Liz Blakely, Clerical Supervisor until Jan. 78.
Tereasa Jefferson, Clerical Supervisor
Barbra Hunter, Secretary I (legal secretary)
Marcia Coverdale, Clerk-typist III (Developmental Disabilities Program)
Velora Vertz, Secretary I (Bookkeeper).
Sue Kopaska, Clerk-typist III
Peg Alexander, Clerk-typist III
Cindy Spaulding, Secretary 1.
The Clerical Supervisor at the Commission is Ms. Tereasa Jefferson. She also serves as secretary to the Commission at their monthly meetings. Ms. Jefferson has previous experience in another law enforcement agency, namely the Iowa Department of Public Safety, which includes the Iowa Highway Patrol and the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. She did all of the clerical duties at the Radio Maintenance Center.
Ms. Jefferson attended North High School in Des Moines (1975). She is a 1977 graduate of the American Institute of Business (Des Moines) where she completed a two year program to earn an Associate degree in Business Administration. She took charge of our clerical staff in March of 1978.
Through the biennium we have instituted a number of important changes in the clerical operation. Probably the most extensive change has been the formation of a formal steno pool. Previously we assigned each clerktypist or secretary to handle clerical duties for a group of other staff members. This was a team concept in which a secretary was a member of each team. The steno pool maintains the team concept, but all the members of the team are clerk-typists and secretaries. All word processing work is now entered in a log and assigned a number. The pool processes all material in date order unless a manager from another division designates certain work as a priority. The steno team has made a significant contribution to efficiency in our office.
Vacancies in the Clerical Division left us without full capacity for the last three months of FY-78. Although we conducted a vigorous recruitment effort, we had considerable difficulty filling two of our clerical positions. The majority of applicants mentioned that working downtown was the reason they declined to take the job. Traffic and parking posed problems they were not willing to undertake with the limited salaries offered for clerical positions.
Another new development in our clerical staff was the addition of our first full-time legal secretary. Ms. Barbra Hunter started working full-time for the two Attorneys General assigned to the commission and our hearing officer in FY-78. Such a position became necessary as a result of the intensified effort at the public hearing and litigation stages.
New developments in the area of hardware came in the form of the IBM System Six. The System Six is a type of electronic filing system, but it is actually more than a memory bank. Presently we are operating the machine with thirty-eight (38) "fields of information". Examples of a "field" include all the cases filed on the basis of race, all cases filed on the basis of sex, all cases in order of complainant's name and so on. Combinations of these factors are also possible. Information can be extracted in any form or sequence for quick survey or compilations. The operator of the machine can also use it to revise long manuscripts, while the machine will re-collate and renumber pages. This eliminates the need to re-type long texts when a paragraph is added or deleted here or there. Mr. Leo Karn, Director of Operations, and Ms. Liz Blakely, our former Clerical Supervisor, were instrumental in obtaining this improvement in our equipment. Ms. Blakely left the agency in January, 1978, to take a position in private industry.
Overall the Clerical Division has experienced reorganization into a steno pool, specialization where it was needed, i.e., legal secretary, and the addition of sophisticated equipment in the form of the System Six. As of this writing the division is operating at full capacity.
Clerical staff who worked with the agency during the biennium, but who are not pictured:
Carol Carter
Joan Dahlke
Ilda Elliott
Jo Ann Meeks
Sandra Miller
Peg Mitton
Margie Pierce
Charla Pittman
Pat Seuferer
Mable Varellas