VASWCD IT Committee

Annual Meeting Update

Dec 05, 2012

Some important insights

• When the President calls…

– Maybe enthusiastic yes

– No, sorry too busy sure, no problem

• Instructions not included

• Trust the people on your committee

• You can’t do it all, but you can do it together

What is IT?

The Matrix

Districts Customers DCR NRCS Localities VASWCD Public

BMPs

Trackingprogram–Cost-shareandvoluntary

practices

X X

Conservationplanning X X X X

Engineeringandtools X X X X

GISandmapmaking X X X

Nutrientmanagement

planningX X X

Soilsinformation X X

TMDLallocationsandstrategies

X X X

ResourceManagement

Planning(future)X X X

NRCSreporting–PRS X

Grazingplandevelopment X X X

Soillosscalculation X X

AssessmenttoolsforBMP

complianceorequivalentX X X X

Administration

Financialmanagementandreporting

X X X X

Accounting X X

Payroll X

AttachmentsE&FforDCR X X

GrantreportsandattachmentBforDCR

X X

ReportsforBoard X

Districts Customers DCR NRCS Localities VASWCD Public

Reportsforlocal

governmentsX X

1099taxformsforproducers

X X X

StateandFederalpayrolltax

X X

Salestax X

VEC X

VRS X

Countyaccountingsystems

(whenused)X X

Outreach

Communityoutreach/Publicinformation/

marketing

X X X X X

Registration X X X X

Sharing X X

Presentation X X X X

Emailbroadcastsystems/

e-notificationX X X X

Websites X X X X X

Socialmedia X X X

Other

Computervirusprotection X X X X X X X

Generalcommunication X X X X X X X

E-mail X X X X X X X

Survey observations

• Districts have many personalities

– Urban, Rural, Mixed

– Co-located with USDA, Co-located with County, Separate

– Agriculture focused, Animal Intensive, Homeowner support

– Tech savvy: some districts like to experiment

• Districts are resilient

– Understand changes that are happening and preparing

– Make due with what they have

• VASWCD has many skilled professionals spread across

districts and directors

“Man is a tool-using Animal. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.”

Thomas Carlyle

Survey Overview

• 37 districts responded

• Average $2,918 spent per district on IT (Range $100 - $14,950)

5%

38% 57%

Urban/Suburban

Mixed Urban-Rural

Rural

“One comprehensive database linked to GIS, for ALL work that Districts do,

with flexibility for creating our own queries based on local reporting needs”

“Our IT is doing just fine right now.”

“My main need is technical support”

“The tracking program as it is now, really is NOT what we wanted”

Some specific requests:

IT for Conservation

• Many conservation practices require IT capabilities

• Large variation in IT maturity across conservation apps – Not all have kept up with the latest advances, such as web based,

field ready, and data sharing

– Lots of different styles / technologies: • NRCS era client/server—entrenched and getting expensive

• Internet apps—are preferred and allow independence from NRCS

– Maintaining and upgrading apps needs more focus

• Large dependency on NRCS co-location – 22 of 37 Districts (60%) are co-located with NRCS

– 9 of 22 Districts co-located with NRCS (41%) expect to move to a location that will not allow a direct connection to NRCS servers

– It is possible to use NRCS tools without being on the NRCS network but inefficient to use the Toolkit program

– A reference toolkit hosted by VASWCD would be useful

Conservation applications

• Cost Share & Vol. Practices BMP Tracking program

• Conservation Planning 78% Toolkit

• Engineering & Tools

• GIS and Map Making 72% Esri ArcGIS

• Nutrient Management 60% NutMan

• Soils Info 76% USDA Web Soil Survey

• TMDL Allocation Strategies 57% None, 29% VAST

• NRCS Reporting Toolkit 38% None, 32% PRS

• Grazing Plan Development 41% cGraz, 32% Other, 27% None

• Soil Loss Calculation 89% RUSLE2

• BMP Assessment or Compliance 49% None

Practice Area Typical Application(s)

Business and Outreach Applications

• Financial Management and Accounting – QuickBooks used for

financial management (93%) and accounting (97%)

• Note: QuickBooks cannot be used on NRCS computers

– QuickBooks is updated continuously; an advantage of commercial software

• Payroll is done mostly via QuickBooks (57%) – 30% of Districts use an

outside provider for payroll

– One district used Excel for payroll

• Outreach—many options and avenues

• Website creation and maintenance is more challenging and Districts can use help

30%

70%

Do not use/no answer

Have Websites / Variety of Software

Districts with Websites

Technology

• Data suggests a need for security best practices document at the VASWCD level

• Networking is critical to district operations – Technical expertise varies

across Districts

• IT costs range dramatically – Primarily depends on

whether District pays or if NRCS or a County provides resources

Computer Operating Systems Bad news: XP is from 2002 and is outdated

Those XP computers will either need to be

replaced or have a major upgrade

45%

39%

2% 5%

3% 3% 3%

Windows XP

Windows 7

Windows XP + Vista

Windows 7 + XP

Windows

other

Do not use/no answer

Service and support

Note: concern when support depends on district staff

Suggest proactive policy to setup third party agreement

36%

3% 12%

41%

8% District Staff

District Director

County

Third Party

Other

What do we do next?

IT Committee Recommendations

Actions

Expand website

Districts on the web

Share experiences

with software

Pricing options

Open source options

Technology Pilot

Programs

Strategy

Realistic Funding--

$1750/staff

Future architecture

Web based tools

IT Principles

A. Districts are autonomous and report to the citizens. District work is driven at the local

level and judged by the citizens in the District. Each District makes independent

decisions and tries to provide the best value to their local community. The VASWCD

helps Districts but does not have any authority over their decisions.

B. Openness and sharing of tools, techniques, and process. A central tenant of a

District is to educate the public on the best practices for conservation. We want to

share all of the IT technology so that individuals can leverage that expertise to

improve their conservation knowledge. This includes the actual applications, training

on how to use them, and essential data to drive applications.

C. Privacy of individual plans with secure online access to plans. While the practice of

conservation is open, the delivery to specific parcels is private between the District

and the landowner. Over time we expect all plans to become digital and there needs

to be a secure way to protect the landowner’s privacy.

D. Data must be available for partners to access and to analyze, especially as related to

larger conservation initiatives. In the near future, this will be required to understand

the effect of conservation practices on the Chesapeake Bay TMDL.

Strategic Plan

a) Maintain a realistic IT funding profile.

Projected total yearly cost for District IT funding needs is

$350,000 / year (~$1750 / staff)

Projected total yearly cost for shared resources for 47

Districts is $500,000 / year.

b) Provide a robust, flexible architecture for the

future

c) Web-based conservation planning tools should

be available to Districts and the general public,

possibly as cloud tools

Projections

• Projected district IT funding needs

– Projected staff (estimated at) 200

– Projected yearly IT cost per staff member $1,750

– Projected total yearly cost for districts category $350k

• Common (shared) resource needs

– Architecture development $100k

– Software development/modification $300k / yr

– Web/data base hosting $50k / yr

– Project & data management $150k /yr

– Projected total yearly cost for shared $600k / year

“Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.” Churchill, Winston