Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
03/19/2018
President Richard Schwahn called the meeting to order promptly at 12:30, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Carley Applegate
Greeters:
Garry Mosier and Jesse Helm were our greeters today and Garry introduced the members who brought guests:
- Frida our exchange student is here today.
- Kevin Murphy introduced Greyson Buckingham (Entrepreneur/Attorney);
- Maribeth Plocek introduced Andre Acosta (Rotarian Honolulu and WY ANG);
- Drew Perkins introduced his wife Kristie Perkins;
- Joe Bennick introduced Laura Miramontes (WVFCU);
- Kendra Ziler introduced her three guests, Jessi Sawdon, Leah Reeb Varela, and Kerstin Ellis (Hinge Studio);
- Steven Schell introduced Cheryl Howard (Community Health Center);
- Percy Anderson introduced Randy Butler (CPD Retired);
- Susan Griffith introduced the friends of our SOM, Jasmine Boyd, and Ethan Hansen and friend (Roosevelt HS Seniors);
Song:
Mark Owens stepped in for Gary and led us in singing “Home on the Range”
Tim Havasi then led us in singing Happy Birthday to Cori Cosner-Burton for her birthday today.
Garry Mosier and Kimberly Mazza received their Blue Badges today. Congratulations!
John Jorgensen was awarded his Paul Harris plus three and Charlie Shopp was awarded his Paul Harris plus four. Congratulations!
Family of Rotary:
- Denise Prugh visited with the daughter of long time club member Robin Mundell, she said Robin is doing well but her husband Rodney is doing dialysis. Robin will be turning 70 in July so Denise will be bringing a Birthday card for us all to sign.
- Tim Monroe announced that Glenn Januska’s father passed away and then also his son Owen graduated from boot camp this past week.
Rotarians of the Week:
- John Griffith nominated John Starnes for his years of service at the Child Development Center and for the article in the newspaper talking about his change of jobs.
- Cori Cosner-Burton nominated our dear friend Bill Sullivan who passed away, his birthday is also this time of year and he always enjoyed celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day like a true Irishman, he is truly missed.
- President Schwahn nominated all of the Club Board members for all of their hard work.
- Kimberly Mazza nominated all of our club members who are our State Legislators for all of their hard work.
Student of the Month:
Martha Rakestraw introduced our SOM Summer Conant from Roosevelt HS. What an outstanding young lady.
Announcements:
- President Schwahn announced the district conference that will be May 3-5 in Estes Park CO so save the date and be prepared to attend.
- Dennis Jack announced that the board decided to engage a company to help with our Social Media and website and they would like volunteers to help organize and make sure that the company is following through.
- Craig Valdez and Frida announced that the International dinner will be done differently this year, they will be selling raffle tickets for $20 each so that they can choose a smaller number of people so that it can be a more intimate setting. There will be some great authentic Mexican food and President Schwahn will be making a keg of beer. They need to sell 75 of the tickets in order to raise the money she needs. Tickets will be available each week before and after the meeting. The date is April 14th for the dinner.
Program (State Senator Drew Perkins):
President Richard Schwahn introduced our speaker today, our very own Drew Perkins who spoke to us about the State Government Spending and Efficiency Commission. This was an idea that started about three years ago with the help of Bill Schilling and the Wyoming Business Alliance. There are a number of process improvement ideas that have come forward over the past few years on how to be more productive and provide more cost efficient delivery of services. So the about a year ago The Business Alliance brought in some people to do a presentation about this to the State Legislature. They spoke about being able to save normally on the average of 4-5% of the general fund which adds up to a lot of money. This is one of the ways that the State decided to try to save money for the State and close the deficit. Drew helped sponsor a bill for a pilot program to go out and do a study to see what things could be changed in order to save the State money. He showed us a PPT about the summary and what they found. They did a quick analysis and looked at the four largest departments and compared Wyoming to eight other benchmark states with similarities to Wyoming in order to find the things that can be changed. They looked at Federal Dollars that Wyoming is not getting that we should be, they looked at management and supervisors and the number of workers under each one, they looked at all of these things along with the technology and systems that we are using throughout the government. They basically looked at three things, People, Processes and modernizing technology. By looking at these three areas they found several things they should change, for example they should be sharing services like HR, accounting, IT, procurement etc. They have already started to work on some of these areas and they will be making many other changes. The looked at educational funding and what they can change there. They looked at different areas, first they looked at staffing levels and the effectiveness of the positions as well as key position staffing. Looking at this they discovered that they needed to increase the State auditor staff as they were not as effective as needed and the State was missing out on collecting money owed. They also looked at pursuing more Federal dollars especially in the education sector with reimbursement funds that are available for special education programs. We are the only State that does not pursue the Federal Medicaid funds to help pay for these programs which adds up to about $45.5 million per biennium, this alone is a great deal of savings. They need to do an organizational review State wide in order to make sure that the State is operating more efficiently and providing services better. They also recommend that the Governor sets up a Grants office to deal with and make sure that we are getting all of the grants we are qualified to get and to make sure that we do everything correctly in order to qualify for these grants. They also want to make sure that all of the State Government offices have the correct technology for the correct jobs. They are looking at consolidating into shared services for HR, IT, Finance, and procurement which will not only save money but also streamline the processes for all agencies. The consultants were very complimentary about many things Wyoming does especially with the State Department of Health. They also suggested putting together a reward incentive program to encourage employees of the State Agencies to come up with ideas and be rewarded for the cost savings their ideas create. They feel that for a one time investment of $10-17 million there can be a savings of $112-227 million. They just passed the bill for $10 million to get this process started with the first 23 suggested changes I order to move forward. Some of them, about eight, will require some legislative changes with bills being introduced to make those changes, others can be implemented without these changes. With this year being an election year and with us getting a new Governor they are concerned that the process may not continue with the new Governor so Drew gas talked to three of the four leading contenders for the Governor Office and all three are very excited about seeing this process continue so that is a good thing. They are excited to get started with these great savings ideas and start to see the decrease in the deficit.
President Richard Schwahn concluded the meeting at 1:31 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota.
