Taxpayer Assistance Center (TAC) Issue Committee
Teleconference Minutes
June 5, 2007

Program Owner
Estelle Tunley

Attendance
Jerry Fireman, Chair
Bob Haines
Bill Matheny
Jerry Melchior
Wayne Whitehead
Doug Wilhelm
Bruce Zgoda

Guest
Michelle Jones

Staff
Nancy Ferree, Designated Federal Official
Dave Coffman, Analyst
Marla Ofilas, Secretary

Welcome/Announcements
Nancy opened the meeting. Roll call was completed and a quorum was met.

Customer Survey Subcommittee Report
Bruce reported that over 500 surveys were received during phase two. 450 of those received were in English and the balance was in Spanish. Bruce felt confident that the subcommittee will meet their quota. Dave stated that the staff has started coding the surveys will have the results entered on a spreadsheet by June 22. Dave also noted that Carol will tabulate the data and provide the results at the face-to-face meeting in July.  Members will then have an opportunity to review and discuss the results and begin formulating conclusions and recommendations.     

Doug asked if it was possible to review some examples of recommendation reports.  Dave will check with Carol.
ACTION: Dave will contact Carol for some sample recommendation reports or outlines that the members can review for ideas. 

Jerry Melchior asked if the committee will review the employee survey during the Denver face-to-face meeting. Dave responded that the members will meet in subcommittees during day two of the meeting.  Each subcommittee will have an opportunity to review the results of their respective surveys.   

Jerry asked if Carol will identify the findings. Dave explained that Carol will analyze the data and create some bullet points based on the findings. 

Doug asked to receive the analysis prior to the face-to-face meeting. He felt that members should be given some time to study the analysis before meeting as a group. Dave said that Carol will be gathering and analyzing the data for both surveys.  Based on workload and time constraints the information may not be available for distribution prior to the face-to-face meeting.
ACTION: Dave will contact Carol to find out if the results will be available prior to the face-to-face meeting.

Employee Survey Subcommittee
Michelle explained that the employee’s union was provided a copy of the survey with an explanation of the survey method and dates that the survey will be administered.  The union has 30 days to respond.  As of this date, no response has been received.

Estelle and committee members discussed possible dates for administering the survey. Estelle felt that employees were inundated with e-mails requesting to take the IRS employee satisfaction survey, which became an irritant for the employees. Estelle proposed that the survey be conducted over three weeks, beginning on June 26. Jerry Fireman agreed that four weeks is too long for conducting a survey.  However, Jerry was also concerned that one of the weeks has the July 4th holiday.  Employees that are on vacation during the holiday week would have less than three weeks to take the survey.    

Doug asked if the survey will be sent to all employees. Estelle replied that she does not have the resources to create an e-mail group code to send the survey link to selected employees. Estelle’s intent is to ensure that the e-mail accompanying the survey link will focus only on technical employees.
ACTION: Dave will contact Carol to find out how much time is needed to analyze and study the employee survey results. This information will be helpful in determining the length of time the survey should be administered.

Doug commented that not all field employees need to take the survey. Doug felt there was a large amount of field employees, and completed scientifically, sixty surveys is about all that is needed. Estelle thought that the employee survey would be administered only to the centers where the customer survey was administered.  Dave clarified that the decision was made to open the employee survey to all TAC offices. Also, with the software program that’s being used, it would take the same amount of time to tabulate 60 surveys or 600 surveys.  Jerry Fireman agreed that the employee survey should be administered to all TAC offices.
ACTION: Estelle will meet with Area Directors on June 7 for a decision on the employee survey dates.   

Program Owner Comments
Estelle was excited that the committee has progressed to this point. Estelle is looking forward to reviewing the data with the full committee in Denver.

July Face-to-Face Meeting Agenda
The committee reviewed a draft of the agenda for the face-to-face meeting in Denver.  Jerry asked Dave to add a discussion topic on the Taxpayer Blueprint report to the agenda. Time is limited during teleconferences so a discussion at the face-to-face meeting will allow more time for discussion. 
 
Member Comments
No comments given.

Closing
Jerry closed the meeting and thanked the members for their participation.