MERC

MERC Board of Director’s Meeting

Feb. 20, 2007, 10 a.m - Noon

Attendees

Gary Allen, Rita Gulstad, Russell Helm, Jeremy Kintzel, Craig Klimczak (via conference call), Joel LaReau, Mark Mabe, Bob McGlasson (via video), Bob Paulson, Jon Rickman, Chad Shepherd,  Robert Stein, Mark Wahrenbrock

MOREnet Staff: Megan Barney, Ben Colley, Bill Giddings, Hank Niederhelm, Nancy Piringer, Debbie Rodman

Welcome and Opening Remarks – Russell Helm

Gulstad opened the meeting with a MOREnet Council Update (it was not included in the agenda). She reported that the MOREnet Council voted on and approved goals for the 2007 calendar year. The overarching goals are advocacy and futuring. Kintzel added that there is interest on the part of MOREnet in trying to get some concrete descriptions of the way that the MOREnet backbone is being used in higher education. Kintzel went on to explain that the MOREnet Council feels that they have an easier time explaining to legislators and others how the MOREnet services support K-12 schools than how MOREnet services support higher education. Kintzel invited the MERC Board members to share stories and information with either himself or Gulstad and they would pass the information along to the MOREnet Council.

Gulstad added that the under the area of forecasting, the Council charged MOREnet to take a look at current growth. Gulstad found it interesting that overall MERC has grown 30% (280.5Mb) within the fiscal year of 2006. She added that TNP grew by 43% and REAL grew by 29%. Gulstad observed that libraries and higher education are growing at about the same rate while the K-12 schools are growing at a faster rate.

MERC/HELIX Financial Reports – Debbie Rodman

Debbie Rodman began with a review of the current FY07 MERC Financial Report for the year ending June 30,2007. The sheet includes year to date actual spending through January 31, 2007. The sheet also includes the current budget which was reprojected at mid-year. Rodman reported that all member service fees had been collected, the shared network funding assessment that MERC contributes to support the Shared Network has been made, and connection related fee collections are a little bit higher than budget. The HELIX Conference has not occurred yet, but the revenue transfer has been made. Rodman reported that adjustments from the mid-year reprojected budget included revenues up by about seven thousand dollars. Rodman reported that year to date expenses are in line with the mid-year reprojections. Rodman reported that the mid-year reprojections for expenses were brought down by ten thousand dollars from the budget originally approved in the fall.

Rodman moved on to the HELIX Conference financial report, it did not include any reprojections from the original budget.

Rodman then addressed the preliminary FY08 budget, which compares the mid-year FY07 reprojected budget versus the FY08 preliminary budget. This preliminary budget is the MERC portion of the larger MOREnet budget which was endorsed by the MOREnet Council at their February 16th meeting.  Rodman started by explaining that the projected member services revenue for FY08 is based on the MERC member fee methodology adopted at the August 2006 Board meeting. Klimczak asked Rodman if the per Mb charge/revenue is included in the member services revenue. Klimczak suggested the possibility of showing the per Mb revenue separated from the member fee revenue on the budget sheet. Klimczak thought that separation would be a good way to show the idea member fees are moving down in favor of a per Mb basis. No objections from the Board were heard and Rodman agreed to provide that breakdown.

Rodman explained that there will be increased expenses for training in order to replace one of three aging lap-top training labs. Rodman noted that in the revenues less expenses line item there is a deficit of $49,000 between revenue and expenses. Gulstad commented that by projecting the $49,000 deficit over the next several years in a period of about four years there would be no fund balance remaining. Gulstad recommended that the Board consider what a good target amount would be appropriate to maintain as a fund balance. Klimczak stated he felt that now would be an appropriate time to discuss a target fund balance and there was no reason to postpone the discussion. Klimczak added that as a public higher education institution they keep between 5% to 8%   as a fund balance,

Klimczak then proposed that MERC keep roughly a 10% fund balance, or about $150,000. The target amount of $150,000 would not include the $90,000 FER that would also be held back in addition to the MERC fund balance. Allen noted that the FER would be reevaluated on an annual basis, so that the $90,000 contribution from MERC is subject to change on an annual basis. Because of this variability the Board discussed holding 100,000 for the FER and 150,000 as a strictly MERC fund balance. Gulstad motioned that the Board approve maintaining a target fund balance of $250,000, of which  $100,000 would be set aside for the FER and the remaining $150,000 for MERC. The motion was seconded by Shepherd, all were in favor and none opposed. Motion carried.

Legislative Update – Bill Giddings

Giddings handed out copies of the recently updated legislative resources, which are available on the MOREnet website. The most recent update of February 14th reports that the House/Senate Joint Report on MOREnet Performance Measures was positive for MOREnet. Senate Bill 121, which would require every state public governmental body to begin a migration strategy to the fiber optic network currently owned by the Department of Transportation, although still listed on the Senate webpage is expected to be dropped. Giddings reported that the Governor announced his recommendations for the fiscal year 2008 budget, and although MOREnet had requested one-time additional funding the Governor recommended flat funding for MOREnet for FY08. Giddings reported that on January 29, 2007 several MOREnet supporters testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, supporting the Governor's FY08 budget recommendation. Giddings encouraged the Board members to watch the MOREnet legislative resources page for updated information.

