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GOVERNMENT STATISTICS SECTION
EXECUTIVE BOARD MEETING
December 7, 2000

The meeting was held at the American Statistical Association building in Alexandria, Virginia. Attending the meeting: Pat Doyle, Bob Lehnen, Clyde Tucker, John Czajka, Carolyn Shettle, Kirsten West, Jana Asher, Wendy Alvey, Roberta Sangster, Stephanie Shipp and Dorothy Harshbarger.

  1. Welcome. Pat handed out the agenda (Attachment 1) and welcomed everyone to the meeting.

  2. Minutes. Dorothy handed out the minutes from the Board Meeting on August 13, 2000 and from the Open Business Meeting held on August 15 in Indianapolis during JSM. These had previously been distributed by e-mail and Dorothy indicated that some corrections to names had already been made. She asked that any additional corrections be forwarded to her.

  3. Treasurer's Report. Dorothy handed out copies of the Revenue and Expense Statement for January 1, 2000 through September 30, 2000 for GSS and the Joint Statement for GSS/SSS for the same period as received from ASA (Attachment 2). So far this year, the GSS statement for the first nine months of 2000 shows a balance of cash on hand of approximately $6,200. The Joint revenue is not allocated until the end of the year. Since most of the expenses were for food at the annual meeting, no other large expenses are anticipated this year.

  4. Dorothy also handed out copies of the GSS Budget for 2001 (Attachment 3) that had been submitted to ASA. Anticipated revenue was shown as $7700 including $2000 for the Wray Smith Memorial Scholarship Fund, but this amount might not actually be collected next year. Expenses also included fund raising for the Scholarship. Most of the other expenses are for food functions, the newsletter and awards. We agreed to contribute $1000 to a student scholarship.

    Dorothy noted that last year a large portion of the revenue came from the four corporate sponsors ($1200). However this year so far, only $300 has come in from corporate sponsors. So far only The Social Security Administration has paid. During the meeting, we learned that IRS, Statistics of Income Section had also made a contribution to become a corporate sponsor. Clyde noted that the Bureau of Labor Statistics would not be participating. Dorothy agreed to contact the other three agencies that had been sponsors last year to see if they were planning to contribute again.

  5. COPAFS. Bob Lehnen reported that the American Community Survey was discussed at the September meeting of COPAFS. There was also an interesting discussion on the development of a methodology to measure hunger.
  6. As at previous Board meetings, there was again some discussion on the column the COPAFS rep is to write for Amstat News. Pat reiterated that the COPAFS rep should write a descriptive column and another column on policy issues could be written separately. The GSS Listserve would also be a good place for discussion of issues.

    Pat noted that Mike Cohen will begin serving his term on COPAFS next year and Wendy Alvey will fill the second year of Cynthia Clark's term. After Mike, the reps will be Pat and then Clyde Tucker.

  7. Conference. 2001 Program. Karen Woodrow-Lafield was unable to attend the meeting but sent an e-mail report which Pat summarized. She stated that there were three invited sessions next year.
  8. 2001 Luncheons. Kirsten has several roundtable leaders lined up with the following possible topics:

    1. The integration of the American Community Survey with the Intercensual Population Program
    2. The North American Product Classification System
    3. Including men in national surveys
    4. Immigration
    5. Crime mapping, Privacy, and Data confidentiality

    It was agreed that 5 is probably enough with 6 at the most. Last year there was a problem with having the GSS luncheons on the first day. Therefore, we need to encourage our members to sign up when they register. An article about the luncheons should be in Amstat News.

    Bob suggested that we have a session on the elections although there may already be one in another section. Clyde will talk to the program chair for Survey Methods. Bob and Clyde will take the lead in looking into the possibility of 2 sessions.

    Clyde suggested a session on census adjustment and who will make the decision on adjustment. Stephanie suggested a session on occupation and industry coding.

    Pat stated that the materials necessary to get a short course on the program for 2001 did not get to the appropriate person in time. Next year might be a possibility.

