Incident Business Practices Working Team Meeting Notes

October 10-11, 2007

Missoula, MT

Present: Emmy Ibison, Randy Hart, Steve Hasenohrl, Bobbe Bilyeu, Brenda
Johnson, Jim Fletcher, Kathy Shelton, Sarah Fisher, Debra Ledford, Paul
Palmiotto, Tracey Nimlos.

**[AD Pay Plan]{.underline}**:

[New/challenged p.d.s]{.underline} -- the process we used last year
seemed to work well. We need to find out if Hook can classify the p.d.s
again for us. We also need SMEs to validate the duties in the position.
When positions are submitted they need to go thru agency channels, i.e.
unit FMO submits to regional FMO to be submitted to agency IBPWT rep.
Last year's letter was looked at and we will update it for this year
asking for new p.d.s to be submitted or old p.d.s to be challenged by
Dec. 1, 2007, and returned to agency IBPWT rep. We will review
submissions as a group on a conference call the first week of December.
Brenda and Hallie will work on getting Hook under contract again. They
need to be ready to go into the new pay plan by Jan. 1, 2008. Kathy will
get the call letter out by next week. (ACTION ITEM)

[Engine Operator]{.underline} -- is currently in the AD pay plan. BIA
says we don't need it anymore, but other agencies are still using it. It
has caused some issues at the pay center, but that is something that
should be dealt with before it ever gets to the pay center. This is a
BIA issue, not a pay plan issue.

[Change to Pay Plan]{.underline} -- We agreed that the time specified in
circumstances required for hiring (3 & 10) in the Pay Plan is for 90
**calendar** days. This will appear in the 2008 pay plan.

**[IIBMH Review]{.underline}**:

Comments are due back to review group on Oct. 22 and group meets the
week of Halloween. Hope to have final out by February. Need to begin
recruitment for group for next review in 3 years. The IBPWT does a
summary of changes (Rewrite committee will do) and each agency sends out
with their own cover letter. Re-write committee will decide whether to
add page numbers.

Next committee -- need chair and liaison. Sarah Fisher will be the
liaison to the rewrite team. Until we identify a chair she will collect
comments and everyone will think of candidates to serve as the next
chair. We will come up with an application process to recruit people for
the review committee after this revision is published.

**[Rep to National Logistics Workshop]{.underline}**:

March 17-20, 2008, in Reno. We would like Hallie to find out exactly
what they want and work with Kathy to find a rep to send to this
meeting. Kathy will go if we can't find anyone else. If there are major
changes we will make sure someone from the working team goes.

**[I-Suite]{.underline}**:

A medical module has been tested, but most people have not used it and
the information has not been distributed well.

A lot more IMTs are using the supply module.

Better uploading of information seemed to be occurring this year.

Some databases for long duration fires are getting very large. There are
also no standards or guidelines between IMTs for how they are set up,
especially when there are cost shares and complexing. Is this a task the
working team wants to take on? A small interagency group is sitting down
to define the issues and define the scope of a tasking for a group to
meet in Jan 2008. If you know of someone who would like to be involved,
send an e-mail to Mary Ann Szymoniak.

**[Dispatch Issues]{.underline}**:

A lot of clarification is needed on Incident Business issues in general.

There is confusion about hiring fallers (or equipment and operators) and
whether they are on an O number or an E number. Jim would like help to
draft a response to the dispatch community.

Great Basin is beta testing fuel vendors having credit card capability
and a briefing paper will come out on how well that is working. Tina
Ledger will be sending out the briefing paper. There was a general
feeling that it had gone well and none of the issues were
insurmountable.

**[Course Updates]{.underline}**:

[S-360]{.underline} --At the point of setting up a test class, but the
coordinator became quite ill, so that is on hold for now. Debra will
follow up with Deb Epps.

[Cost Module Training]{.underline} -- The tasking officially started
Oct. 1 and they have had a conference call to assign tasks to group
members. They will meet in Boise later in the month. First task is to
find out what the need is from cost unit leaders, finance chiefs and
agency administrators. New working team liaison is Hallie Locklear.

**[Test Forms]{.underline}**:

The test forms are being added to the handbook. There is a process to
delete the old forms and add new forms with GSA. The process is
estimated to take 2 years and needs someone to shepherd the process. Do
we want to go thru all this or wait until after business process
reengineering? The group agrees that we need to move forward with
updating these forms thru GSA, but we will wait until we have the
handbook out and we have more people involved in the working group.
Randy and Bobbe will begin some preliminary work.

