The Employee Organization would like to thank Heidi Fleury, formerly of Lake County Conservation District and David Laufenberg, formerly of the Madison County Conservation District, for coming up with the idea for the Employee Round Tables in 2020. Topics are selected by the employees of Conservation Districts across the State.
If you have an idea for a RoundTable, please email the Employee Organization at eo@macdnet.org.
October 16, 2024 Roundtable
Today’s Roundtable was presented by Sydney Ligotti of the Gallatin Conservation District and centered on creation of Education and Outreach programs for Conservation Districts.
September 18, 2024 Roundtable
Today’s Roundtable was presented by Radley Watkins from the Missoula Conservation District. It was about Conservation Districts hosting Realtor Workshops in their areas, and had tips on working with Realtors to ensure that property buyers have good information on buying property with natural resource concerns.
July 17, 2024 Roundtable
This Roundtable was presented by Becky Clements at Gallatin Conservation District and Samantha Tappenbeck at Flathead Conservation District. It was all about the Stream Permitting Program in Montana from the CD Employee perspective.
Flathead’s Forms and other materials
May 15, 2024 Roundtable
This Roundtable was presented by Caroline McDonald from Lake County CD, and Bryan Vogt from Missoula CD. They talked about their experiences in planning for projects, budgeting for and applying for grants, and then managing those grants and projects.
April 17, 2024 Roundtable
The April Roundtable was presented by Becky Clements from the Gallatin Conservation District and was facilitated by Kay Webb.
March 20, 2024 Roundtable
The March Roundtable was a follow up Question and Answer session to a Strategic Planning and Staff and Supervisor Succession Planning presentation by Terry Profota, Sage 4 Success.
Materials provided included:
Contact and Document Inventory template
Ready for Succession Checklist
DIY Strategic Planning Handout
Strategic Planning Ten Minute Training
Emergency Succession Plan Template
Creating a Cohesive Conservation District
Slides from Terry’s presentation
The prior Strategic Planning presentation noted can be found here
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February 21, 2024 Roundtable
The February roundtable was presented by ComPsych who work with the State of Montana. It was a presentation on Emotional First Aid/Resilience. The recording can be found here.
Materials Provided were:
The Feelings Wheel
From Surviving to Thriving-Slides of the presentation
How Values Light the Way
Mindset Exercise
Values List
January 17, 2024 Roundtable
This Roundtable focused on Supervisor Elections
The Employee Organization would like to thank Heidi Fleury, formerly of Lake County Conservation District and David Laufenberg, formerly of the Madison County Conservation District, for coming up with the idea for the Employee Round Tables in 2020. Topics are selected by the employees of Conservation Districts across the State.
If you have an idea for a RoundTable, please email the Employee Organization at eo@macdnet.org.
Montana CD Roundtable, December 20, 2023
Today’s Roundtable was CD basics. From Partners to Acronyms and everything in between, we tied up loose ends for the year. We took some tours through partner websites.
The acronyms list that we talked about can be found here.
The CD Accountability Assessment is here.
Graphic that shows a better representation of the 310 jurisdiction is here. Thanks Kay Webb!
Montana CD Roundtable, October 18, 2023
Today’s Roundtable focused on hiring new staff for CD’s including forms for the NRCS in co-located buildings, new hire forms for the IRS and State of Montana, onboarding new employees, and the tools available to do all that. There was also some discussion about Worker’s Compensation Claims. Links to some of the information shared are below.
Onboarding Employees in a co-located building
New Employee Orientation Guide
DNRC’s website (personnel section)
Montana CD Roundtable, September 20, 2023
Today’s Roundtable was all about planning for our Districts futures! We talked about strategic plans, annual/operations plans and the new version of the DNRC/CDB’s CD Operations Audit.
Materials included the Lake CD Governance Calendar & Lewis & Clark’s Strategic Plan
Montana CD Roundtable, June 21, 2023
Today’s Roundtable was facilitated by Wendy Jones and focused on the Fuel Mitigation project that the Lower Musselshell CD has been doing, providing some resources for CDs who might want to get more involved in this project and the Montana Fire Adapted landscape group.
Email addresses shared were for Henry DeLuca-henry.deluca@mt.gov
Websites shared: https://www.fireadaptedmontana.org/become-a-member, https://www.montanaforestactionplan.org/
Montana CD Roundtable, May 17, 2023
Today’s Roundtable focused on Local Work Groups and how to make them work for your Conservation District.
Resources from today’s session are:
National Conservation Planning Partnerships-Local Work Groups (videos)
There was also discussion about what happens in the event of a government shutdown, upcoming Spring Meeting in Helena in June, and the upcoming Statewide Employee Training in August.
