The Steering Committee is a governing body for the LH PRISM elected by all current partners. Six elected members serve on the LH PRISM Steering Committee for 3-year terms; the LH PRISM Lead Coordinator is also an ex-officio member of the committee. The Steering Committee meets several times a year and supports the LH PRISM staff and partners with strategic advice on conservation-based practices, development of annual work plans, and partner outreach and coordination. They also assist in coordinating other major joint initiatives across the partnership as needed. In addition, the Steering Committee reviews and ranks proposals submitted by partners and engaged stakeholders in the region to conduct invasive species projects that implement LH PRISM’s Strategic Plan. The most highly ranked projects are then forwarded to the NYSDEC for final approval.

Sharing information about best management practices, challenges, and successes among partners, state agencies, and other stakeholders is critical to collective progress in invasive species work. Outside of regular partner and Steering Committee meetings, ad hoc working groups perform a significant portion of the PRISM’s strategy and planning work. These working groups include partners and non-partner participants who express interest in working on a specific topic, guided by the PRISM Coordinator. Recent working groups include Education and Outreach, Species Categorization/Tier System, Aquatic Invasive Species, and Forest Pest and Pathogens. The working groups increase the capacity of the PRISM staff and have served as important collaborative tools that scale up to statewide/cross-PRISM working groups such as those for Education and Outreach, Terrestrial Coordination, and Aquatics Coordination.