Strengthening RC&D Councils

Remarks by Dana York, Associate Chief, at the National Association of RC&D Councils 7th Annual Legislative Forum

Washington, D.C.
February 6, 2006

Thank you, Sharon (Ruggi). It’s good to have the Councils in Washington again.

This afternoon I’m going to focus on NRCS’ plans for this year—and the future—and what we’ve been doing to strengthen the RC&D Program. RC&D is important to farmers and ranchers and rural communities, and it’s important to NRCS.

Consolidating the Gains

For NRCS, 2006 will be a year of consolidating the gains. Our agency has experienced several years of significant changes. We’ve been busy implementing new programs and helping deliver the promise of the 2002 farm bill. Now we want to ensure that everything is integrated and working well.

We’re focusing on fine-tuning our business tools and fully realizing all the progress we’ve made.
We want to make sure everything works smoothly—for our employees and our customers.

We want to ensure that our decisions and our processes are transparent. We want to be efficient and effective. And we want to focus on meeting our customers’ needs.

Key to Funding

Last month, we gathered NRCS leadership here in Washington for a National Leadership Team meeting. One of our speakers, Deputy OMB Director Clay Johnson, told us what really counts when it comes to competing for funding. Believe me, we were listening carefully.

He said that every program must have:

• A clear definition of success,
• An action plan with due dates, and
• Accountability for individuals and organizational units to meet the goals.

The buzz words he shared with us were “transparency, accountability and quantifiability.” In the competition for the taxpayer’s dollar, every program has to prove itself worthy of support. And OMB wants every program to do better every year. Of course, we want to keep improving as well.

The bottom line is this: NRCS funding is increasingly tied to achieving program objectives. When it comes to RC&D’s, this means that support from the NRCS budget must also be directly related to conservation accomplishments.

We’re working to make sure that the RC&D program—and all NRCS programs—can demonstrate results. As you know, this is especially important for RC&D because the program did not have a good score on PART—that’s Program Assessment Rating Tool—when it was evaluated in 2004. The good news is the program will be evaluated again this year, and we have made significant progress.

Building a Stronger RC&D Program

I want to make it clear that we consider RC&D an important part of the NRCS conservation portfolio. We strongly support the public-private partnerships you establish.

RC&D represents cooperative conservation in very tangible terms. Non-profit RC&D councils, working with NRCS technical assistance and other partners, help deliver services in niche areas where no other services are available.

At the same time, we know that we need to make changes in the RC&D program to make it better able to compete for scarce federal dollars. Someone once said, “If you want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” I think that fits our situation with RC&D.

To continue the program, we need to build in greater accountability and demonstrate measurable results. And we are doing that.

We have taken—and we are taking—a number of steps to strengthen the RC&D program and get a better evaluation score under PART. I believe there are things we can do that will improve our score without jeopardizing local projects and local decision-making. We have made similar changes in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program and in the Conservation Technical Assistance program.

First, we must target our RC&D funding to meet the highest priority needs. In FY 2006, we targeted allocations resources to states using about 20 standardized ranking criteria. These criteria reflect program needs for the four program elements:

• Land conservation
• Land management
• Water management, and
• Community development.

Beginning in FY 2007, we will add a reward for good performance to the targeted resource allocation. We realize this is a significant change from our past allocation methods, and we will be building transition into the new process. The transition includes a floor for a minimum allocation for each RC&D area and consideration for initiating this change over time.

Second, we are establishing program priorities and performance goals. Last year, we asked you to provide us with recommendations for these priorities and long-term performance measures. We appreciate your input, and we’ve taken it into consideration.

Third, we want to have a strong program performance reporting system in place soon. I wish we could have completed it sooner. But we’re very close now.

In fact, national headquarters began testing the system last week and a larger group of RC&D coordinators and program managers will conduct additional testing later this month. We’re planning to implement it nationwide the end of March.

I want to talk for just a minute about this system—it’s called POINTS for Program Operations Tracking System. It will be fully integrated with other NRCS web-based applications, and performance measures from POINTS will be transferred to the NRCS Progress Reporting System for national and state level accountability reporting. We’ll have data available at the coordinator, state and national level.

POINTS will also link council area plan goals and objectives to the NRCS strategic plan and help track the benefits and outcomes of projects. We’ve shared the basic outline of the system at RC&D Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Western association meetings over the fall and winter. The tracking system will help all of us know where we stand.

Finally, in our effort to strengthen the RC&D program, we want to work with you to increase the utility of area plans by more effectively tying them to the program goals and performance measures we establish.

These are key steps that are essential for the long-term viability of the RC&D program. We need a coordinated approach that focuses on resource concerns. Rather than performing random acts of conservation, we want RC&D councils to take a strategic approach aligned with overall conservation objectives.

We want to see more local projects supporting national priorities for both conservation and community development, based on the four elements contained in the law. We expect councils to work on projects that support program performance goals, and we anticipate rewarding those that meet the targeted goals. However, we also expect councils to continue to work on projects that meet local priorities.