**[Meeting schedule]{.underline}**:

We will continue to meet twice a year, but each meeting will be 3 days.
The spring meeting will be the last week of February. Work days will be
Feb. 26-28. Randy will ask Kathy Shores to look at Savannah and Orlando
and make a recommendation based on availability, price and
accommodations.

The fall meeting will be Oct. 20-24, 2008, in Seattle. Work days are
Oct. 21-23.

**[Replacement for Paul]{.underline}**:

We need to take recommendations to Dan Smith. Betty Daniels, Florida
state Incident Business Coordinator; Karen Patterson, the southern
federal red team FSC out of North Carolina; and Jill Lipsey from Texas,
a FSC on the Texas state team are 3 possibilities. Kathy will e-mail the
names to Dan Smith.

**[Expanding the IBPWT]{.underline}**:

We need to consider who will replace retiring working team members over
the next few years and begin to move forward to find interested
replacements. For each meeting 2 members will be responsible for
bringing a guest who might be interested in participating on the IBPWT
or on task groups for the team. The individuals do not have to be from
the team members' agency but should be someone who might eventually be a
working team member. Sarah and Deb will bring people to the February
meeting. Emmy and Jim will bring people to the October meeting.

**[Task Book Review]{.underline}**:

Kathy received comments that the task books were too federal oriented
and need to be more user friendly for the state agencies. We will submit
comments from the working team.

**[Business Process Reengineering]{.underline}**:

+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| **Idea**      | * | **C   | **B  | **Ch | *    | **   | **Leg | **   |
|               | * | ost** | enef | ance | *Tas | Time | islat | Need |
|               | P |       | it** | of   | king | Fra  | ion** | for  |
|               | r |       |      | S    | to   | me** |       | po   |
|               | i |       |      | ucce | ano  |      | **    | licy |
|               | o |       |      | ss** | ther | *    | Requi | chan |
|               | r |       |      |      | Gro  | *For | red** | ge** |
|               | i |       |      |      | up** | A    |       |      |
|               | t |       |      |      |      | ccom |       |      |
|               | y |       |      |      |      | p.** |       |      |
|               | * |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
|               | * |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| Electronic    | 1 | M     | High | High | Yes  | Long | No    | Yes  |
| processing of |   | edium |      |      |      | term |       |      |
| ADs (VIPR?)   |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| Contracting   | 2 | M     | High | High | F    | S    | No    | No   |
| for Incident  |   | edium |      |      | ESSA | hort |       |      |
| Support       |   |       |      |      |      | &    |       |      |
|               |   |       |      |      |      | Long |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| Single        | 4 | Low   | High | Me   | No   | S    | No    | Yes  |
| payment       |   |       |      | dium |      | hort |       |      |
| center for    |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
| each type of  |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
| federal       |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
| payment       |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| What          | 5 | Low   | Me   | Me   | F    | S    | No    | No   |
| contracts     |   |       | dium | dium | ESSA | hort |       |      |
| make sense to |   |       |      |      |      | Term |       |      |
| be national   |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+
| Expand use of | 6 | Low   | Me   | High | Yes  | S    | No    | No   |
| commercial    |   |       | dium |      |      | hort |       |      |
| invoice for   |   |       |      |      |      | term |       |      |
| EERAs         |   |       |      |      |      |      |       |      |
+---------------+---+-------+------+------+------+------+-------+------+

Are any of these items being worked on by other groups? Contracting for
incident support has been started by another group, but needs
involvement and input from the working team. FESSA is already working on
some contracts they believe should be national. IBPWT needs to get a tie
and connection with FESSA to provide input and support where/when
needed.

Contracting for Incident Support---what contracts make sense to be
National, and expanding use of commercial invoice for EERAs are the
tasks that we need to coordinate with FESSA.

We need to do some outreach and research and find out what work is being
done in each of these areas, and then facilitate various groups to work
together and complete these projects.

Contracting for additional incident support is time critical for the
I-Suite update contracting timeline. Expanding the use of commercial
invoice for EERAs is also time critical for I-Suite.

Single payment center for each type of federal payment needs a couple of
people to put together a business case. The staff work needs to be
completed and taken to NWCG before it's taken to the fiscal folks for a
decision to move forward.

NWCG will not be looking at our BPR white paper and funding request
until January 2008. Before they make a decision do we want to do some
cost benefit analyses or business papers, especially on the most
critical issues?