  9. Awards. Herriot. Pat said Lynda Carlson who was unable to attend the meeting sent a note saying an announcement had been sent out for solicitations.
  10. Committee on Fellows. Clyde stated that he, Connie Citro, and Cynthia Clark, have identified 11 possibilities for fellows from the members in GSS. Three were already being nominated by other sections. They identified 3 others to nominate and are getting people to do the nominations.

    For next year three fellows are also needed to serve on the committee. The chair of the committee should attend the GSS Board meetings.

    Wray Smith Scholarship. Pat said that there were a number of steps that had to be followed to establish a scholarship fund. It must go through several committees at ASA and we did not get everything in for the December meeting so it will be on the agenda for April. If it is approved we may possibly start this year at JSM with a silent auction. We can announce it at the Memorial Session. If we cannot raise money this year, then next we can begin soliciting money. We also need to look into getting the Memorial Session designated in the program. John and Jana will work on this. If we cannot have an official Memorial Session, then we should dedicate a session.

    Jana had a number of questions on who would receive the scholarships and what criteria would be used. Suggestions were possibly targeting government employees or state/local members. Stephanie said it was very important to have a scoring criteria and suggested looking at the Cox criteria for ideas. Pat said a committee was needed to work all this out.

  11. Nominations. Pat said Mike Cohen who was unable to attend had sent a slate:
  12. Chair Elect: Wendy Alvey, Joe Salvo
    Program Chair Elect: Nancy Bates, Mary Batcher

  13. Communications. Listserve. Pat indicated there was not much traffic on the listserve.
  14. Web Site. ASA has reminded us that we are welcome to use their central server for our WEB site. [Bill Wong our site manager was not at the meeting.] It was decided that all GSS Board meeting minutes should be put on the WEB site after they have been approved. We will start with the August Open Business Meeting at JSM and the December Board meeting minutes.

    Newsletter. Pat said in the past, the Publications Officer did the newsletter jointly with SSS. There was some discussion that it may be better to have the person handling the newsletter be an appointed position. It was agreed that the newsletter editor should be appointed for 3 years (with the appointment renewable) by the Section Chair. Clyde said he would look at the list of members for possibilities.

    Discussion followed on the duties of the Publications Officer. [David Swanson, the newly elected Publications Officer, was not at the meeting.] It was decided the Publications Officer should review the newsletter, oversee the WEB site, and be responsible for a minimum of 6 articles in Amstat News per year.

    Amstat News. There needs to be a minimum of 6 articles per year. One by the outgoing GSS Chair in February, one by the Program Chair, one by the Program Chair Elect on the luncheons, and the other 3 that the Publications Officer would write or find people to write.

    Wendy noted she was updating the GSS brochure and asked Board members to review it.

  15. Council of Sections (COS). Carolyn stated there was nothing new to report.

  16. GSS Income Committee. Sponsor letters. Dorothy sent the sponsor letters out at the end of May. So far only one of the four sponsors from last year, the Social Security Administration, has responded. We also have one new agency, IRS, Statistics of Income Section.
  17. Conference. Jana agreed to be in charge of a table if we can accept donations for the Wray Smith Scholarship. She will find out from ASA how this works and coordinate staffing at the table during JSM.

  18. Membership. Pat said Suzanne Dorinski, who was unable to be at the meeting, had forwarded a report on membership. She will send the report to the Board members.

  19. Other. Wendy noted that ASA had recently sponsored focus groups to learn about ASA membership. She said some of the findings indicated that many new members joined ASA to present a paper then dropped out. Generally the focus group indicated that communication about ASA services and benefits was lacking and more outreach was needed. Many suggestions for improvements that the focus group made are already underway as ASA.
  20. Pat noted that ASA had indicated they were selling their current office building and would be building new offices not far from the current location.

    The meeting was adjourned about 4:00 pm.

 

DSH: 12/16/00


Government Statistics Section pages prepared by:     Bill Wong.
Last updated:     April 2, 2001.

Copyright 2000 American Statistical Association