Utah Conservation Districts
1. Does your state contribute and/or set supervisor travel and per diem?
Yes - We reimburse mileage at $0.52 per mile at the state rate, Per diem is included when approved by the Conservation District board in a meeting. Per Diem are state rates - Breakfast - $10, Lunch $14, Dinner $18. This is only on overnight trips for conferences or trainings. It is an application sent in to state office and paid to supervisors using only direct deposit.
2. If yes, does the state contribution cover all or a portion of the annual cost? We call is Supervisor Expense Reimbursement Account (SERA) - we cover all costs that are approved by the individual CD's (motion required in meeting minutes). Utah provides about $175K for the entire state to cover 190 supervisors in 38 CD's.
FYI - Supervisors are provided a hourly rate for meetings of $15 hr or daily MAX $90 day, this would include travel. So if they travel for 6 hours, they can't get additional payments for meeting they attend. It is just up to $90 day no matter hours traveled or meeting time.
We have a meeting in the south end of Utah and some of the supervisors that live in the northern part of Utah end up with over $1000 reimbursement for a 2 day meeting. With daily rate, mileage, per diem, it adds up quickly. Utah uses most of the state appropriation quickly. Some CD's don't use any.... it just depends on CD activity and projects. But you can see who is doing projects by how much SERA they use.
It is currently "open season" first come first serve. No one district is capped nor minimum set. When the funds run out, there isn't additional funds to spare.
Hope that helps. It works for Utah! Have a great day Brian!