6.1.a. ERMUSR 10-11-2016 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Academy. The program was designed with input from existing and past Minnesota utility leaders to include essential leadership, governance, finance, and management core skills. The program will consist of eight sessions over a two year commitment. The session titles are: o Year One Sessions • Building Great Teams • Political Intelligence and Conflict • Communications—Presence of A Leader • Building the Toolbox of Leadership o Year Two Sessions • Character—Mind of a Leaders and Human Resource Strategies • Behaviors of a Leader—Organization and Administration • Financial Leadership and Stewardship • Seeing the Big Picture—Strategic Planning This program will rival other leadership programs for content,provide essential Minnesota municipal utility industry connections creating peer forum opportunities, and be offered at a price point lower than anything similar. Although this program was designed with municipal utility leadership in mind, it has become evident that the concepts covered in the program transcend the municipal utility industry. Depending on demand,this program will likely be offered to city government employees and cooperative electric employees. The board approved a$600/session fee and approved a limited number of MMUA scholarships. MMUA staff will be working to get third party scholarships as well. I will look at 2017 training budget for a way to include this program either through displacement or adjustment of other existing line items. The 2017 training budget will come back for Commission final approval in December. • On September 28, I met with the General Manager of Minnesota Valley Electric Cooperative (MVEC)to learn about their pre-paid meter program. Our billing and accounting software company had suggested that MVEC would be a great source of information if we were considering implementation of pre-paid meters. The meeting was extremely productive as our discussion expanded beyond the primary topic. Our utilities have similar challenges and similar organizational goals. Our leaderships have similar vision. MVEC should prove to be a good sounding board for us in the future. We will have follow-up conversations with MVEC as we analyze the potential operational challenges, implementation costs, potential return on investment, and additional value additions of pre-paid meters. • We have a meeting scheduled with Dave Berg for October 10 to review the rate study work he is performing for us. • Work with John Miner on the governance policy and by-law update continues. The Commission should be receiving a brief survey with a completion deadline of October 14. We have a conference call scheduled with John Miner for Monday, October 17,to review the survey results. P0VIER E0 BY Page 2 of 3 NATURE Reliable Public Power Provider POWERED T o SERVE 152