2005 Accomplishments

I know focusing on national priorities and performance goals is a new approach. But RC&D councils have already demonstrated that they can meet—and exceed—this challenge.

In 2005, we set five performance goals for the RC&D program. And here’s what happened.

We asked RC&D councils to create just over 500 businesses in rural communities. You created 1,144.
We challenged you to help create about 4300 jobs. You helped create almost twice that many—8,193.

We set a goal of developing watershed or area-wide conservation plans covering 23.7 million acres. You responded by developing plans that cover nearly 30.7 million acres.

We asked you to develop just over 200 conservation plans. You actually developed 294.

We wanted to see 430,000-plus acres of land treated for fish and wildlife habitat. You helped treat nearly 454,000 acres.

In every case, on every measure, you exceeded the goals. You proved the value of your contribution and the strength of your commitment to conservation.

For 2006, we have goals for the same areas. And I’m sure that we can expect similar achievements this year.

Grant Opportunities

I want to mention just briefly some recently announced grant opportunities that RC&D Councils may be interested in. The first is Conservation Innovation Grants. We have a total of $20 million for this program in 2006. Several councils had CIG grants this past year.

This is a great way to test innovative conservation approaches and technologies with a view toward sharing them with farmers and ranchers who could benefit. The deadline for proposals is March 20.

Similarly, we have $4 million available under our Cooperative Conservation Partnership Initiative with a deadline of March 7. Grants under CCPI go to state and local governments, districts, and agencies, Indian tribes and non-governmental organizations involved in agriculture.

For 2006, we have a two-pronged focus: conservation priorities and rapid watershed assessments. RC&D Councils have successfully competed for this funding in the past.

I encourage any of you with good ideas to consider applying for these programs. More and more NRCS is going to be focusing on transferring cutting edge technology into the real world and encouraging our customers to use it. These grants are an excellent way to do that.

Strategic Plan

Over the past year, we’ve been discussing with partners and among ourselves in NRCS where we need to go in the days, years and even decades ahead. Our mission is simple and clear: helping people help the land. But how do we envision doing that over the next 5, 10, 15 years?

To answer that question, NRCS has a new strategic plan—a plan that you and other partners helped us develop. Our ultimate objective is productive lands and a healthy environment.
To achieve that objective, we’re focusing on six goals—three foundation goals and three venture goals. Our foundation goals cover traditional NRCS concerns:
• high quality, productive soils;
• clean and abundant water;
• and healthy plant and animal communities.

The venture goals focus on emerging resource concerns related to current economic and demographic trends. These include:
• air quality,
• an adequate energy supply and
• preserving working farms and ranch lands.

The plan also identifies three strategies we will use to address these concerns:
• cooperative conservation,
• a watershed approach and
• a market-based approach.

This plan is a solid blueprint that will drive us forward. At the same time, there is sufficient flexibility in the plan to enable us to adjust to the inevitable changes that will occur and to recognize local priorities. Clearly the projects that RC&D Councils undertake fit well within this plan.

Human Capital

One of NRCS’ concerns for the immediate future is human capital. We’re working very hard right now to develop a human capital strategic plan.

You may have heard about the retirement wave—or maybe I should say tsunami—that NRCS is facing. Over the next five years, more than half of federal employees could retire—and more than a quarter of NRCS employees have told us they plan to retire in that timeframe. Many of these will be RC&D coordinators.

We need a plan to address the loss of so many employees. Further, we want to develop a strategy to make NRCS the employer of choice for everyone interested in serving in conservation.

We’ll be asking for your help to identify the skills that the RC&D coordinators of the future would need to have, and once they are hired, the training they will need to work effectively with producers.

Kevin Brown, Associate Deputy Chief for Management, is working with a core team to develop our plan. The core team is a diverse group—ethnically, geographically, professionally. They are working with a contractor on a tight deadline with a goal of producing the plan by early summer.


Conclusion

As we look ahead, it’s clear that conservation is changing, just as agriculture is changing. We’re helping people help the land in new and different ways.

At the same time, we’re facing tighter budgets and more competition for funding. Our response must be to demonstrate that we’re focusing on the most serious conservation problems and producing results that benefit landowners, rural communities and the environment.

The work that RC&D Councils are doing is making a difference in the lives of farmers and ranchers—and all who share the rural landscape. The work you do is important, and NRCS recognizes and values your contribution in getting conservation on the ground, encouraging rural businesses and helping create jobs. Our goal is to help you demonstrate the positive differences in concrete ways.

NRCS is committed to strengthening the RC&D Council program by increasing accountability and demonstrating the successes you’ve had in meeting program goals. We’ve taken meaningful steps toward this goal over the past year, and we will continue.

RC&D Councils are important partners in working toward the productive lands and healthy environment envisioned in the NRCS Strategic Plan. In short, you have our support and our commitment to work together.