Mary Ann can take our FESSA topics forward to their meeting next week.
We don't want to get at cross purposes with what FESSA is taking on, so
coordination is critical. Kathy will be the first contact from the
working team to FESSA and offer to them Sarah as their liaison. We need
briefing papers on the items we want to work on in reengineering.

-   AD issues -- Emmy and Sarah

-   Payment Center -- Bobbe and Hallie

-   Contracting issues -- Deb and Kathy

Papers need to be completed and reviewed by the group by **Jan 1,
2008**. (ACTION ITEM)

Format for briefing papers:

-   Issue

-   Current Situation

-   Discussion

-   Recommendations

Jim will send out a map of which various groups are working on these
issues. Mary Ann will get a paper from the Incident Business Automation
Group and FESSA on their current work plans and timelines.

**[Proposal for a Fire Business Workshop]{.underline}**:

A workshop is proposed for FSC, IBAs, BUYT leaders, etc. Need to do
after the pay plan and handbook are released. Purpose is to share new
information and updates on incident business issues. Information on
change and updates is not always making it back to the field. Cost share
agreements are much more common now and much more complex. .

Suggestion was made to have a national webinar over a week to present
various topics. Paul will research this possibility.

We will have a meeting in the fall to gather issues from the field on
the 2008 fire season in order to present a spring meeting or webinar in
2009. This invited group to the fall issue gathering would include:

1.  ICs (Type 1 & 2) -- 2 each

2.  FSC (Type 1 & 2) -- 4 each + 1 from a state team

3.  IBA -- 3

4.  BUYT -- 2

5.  Ops -- 4

6.  Agency Administrators -- 1 from each agency (6)

7.  Dispatch -- 3

8.  Payment Centers -- 2

9.  Regional or agency business specialists -- 6

10. Logistics -- 2 (Type 1 and Type 2)

Meeting will be 1 day during our fall meeting in Seattle. Emmy, Hallie,
Deb, Sarah and Randy will be the planning committee. Sarah will be the
chair.

**[IBA Course Update]{.underline}**:

Working on finishing the field guide and then the course will be ready
to go.

**[Round Robin]{.underline}**:

[Jim]{.underline} -- A-76 is the main focus of the dispatch community
right now. Everything is due by Oct. 19 and this is an interagency study
including ADs.

[Sarah]{.underline} -- FWS is still working on the cost review of the
Big Turnaround Fire The review will be finalized in late October and the
review team will conduct a briefing on November 14^th^ with Dale Hall,
FWS Bureau Director and Nina Hatfield, DOI Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Business Management and Wildland Fire.

[Deb]{.underline} -- Christine Peters is the new NPS AO at Boise. The
Boise Budget Analyst position for NPS is open now.

[Emmy]{.underline} -- a letter came out recently asking for feedback on
keeping contract commissaries. A contract market survey is going out for
additional contracting of team functions such as a finance module and
logistics module.

[Randy]{.underline} -- Randy will send the national BLM Ops committee
the IBPWT meeting notes because they have requested to be kept in the
information link.

[Steve]{.underline} -- redesign of the State and Private Forestry
funding formula is a big issue for the states right now. The intent of
the funding is to assist forestry programs within the state. In some
states this funding supplies a significant amount of their program
budget. Congress is now requiring a new funding formula that provides
for competition for the funding and some states risk not receiving a
significant portion of the funding they are used to receiving.

[Bobbe]{.underline} -- has had requests for I-Suite to put on BIA
computers because they cannot download from the internet. The BIA is
undergoing a workforce analysis of the NIFC Fire Program.

[Brenda]{.underline} -- BLM issued the new Wildland Firefighter Burn
Protocols and is working toward making that interagency. Last year at
the national incident business managers coordinators meeting, one of the
task groups looked at the interagency all hazard authorities. A couple
of major items had to do with the financial impacts of helping other
entities and authority to sign agreements. They are also trying to get a
decision on spending federal money off of federal lands on all hazard
incidents. BLM had 4 fires which required national cost reviews this
year.

[Paul]{.underline} -- Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina had FEMA
declared fires this year. Estimated costs for those fires exceeded \$35
million. It was discovered that some of those areas did not have enough
emergency services to evacuate nursing homes. The National Guard was
used extensively. An interagency after action review on the Bugaboo Fire
will take place next month. Paul will try to get us that information to
use for a learning tool. This is Paul's last meeting.

Remainder of the meeting was spent reviewing taskbooks.