Next Generation Network Update – Hank Niederhelm

Niederhelm reported that MOREnet is on target to release the fiber RFP at the end of February. MOREnet is anticipating the RFP will be on the street for about 90 days, at which time it will go through an evaluation process. The goal is to have a contract signed in the September/October time frame. That will allow the vendors to build fiber where needed and if progress goes well; begin lighting the fiber in February and March of 2008. The goal is to have all the fiber up and running in October of 2008. In the interim the backbone will likely be upgraded to 2.5G. During March a draft will be started of an RFP for optical equipment to support the fiber network.

GPN Update – Hank Niederhelm

Niederhelm reminded the Board that MOREnet is responsible for the operation of the Great Plains Network. Niederhelm reported that last fall GPN connectivity to I2 was upgraded to 10G, previously the circuit was 1G. In the April/May timeframe the GPN PoP will need to be relocated from the Qwest facility to the Level 3 facility.

CALEA Update – Ben Colley

Colley reported that MOREnet, after careful reviewing the CALEA requirements, has concluded that MOREnet is a private network. As a private network, MOREnet is exempt from CALEA requirements, except where there is network interface with the Internet. Therefore MOREnet will comply with CALEA requirements at the gateways to the public Internet. MOREnet filed the required Monitoring Report, which was due to the FCC on February 12th and will file a System Security and Integrity Plan, due to the FCC in March. Colley also reported that MOREnet looked carefully at the question of whether MOREnet members have a separate CALEA obligation. It is MOREnet’s opinion that if MOREnet members do not provide access to the internet (other than through MOREnet), they have no separate CALEA obligation, however the final decision on CALEA compliance falls within individual MOREnet member institutions.

Ruckus – Nancy Piringer

Piringer asked the Board about interest among their institutions in Ruckus, which is a service that allows legal downloads of music and video files. Allen added that previously several institutions had agreements in place with another company, Cdigix, which recently announced that it is getting out of the music sharing business. Helm reported that the University of Central Missouri has been looking at Ruckus but has not yet taken any action but would be interested in looking at in the context of additional institutions having an interest. Klimczak added that his campus had no interest in Ruckus, and thought interest would mainly be limited to those institutions with residential campuses.

HELIX Conference Update

Piringer reported that currently 106 attendees have signed up for the conference, with one month left to register. Piringer reminded the Board that Larry Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of the New Media Consortium will be the keynote speaker. Johnson will be speaking on the findings of the 2007 Horizon Report. There will be additional activities, including a golf outing on Wednesday afternoon followed by the Grand Opening reception with a dessert bar and wine tasting. The wine tasting will include seven different Missouri wineries. On Thursday evening there will be a Texas Hold’Em tournament.

Robotics Project Update – Bill Giddings

Giddings reported that MOREnet’s involvement in the FIRST Robotics Competition began when Bill Mitchell was approached by the Kaufman Foundation in October of 2006. FIRST Robotics is a competition to celebrate math and science. Each team is furnished with a kit to build their robot. This year there will be thirty-three regional competitions plus competitions in Israel, Canada, and South America. The regional competitions lead up to the national event in Atlanta. Missouri will host two regional competitions, one in Kansas City during March and another in St. Charles. The Kaufman Foundation, located in Kansas City has provided funding for MOREnet to put in a 6Mb connection at the Hale Arena, where the Kansas City competition will take place. MOREnet will stream the Kansas City event live and also provide high definition videoconferencing  between several remote sites.

Other Business

Discussion of proposed amendment to Governance Procedures

Gulstad raised the issue of a previous discussion regarding the continuity of MERC representation on the MOREnet Council.

Helm and Piringer agreed to draft a proposed amendment to the Governance Procedures addressing the fact that while typically a MERC Board Member does in fact serve as a representative on the MOREnet Council, the terms do not run concurrently and therefore at times the MOREnet Council representative appointed from MERC is not actively sitting on the MERC Board. The proposed amendment would allow for the MERC Board member appointed to the MOREnet Council to remain on the MERC Board during their appointed MOREnet Council term.

CBHE designates the representatives, there is no requirement that the representative be a MERC Board member. Historically, Robert Stein has ensured that one of the two higher education  representatives on the Council has been appointed from the MERC Board, with another MERC Board member serving as the alternate.

LaReau brought up his desire to explore the ability to put up an emergency website at MOREnet if an institution experiences a major event and needs to notify both the public and it’s members. LaReau explained that during the power outages in Springfield over the winter that OTS would have liked the ability to share information on their status. LaReau also reported that he would like to explore the ability to host streaming servers on the MOREnet backbone. Where he could post streaming material so that outside connections requesting access would go to a server on the MOREnet backbone and internal requests would go to a server on his network so that he would not be using his tail circuit for streaming.

Klimczak agreed that both those topics would be of interest to his institution. Niederhelm responded that MOREnet offers the Kinetic service, which provides a back-up website for the Department of Revenue. They have a primary server on the state network and a back-up using the Kinetic service. Niederhelm also added that with the implementation of the Next Generation Network, NGN, co-locating servers and/or streaming services will be much more feasible.  

Helm asked for additional comments. Hearing none the meeting was adjourned at 11:15 AM.