Leadership Summit team wrangles MOUs

The whereabouts of the transportation department’s Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) started with a fire.

The fire, and a phone call from a fire department, led to the creation of a Leadership Summit team charged with gathering the department's MOU's in one central location.

VIDEO: Watch the tem's opening pitch at the Leadership Summit Oct. 24.

“It started when someone from one of the fire departments called and asked about an MOU,” said Lisa Losness, a member of the team. “They wanted to know who was responsible for putting out the fire.”

Losness, and fellow team members Matthew Moore, Lisa Hoag and Jez Arroway, soon realized the scope of the project. Not only did they need to gather known MOUs, they also needed to track down memorandums of agreement that were in undisclosed locations, as well as cooperative agreements.

“There were agreements out there all over the place,” Losness said. “Some were from the 30s and 40s.” And some were with companies or entities no longer in business.

“There are agreements with railroad companies that don’t exist anymore,” Arroway said.

The team decided that a SharePoint site would be the best platform for storing the documents. Lisa Hoag said a streamlined process for storing and accessing documents will be invaluable, particularly when employees retire or leave ITD.

“We had people who retired or left, and left stuff at their desks,” she said.

The team is beta-testing the SharePoint site. Once testing is done, documents will be gathered and added to the site. It’s an effort that covers decades of information.

“Some of the agreements were made in 1934, and 1929,” Lisa Hoag said. “There are some documents on parchment paper.”

The SharePoint site was launched in early December after the team tested it. To view the site, please visit:

.


Published 12-21-18