Policy Section:   Board – Executive                          Director Linkage		Policy Number:  BL-2
Policy:   Communication and Counsel to the Board		Date Approved:  April 24, 2003
		Last Date Reviewed: Nov 2007
		Last Date Revised:
		Number of Pages: 2

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In order to facilitate the effective governance and decision-making roles of the Board, the Executive Director must ensure that the Board is informed and supported in its work. 

Parameters:

To carry out this key responsibility, the Executive Director must:

1.    Inform the Board of relevant trends, anticipated adverse media coverage, staff changes, lawsuits against the AWNA, publicly visible external and internal changes, major contracts, contracts with high public visibility, and/or changes in the assumptions upon which any Board policy has previously been established.

2.    Provide as many staff and external points of view, issues, and options as needed for fully informed Board choices.

3.    Provide timely notification to the Board of events or circumstances that the Executive Director considers emergent or critical and which may require Board response.

4.    Ensure that information presented to the Board is timely, accurate, complete, in a form useful for governance, and identified as to type of information:  monitoring, decision preparation, and for information only.

5.    Submit required monitoring information according to a schedule approved by Board in an understandable fashion that addresses the provisions of Board’s policies and directions.

6.    Advise the Board if the Board is not in compliance with its own policies on Board Process and the Board – Executive Director Linkage.
Provide reasonable administrative support for Board and Board committee activities.  In the case of Board members or committees requesting information or assistance without Board authorization, the Executive Director can refuse such requests that require, in the Executive Director’s opinion, too much staff time