By Amanda Durish Cook

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — MISO’s Board of Directors voted last week to switch to a quarterly meeting schedule from its current every-other-month calendar, a change likely to also be adopted by the Advisory Committee.

The changes are the first to result from the RTO’s stakeholder process redesign, which is also expected to result in a reduction in the number of committees.

The board voted unanimously Thursday to switch to four open board meetings, with two strategic planning meetings scheduled in the summer and fall.

“The idea of going to four meetings is to get all of our obligations met. I think it’ll be a really productive way to move forward,” MISO CEO John Bear said.

Too Few?

However, board member Michael Evans said that the quarterly meeting schedule could be too little given the multitude of issues facing MISO.

“We’ve got a lot of balls in the air, a lot of moving parts,” Evans said. “If you miss one [meeting] it means you’re six months in between meetings. I’m concerned about losing the relationships between board meetings and losing continuity on the issues. I think we ought to let that percolate a little bit.”

Board member Thomas Rainwater said less frequent meetings would challenge the board to do more work between meetings and put the onus on the board members to work harder individually. He added that he couldn’t urge the Advisory Committee to meet less if he wasn’t willing to apply that to the board.

“I’m pleased to see the diversity of opinion on the board. I can be persuaded either way. I look at this as four governance meetings … and two really deep dive strategic meetings,” Rainwater said.

Despite Evans’ concerns, the new schedule passed without objection.

The board’s vote came a day after the Advisory Committee discussed — but took no action on — making a similar change.

Advisory Committee Chairman Gary Mathis said the committee should follow the board’s meeting schedule.

“We should continue meeting this way, face-to-face whenever the board meets,” he said. “If the board is considering changing their schedule, then we should follow suit. I think it’s important to match those up. As they go, we should go too.”

Streamlining the Organizational Chart

The Advisory Committee also discussed the stakeholder redesign. At the third redesign workshop in September, stakeholders tentatively identified eight committees that would be eliminated, with their duties assigned to other panels (see organizational chart). MISO’s straw proposal called for eliminating 10 committees.

Board members suggested that stakeholders’ simplified redesign might be in need of further simplification.

Board Chairman Judy Walsh urged the stakeholder process redesign team to combine some of their six desired outcomes. “If you have more than three priorities, you have none at all,” Walsh said.

Rainwater echoed Walsh’s advice to focus on three top priorities. “Let’s start with some small victories,” he said.

Board member Baljit “Bal” Dail asked that the stakeholder planning team respect the role of the board versus the role of management in creating the organizational model. He said sometimes stakeholders bring “hot topic” issues before the board that are better handled by MISO management.

“The board takes a ‘noses in, fingers out’ approach,” Dail told them.

Michigan Public Service Commissioner Sally Talberg said more discussion was needed on whether stakeholders should focus on high-level issues versus specifics that can quickly become complex and warrant multiple meetings. She added that MISO’s 2,000-page Tariff can lead to “endless tinkering.”

MISO stakeholders will develop final recommendations at a fourth workshop Nov. 3. The final proposal for redesign will go before the Advisory Committee on Dec. 9.