Resources for CDs
If you are looking for answers to questions, there are a number of sources.
The Employee Handbook is a more thorough take on what we CD Employees do. However, for those new to the office, we wanted a more succinct “First Week on the Job” crash course. We’ve done some edits on the original “field guide” and will be getting these out to District soon!
New Employee Orientation Guide-2025 Update
New Employee Orientation Checklist
Area Directors/EO Leadership-Reach out to any of these for help.
DNRC CDB Specialists-Scroll down to the bottom of the page
DNRC CDB Help Desk-This is an online portal to submit requests etc.
Wage Plus Fringe Tool
You can personalize this tool for your Conservation District to come up with the true cost of employees. Use the final number for calculating cost of grant and project management, or to prepare for hiring a new employee.
Where and How to file your approved Board Meeting Minutes
Approved minutes from CD Board meetings need to be filed at the local County Clerk and Recorder’s office. You’ll need to talk to them to find out how they want the minutes submitted. Be sure to scan them before mailing/sending in case they get lost in the mail.
Additionally, minutes should be submitted to the DNRC-CDB. They can be uploaded, one month at a time, by using the new online portal.
Annual Financial Report to the Department of Administration
Mill Levy
- MACo-Resources & Data Mill Levy forms
- Nancy Everson with MACo: works with counties when there are questions that pertain to the form and its calculations
- Jodi Rogers with Montana League of Cities and Towns can help cities, towns and special purpose districts
- Montana League of Cities and Towns forms
- Conservation District Mill Levy
- Slides of Process
Audits and Reviews
Filing thoughts
Administrator Timelines and Duties
- Monthly Duties-Julie Goss (Richland CD)
- Monthly Timeline-edited by Lewis and Clark CD
- Administrator Duties list
- Weekly Planner
Grant Billing/Reports/Tracking
- Mill Levy Verification Form (required by DNRC when applying for grants. Should be completed by the County Clerk and Recorder and returned to the Conservation District)
- Procurement Table and Definitions 2021
- Billing Sheet
- Grant Status Report
- Grant Tracking
- Grant Wage Reimbursement Log
- Grant Wage Reimbursement Log non-PERS
- Monthly Payment information
- Reimbursement Cheat Sheet
- Vendor invoice
- Contractor Insurance Requirements
- Contract Management
- Grant Writing Basics
Personnel
- New Personnel-Procedures
- Payroll Procedures
- Evaluation Process Sample
- Timesheet sample 1
- Timesheet sample 2
- Something to remember is that if your CD is co-located in a USDA building, there are forms to fill out. Speak with your District Conservationist and look here for more information.
- Montana Public Employees Retirement Administration (MPERA) runs the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS). Districts are eligible to participate if they’d like. There are forms required. Please contact MPERA at 1-877-275-7372
Accounting Tools
- BARS Chart of Accounts Presentation
- Wage Tracking Tool
- Paying Employees
- Paying taxes and liabilities
- Items to Remember
QuickBooks Specific
- Class list sample 1
- Class list sample 2
- Chart of Accounts Sample 1
- Chart of Accounts Sample 2
- QuickBooks 101
Other Policies
- Social Media Model Policy-For Districts to edit for their own adoption
Partners to Districts
Districts partner with a variety of organizations and agencies. The list includes, but isn’t limited to:
- DNRC-Conservation Districts Bureau
- Montana Association of Conservation Districts
- Natural Resources Conservation Service
- Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks
- County Extension
- County Weed District
- Land Trusts
- Farm Bureau Chapters
- Local Education Groups
Don’t limit yourself to the traditional partners, think outside the box!
Elected Supervisor Roles and Responsibilities-Training done at 2023 MACD Convention
Supervisor Manual-New Version February 2021
Ten Minute Trainings
- Understanding Mill Levies
- Duties of the Officers
- Sturgis Parliamentary Procedures
- Grants
- Contract Management
- Personnel Management (Part 1)
- Personnel Management Part 2
- Natural Resource Issues
- Developing a Project
- Developing a Project (part 2)
- District Authority
- Holiday Pay for Employees
- Working With Legislators
- Open Meeting Act and CD Meeting Minutes
- Developing a Project Worksheet
- Developing a Project-Mid Year Check
2021 Supervisor Training Modules
- Module 1-Recorded Webinar: Access Passcode: Yi1AEA*m
- Module 1-Power Point
- Module 2-CD Board Meetings and Parliamentary Procedure Access passcode: u+9FrKHr
- Module 2 PDF
- Module 3-310 Law Access Passcode: VBgz?63O
- Module 3 PDF
Elections Information
Other
Montana Stream Permitting Book
A Guide to Stream Permitting for Conservation Districts and Others
FORMS
310 Related
- 310 Permit Database
- 310 Fee Memo
- 310 Legal Opinions
- 310 Court Decisions
- Current 310 Model Rules for CDs
- 310 Training-Administrator’s Perspective
- 310 Permit Procedures list-Lewis and Clark
Sample Time Sheets:
Sample Position Descriptions:
Sample Performance Appraisal Forms:
Conservation District Law Book
Conservation District Accountability Assessment-2024
Conservation District Personnel Policy
Conservation District Records Retention Schedules
Funding Opportunity for Conservation Districts
Vendor Invoice (doc) Vendor Invoice (pdf)
Past Training
Review past training recordings and information.
