Developing a Review Process for Conservation Practice Scenarios and Payment Schedules
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Webinar Details
When:
Jun 30, 2022 12:00 am US/Eastern
Length: 01:00 (hh:mm)
This live event has Ended. Most events are recorded and available for on-demand viewing usually within a week of their live showing. Check back then!
Presenter(s):
- James Cronin, State Biologist - NRCS-Iowa
Virtual Event Format:
Group Viewing Available:
James Cronin, NRCS-Iowa's State Biologist, takes a deep dive into the (422) Hedgerow Planting practice scenarios and discusses the development of a review process for practice scenarios and payment schedules.
For more than a decade, the NRCS has utilized estimated costs to provide financial assistance payments to help its clients install conservation practices on the landscape. The transition from actual to estimated costs resulted in much efficiency and transparency. To build out a system of estimated costs to support the installation of nearly 400 practices and enhancements, the NRCS developed what is known as practice payment schedules. Payment schedules consist of a set of discrete cost components selected from the broad cost categories of Equipment; Labor; Materials; Mobilization, Income Foregone, and the Acquisition of Specialized Knowledge. In nearly all cases, there are more than one payment schedule associated with each practice or enhancement, each developed to estimate a “typical” practice installation or practice “scenario.” Both practice schedules and scenarios are developed at the national level, which may be adopted or modified by the 15 regional payment schedule teams. These teams may elect to request additional region-specific scenarios. However, there is an implicit hazard of scenario expansion or “creep” if the policy underscoring payment schedule development isn’t rigorously followed; that is, if regions continue to split out new scenarios from existing or as national teams tasked with quality assurance functions are overwhelmed from the steady advance of payment scenarios over time. For example, over the last decade, the number of practice payment scenario has morphed to nearly 19,000 and this presents a challenge as personnel at multiple levels mobilize annually to review cost component sufficiency and accuracy, ensure payment scenario are relevant, propose new scenarios as necessary, and provide the necessary quality control and quality assurance taxpayers expect. By taking a deep dive into conservation practice standard, Hedgerow Planting (422) under an employee development detail with the CNTSC, James discovered a way to review, document, and propose a set of 10 draft national scenarios that could replace the existing 71 national and regional scenarios. Moreover, James’ approach leveraged what he’s termed as the “wisdom of the regions.” In short, by using existing agency databases and business tools such as MS Access© and MS Excel©, it is possible to elucidate similarity and differences between practice scenarios and with come compromise, develop a smaller yet workable set of practice scenarios at the national level, thereby reducing the annual burden of payment schedule maintenance.
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