Montana CD Roundtable, April 19, 2023
This Roundtable focused on financial concerns of Conservation Districts, primarily payroll, payroll liabilities, quarterly reporting and budgets.
Montana CD Roundtable, March 21, 2023
This Roundtable focused on the NRCS/CD partnership issues, cooperative work agreements, space, computer/network etc.
Montana CD Roundtable, March 15, 2023
This Roundtable reviewed available materials previously recorded about the Permissive Mill Levy for benefits. These recordings can be found on the DNRCS website on the Trainings link under CD Finances. The most recent recording was done in 2022 by a representative of Local Government Services and is the last one in the list.
Other topics covered during the Roundtable included a discussion about next week’s extra Roundtable on USDA/NRCS related topics
Montana CD Roundtable, February 15, 2023
This Roundtable was focused on the use of Canva for doing special outreach, and the pro Canva account hosted by MACD for all the Conservation Districts. Because login and password information is shown in the video, it can’t be hosted on YouTube, but you can view the video with this link.
Montana CD Roundtable, January 18, 2022
This Roundtable was focused on the current legislative session in Montana and how it relates to Conservation Districts. Rebecca Boslough-King gave an update to districts on what the Montana Association of Conservation Districts is working on, and some brief information on how districts can work with their legislators and/or provide testimony during the session.
The Employee Organization would like to thank Heidi Fleury, formerly of Lake County Conservation District and David Laufenberg, formerly of the Madison County Conservation District, for coming up with the idea for the Employee Round Tables in 2020. Topics are selected by the employees of Conservation Districts across the State.
If you have an idea for a RoundTable, please email the Employee Organization at eo@macdnet.org.
Montana CD Roundtable, December 21, 2022
Today’s Roundtable centered on the Sam.gov issues that CDs are having across the state. A representative of Big Sky EDA in Billings Montana presented on the topics and the help that she can give to Districts.
The video couldn’t be posted on YouTube but can be viewed here.
October 19, 2022 CD Roundtable
This Roundtable focused on Supervisor Training need recommendations and also recommendations for delivery of training, as well as CD Cost Share Programs from Gallatin, Missoula, Lewis and Clark and Roosevelt CDs.
September 21, 2022 CD Roundtable
This Roundtable focused on Conservation District Websites and the fact that MACD is planning to create simple landing pages for every CD that doesn’t have a web presence.
August 17, 2022 CD Roundtable
Funding for hosting a Soil Corps member, and all about changes to the CDB/DNRC Conservation District Grants program.
July 20, 2022 CD Employee Roundtable
This roundtable was about 310 permitting, primarily emergencies, as well as Water Reservations.
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The May 18, 2022 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
This Roundtable was about procurement requirements for Conservation Districts handling grant funds. Hailey Graf, DNRC CD Specialist, gave a thorough “101” on requirements depending on type of project and cost of project.
The April 20, 2022 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
The April 20,2022 Employee Roundtable mostly covered more questions about the Permissive Mill Levy. Other things were discussed, including the upcoming Spring Training on Finances on June 15th.
For the first recording where Darla Erickson presented specific information on the Permissive Mill Levy, go to the recording.
The March 16, 2022 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
This Roundtable featured Assistant State Conservationist, Kyle Tackett, and a discussion about the Local Work Groups that Conservation Districts are supposed to convene to assist NRCS in program delivery, and identification of resource concerns in their Conservation District. Documents and links shared in the Roundtable chat are linked below.
NRCS Definition of role of local working group
Sample of Resource Concern Questionnaire
Sample of LWG Process in other counties
February 16, 2022 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
This roundtable covered a number of topics, including the activities of the Employee Organization working with Partners such as MACD, DNRC and NRCS to define roles and responsibilities and provide training. Upcoming potential training was discussed, including a possible QuickBooks training in the spring.
Also discussed is the situation with ARPA funding being subbed in for state funding on a number of grants recently and the added requirement to have an active DUNS number and be current with sam.gov.
January 19, 2022 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
This Roundtable was all about supervisors, the various types, the election information, working with supervisors etc.
The Employee Organization would like to thank Heidi Fleury, formerly of Lake County Conservation District and David Laufenberg, formerly of the Madison County Conservation District, for coming up with the idea for the Employee Round Tables in 2020. Topics are selected by the employees of Conservation Districts across the State.
If you have an idea for a RoundTable, please email the Employee Organization at eo@macdnet.org.
December 15, 2021 Montana CD Employee Roundtable
All about succession/continuity for Conservation Districts in Montana with Staff and Board turnover. Included tips and tools on making transitions smoother.
September 15, 2021 CD Employee Roundtable
This Roundtable focused on Personnel Management topics, specifically policies related to Montana’s Conservation District Employees and Supervisors. It also touched on Maintaining Employees, with discussion about opportunities to improve the stability of staffing at Conservation Districts and also Growing CD Programs and Planning for Expansion.