Annual Training
There is a Training Work Group that is planning Statewide Employee Training for 2025. If you are interested in assisting, or have ideas, contact Wendy Jones at wendy.jones@mt.nacdnet.net.
Employee Roundtables
While Conservation District Employees have always met, it was usually only quarterly for Areas, or semi-annually or annually at the Spring Board meeting and MACD Convention. Born of the Covid pandemic and the idea of 2 separate former CD Employees, the Roundtables happen on a monthly basis, on the 3rd Wednesday of every month at 10 am. The meeting link is sent out via email to those on the MACD Administrator and MACD Alternative Administrator email lists prior to each Roundtable.
For Roundtables in 2025, we will begin in January with a general CD Basics from employees to employees session. It will be January 15th at 10 am. Come with questions, or better yet, get your questions to eo@macdnet.org.
If you have ideas for Roundtable Topics or other training requests, please fill out this form.
More and more, Conservation Districts are having to negotiate the perils of the SAM.Gov (system awards management) system for accessing federal grant funds.
Deanna Langman with Big Sky Economic Development recently had some tips for Conservation Districts and their SAM.gov registrations.
- FAQs, guides and renewal instructions can be found at this LINK.
- SAM will send reminders, but she recommends making a reminder tickler on your calendar.
- You may want to book mark the link above and print out the Quick Start Guide for your SAM folder.
- Your organized SAM “folder” should contain login information, UEI, CAGE Code, MPIN, etc.
- To avoid future delays and confusion, she recommends linking SAM registration duties to a job description.
- Also, she recommends creating a second “user account” and linking it to the CD user’s account so that more than one person has access.
- Instructions for adding a user can be found at this LINK.
- Each user should have a primary and secondary method of “two factor” authentication set up in the primary “Login.gov” account (SAM user account).
If your CD is having trouble with your SAM.gov account, Deanna can be reached by calling 406-869-8410 or by emailing deanna@bigskyeda.org. Her address is 222 North 32nd St., Suite 200, Billings Montana, 59101.
This section of the website is for sharing education tips and tools.
Many years ago, MACD purchased 4 Rolling River Trailers to be used for youth and adult education events in regard to stream form and function.
These trailers do a really great job at simulating natural processes. They do require some training to be used though.
Trailers are located at the Richland County CD (julie.goss@mt.nacdnet.net or richlandcd@gmail.com) office, the Cascade County CD (tenlee@cascadecd.com or secretary@cascadecd.com) office, the Flathead CD (samantha@flatheadcd.org) office and the Lewis and Clark CD (chris@lewisandclarkcd.org or joe@lewisandclarkcd.org) office. Spring, Summer and Fall, the trailers can book up pretty fast, so plan ahead and get your time reserved for one of the trailers as soon as possible. Some Districts will provide the presenter, most do not have that capacity.
If a District would like to get some training and use the trailers, they need to contact one of those offices to set up a user agreement. Typically, most trailer hosts will provide this training, but the Employee Organization may work on organizing a training on how to use the trailer. Trailers should not be operated without training.
Currently, there is no fee to use the trailers (Cascade’s trailer requires a damage deposit), though the Trailer Team, a subsidiary of the MACD Work Group, will be meeting soon to discuss some potential changes. The Lewis and Clark CD currently sponsors a Trailer Maintenance Grant, but the trailers are aging and the grant doesn’t cover abuse or accidental damage. A damage deposit or user fee may be the end result.
There are 2 guides that were put together in 2020 with more information on the use and transport of the trailers; the User Guide and the Transport Guide.
The Employee Organization worked with the NRCS to put together some standard processes for onboarding a new CD employee in a co-located building. Which paperwork you need to use depends on whether your District is on the USDA computer network or not.
FORMS
There are some work-arounds for districts on the USDA Network for new employees to get access to Conservation District files, if they have not been backed up to a non-network computer or drive.
The SAAR-System Authorization Access Request can be made by the Conservation District to the District Conservationist in the NRCS Field Office. This should give access to the District’s files on the One Drive, or Sharepoint.
The LincPass 30 Day Exemption can be requested by the Conservation District multiple times through the District Conservationist at the NRCS Field Office. This should minimize the wait time for the new CD Employee to access the District Owned computer that is on the USDA network. These can be requested multiple times until the new CD Employee gets their LincPass.
CD employees met with the regional USDA IT person in 2022 to better understand limitations when CDs are on the USDA Network. It was recommended that districts utilize external drives as backup systems between CD Employees, but it needs to be noted that any of those devices plugged into the USDA Network will automatically encrypt. It is critical that the bitlocker code that is created by that encryption be passed on to the new CD Employee so that they can access those backed up files.
There have been a number of CD Employee Wage Surveys done over the years by DNRC.