. Reporting is fundamental to comprehensive Extension programs and should be treated as a significant part of Agents professional obligations. Reporting should be thought of as tool to modify and improve educational programs, as well as to communicate program progress and results to faculty, staff, planning committees, elected officials, clientele, and Extension Administrators.
As your District Extension Administrator I monitor Agent reports monthly to ensure that all Agents develop a system for maintaining records and documentation for my reporting purposes. All reports should contain the following:
•Who are targeted audiences for program/activity and the number attending?
•What issue is being addressed and subject matter covered?
•When did the program/activity take place?
•The impact of the program/activity. Adoption of practices, knowledge gained or behavioral changes should be reported.
The 2nd quarter ended in February (December, January and February). District 11 agents should have completed their reports on the TEXAS system before March 7th.
Reference: Campbell, J.R. (1995). Reclaiming a Lost Heritage. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press.
Legislative Contacts Quarterly Email One Pagers
I have been extremely pleased with the quality of the Legislative Quarterly One Pagers (December, January and February) that have been sent out recently. The information is more important than ever as state legislators work in Austin to balance our state budget. Your one pagers are being read, today an agent called me to tell me that he had contact with a Legislative aid about their county one pager and the aid requested the email sent in another format. This tells me that they want our information. Your Legislative Contact Quarterly Email One Pager is due to your Legislative contacts, county commissioners, selected stakeholders, and cc both Barbara Moretich and I by March 7th the end of the 2nd quarter.
Distance Educational Survey:
For those agents that have not completed the survey I asked you to complete last week, the deadline has been extended till today March 4th, you can go to the survey at the link below:
http://tamuag.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_6eSUKOo9Mv29sJ6
Partial Cost Recovery
There has been much discussion and questions on starting our new partial cost recovery initiative this week. Remember, try to find ways to implement cost recovery not look for ways to exempt your programs for the new process. We need to recover cost now and as quickly as possible. The Regional Program Directors and my self welcome your questions, keep them coming. Ag/NR agents your questions on Pesticide CEU's are being answered, you point of contact will be Dr. Dozier, and I will visit with Monty on trying to make our CEU cost recovery as consistent as possible in the District. Dr. Dozier is working with the state office in getting the answers to your questions.
2010 Performance Reviews
I have completed all of our performance reviews, and you should be getting an email from greatjobs, indicating your PAS is ready to certify. In completing my second year in evaluation your successes, I am certainly amazed of all your high quality outcomes. At times it may seem that I may ask more and more from you, but good agents can only get better if their supervisor challenges them; my job is to challenge agents in exceeding expectations. I am very fortunate to have agents in our district that that understand our mission and our capacity to provide quality service and leadership to those we work with.
Please certifiy your PAS and send back to me so I can forward to our unit head. The system sends me an email to let me know I have a pending evaluations for action when you complete the process in Greatjobs. If you have any questions contact me or our district office manager Barbara Moretich.