August 18, 2021 Roundtable
This session of the Employee Roundtable for Montana’s Conservation Districts is focused on District Owned Equipment. Many CDs own no-till drills, fabric layers and tree planters, and many other types of equipment
July 21, 2021 Montana CD Roundtable
Efforts by Conservation Districts across Montana to fight the spread of aquatic invasive species, and the various outreach and education efforts by CDs to new streamside landowners about permitting and riparian health.
The June 16, 2021 Employees Organization Roundtable
Discusses the changes to the EO webpage, Fiscal Year End, Department of Administration/Local Government Services Annual Report, Grant reports for the Admin Grants from DNRC, Calendar year end tax forms and considerations with 1099’s, and the Permissive Mill Levy for Employee Benefits process.
MACD Legislative Update-Rebecca Boslough-King
CD Authority from the Perspective of past DNRC staff, Current Supervisor at Lewis & Clark CD
Slides from Karl Christian’s presentation
DNRC/CDB Update-Veronica Grigaltchik & Kasydi Lucas
Review of updated Grant Program Guidelines
Conservation District Project Planning Form
Riley Slivka-AgriStudios
DNRC Grants-Changes to reporting, vendor invoices etc.-Autumn Coleman
All the Google Presentations! By Girl Geek, Miranda Gilbert
Learn the Basics of Google Docs-pdf slides
Learn the Basics of Google-Handout
Using YouTube to Grow your Business-pdf slides
Using YouTube to Grow your Business-Handout
Administrator Bootcamp 2022
Not all of the videos are complete, since we had some processing issues. Apologies. Other content will continue to be loaded as we get it.
Taxes-Sharon Flemetis
310 Permitting-Jason Garber
Leadership-Mary Hendrix
Board meetings, budgets and CD Admin transitions-Chris Evans
Working on finding this recording to upload-Sorry for the inconvenience.
Board meetings, budget and CD Administrator transitions, Q&A-Chris Evans
Monthly Duties-Wendy Jones and Angie Stahl
QuickBooks Training video
We also had a presentation from Joel Thompson at the Montana Public Employees Retirement Administration. Joel gave out handouts on the 457 plan (Deferred Compensation) and talked about the PERS retirement program that Conservation Districts are eligible to make an agreement for with MPERA.
If your CD is interested in participating in either of these, call Joel at 406-444-3154 or email him at jthompson3@mt.gov.
Welcomes and attendee introductions
Jason Garber and Panel of CD employees-310 permits and discussion
Eric Rannestad, MACD, CDOWG and Communications Toolkit
Liz Moore, Montana Nonprofit Association-Leadership Training
Eric Rannestad, Basics Markety/Outreach
Laura Parvey-Connors, Meld Media-More Advanced Marketing/outreach
Sarah Klaus, Lake CD and Samantha Tappenbeck, Flathead CD–Their CD Outreach Efforts
Women’s History Project with Gail Cicon and Brief review of Employees part of the MACD website with Chris Evans
The following YouTube videos are sessions 1, 2 and 3 of the 2021 QuickBooks training for the Employee’s Organization.
In addition, there were some other documents made available.
Class List Examples:
Chart of Accounts with the BARS numbers Lewis and Clark CD
WordPress 101–Might be better to use WordPress.org versus WordPress.com
Paper and electronic records can get to be a nightmare. What do you keep? How do you keep it? What are the rules?
***Update on Board Meeting Minutes–DNRC has requested that Conservation District Board meeting minutes be sent to them in “final” form, which means, signed by a Supervisor and the Recorder, and dated. This could be done when you send the signed minutes to your County Clerk and Recorder’s office for certification. DNRC will accept hardcopy OR scanned meeting minutes. They should be sent to Amy Personette.
This series of slides, taken from a records training that was done at the 2019 convention and revised a bit for presentations in 2021, give some of the basic details on the rules that Montana Conservation Districts must follow to dispose of records and gives some thoughts on how to consider keeping electronic files.
And here’s the webinar that was recorded in March of 2021
These 4 documents are from a Training done for the Employees in 2015. Some of this may be outdated.
Operating Grants PowerPoint
Grant writing 101
CD Administrator workshop June 2015
CD Administrator workshop June 2015lb
These files are from a QuickBooks Training done in 2015. The zip files are large, especially the Training Presentations. You’ll need to download these and then extract the files to a location that you can easily find on your computer.
QuickBooks Chart of Accounts zip file
QuickBooks Training Presentations zip file
QuickBooks Account List
At the 2017 Convention, Missoula CD’s Jen McBride gave a presentation on checking the County Mill Levy for your district. If you missed the presentation, and would like to watch it, you can view it here: