NCACC Announces 2003-04 Ketner Award Winners

The Association would like to announce the winners of the 2003-04 Ketner Employee Productivity Awards Program. Mr. Ralph Ketner, co-founder of Food Lion, Inc., donates $10,000 each year to reward outstanding county employees for their successful productivity initiatives. This year marks the Association’s 13th year in organizing the program — to date, the program has attracted 1,116 project applications representing over $83 million in savings to our counties.

Each year, the Association’s president appoints two review committees made up of commissioners, managers, county staff, and IOG representatives — one committee considers applications from managerial staff and one reviews those submitted by line staff. The review committees met Tuesday, June 29, to consider all eligible applications for the 2003-04 Ketner Productivity Awards Program. Based on the committees’ review, the following county employees were selected as having submitted the best productivity enhancements:

Find recaps of the winning programs below.

Each employee or team of employees will receive $1,000 and a certificate of recognition at the General Session of the Association’s Annual Conference, to be held in Buncombe County in August. To ensure that local media are informed of the employee’s achievements, Association staff will also send press releases describing the employee’s productivity initiative.

Recaps of winning programs

Doug Reynolds, telephone systems analyst

Buncombe County
Telephone costs savings

Buncombe County has realized a $32,691 reduction in its yearly phone network costs, thanks to Doug Reynolds’ expertise and hard work.

Reynolds, a telephone systems analyst in the Information Technology Department, single-handedly moved 69 BellSouth Centrex fax and modem lines to analog circuits off the county Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system, cutting a monthly $28 per line cost to $1.50 and netting a total savings of $24,864 a year. In addition, Reynolds moved three PBX voice links from BellSouth T-1 lines to pre-existing fiber optic lines, eliminating a $650 monthly charge – good for another $7,800 in yearly savings.

Reynolds is solely responsible for the county’s telephone network, which spans 48 buildings, 1,850 extensions and 425 telephone lines. He did not enlist outside contract help to complete the switchover – instead assuming the additional project and man hours.

Linda Wiggins, chief deputy tax collector
Mark Deese, Information Technology Department administrator

Cleveland County
Enhancement of Debt Setoff Program

A costly and time-consuming process of submitting transactions to the Debt Setoff Program clearinghouse led Cleveland County to find and implement a more efficient software package.

The original clearinghouse process took 20 minutes of elapsed time per transaction to post payment in the county files and change and send the new $0 debt amount to the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse submitted 3,229 transactions to the county in the period from March 7, 2003, to March 9, 2004. That number of transactions represents 1,706 hours of time. The new software allowed Cleveland to process the same amount of transactions in 12 hours.

The software streamlines the process by sending out letters to delinquent taxpayers. If the taxpayer does not settle the debt in the time allowed, the report automatically sends a request to the clearinghouse for collection. Payments are automatically posted through a lockbox, and the clearinghouse files are automatically cleared.

The county realized additional savings by switching social security number providers. The county’s previous handler charged $1.95 per request – whether the number was found or not. The new company charged $0.25 per number found. The software sends a batch request to the company, which returns found social security numbers via a spreadsheet. The Excel document is automatically loaded into the server.

Cleveland estimated that submitting 15,000 names to the old company involved 6,250 hours in transaction time and $29,250 in charges. The new company allows the county to perform the same amount of requests in 15 hours for $2,818.75 in charges.

Joe Silver, Tax Department administrator
Catherine Lambeth, Department of Social Services director

Davidson County
Property tax collection collaboration

With the help of Davidson County Department of Social Services Director Catherine Lambeth, Tax Administrator Joe Silver found a way to better serve taxpayers in Thomasville and eliminate a troublesome problem with a contracted collection agency.

After budgetary constraints forced the closure of the county’s satellite tax office in Thomasville, the county’s largest municipality, Davidson contracted with an outside agency to collect tax payments in the city.

While the cost of having a collection center in Thomasville dropped from approximately $80,000 to less than $25,000, a number of problems arose. The private agency could not help with property records inquiries or valuation reports and had difficulty balancing payments on a daily basis – creating a weekly nightmare for the tax department staff.

Silver and Lambeth entered an agreement in which the Department of Social Services’ pre-existing Thomasville satellite office would handle in-person tax payments and services, with the tax office compensating DSS on the same basis as the former contracted agency.

DSS staff members were trained by the tax office to handle the requests, and equipment was provided from existing inventory in the Tax Department. During the first two months the social services satellite office began servicing tax payments and requests, daily collections increased 15 percent, and overall tax-related assistance increased 31 percent.

Chuck Harris, Department of Social Services interim director, and team

Durham County
System of care to reduce court-ordered treatment costs

Realizing that many court-ordered treatment services for children were not being provided by Durham County due to a lack of funding, Interim Director of Social Services Chuck Harris and a collection of agencies began implementing a comprehensive and coordinated system of care.

Education, juvenile justice, health, mental health, child welfare, family court and other helping agencies work together beginning at the assistant director level to review and refine operations and policies. Agencies and other local groups take part in a Community Collaborative to recognize service gaps and community needs, while interagency professionals – who share responsibility and accountability for the delivery of best practice services – collaborate as a Care Review Team. Finally, individual child and family teams meet monthly to develop and implement individual plans.

The system uses a best-practices approach to tie together what was a fragmented group of services, providing a better level of support and help for youths.

The system of care also has resulted in substantial savings, a portion of which has been reinvested to beef up infrastructure support. During the fiscal year ending in 2000, Durham County spent $762,302 for court-ordered treatment costs. Through the month of April 2004, fiscal year costs had amounted to $7,125. From February 2003 to March 2004, the number of children receiving mental health services increased 45 percent – from 600 to 869 children. In addition, a growing number of youths that were once placed in residential facilities outside the county are now being treated in their own homes or in a therapeutic foster-home setting.

Chris Gulledge, EMT paramedic

Iredell County
EMS system clinical/organizational improvement

Paramedic Chris Gulledge put his computer skills to work in order to implement dynamic protocols, a Web site, and a secure software program that benefits fellow Emergency Medical Services personnel, the community and EMS training officers.

EMS Director Lee Darnell estimated that Gulledge – who developed the site and software on his own time – performed $37,250 worth of labor to format protocols to HTML and include links to medication and other pertinent information. Web site design and development would have cost the county $72,000, plus $1,200 per year in Webmaster fees. Gulledge spent 320 hours – an estimated cost of $16,000 to the county – writing and developing the training software.

The user-friendly protocols are available on the Web site, giving hospitals, rescue squads and other parties on-demand access. The training software allows field officers to enter data and track student and employee clinical progress.

Gulledge maintains the Web site, www.iredellems.com, modifies protocols as needed, and continues to develop other projects on his own time and separate from his duties as a paramedic.

Nelson Baker, senior systems analyst
Pam Little, senior systems analyst
David Ballantyne, systems analyst
Wayne Butler, senior network analyst
Dave Vance, Real Estate Division manager

Mecklenburg County
Real estate lookup project

Information Services and Technology (IST) Department employees Nelson Baker, Pam Little, David Ballantyne and Wayne Butler, along with Real Estate Division Manager Dave Vance, developed a real estate lookup Web site (meckcama.co.mecklenburg.nc.us/relookup/) that generated more than 10 million hits during a nine-and-a-half week period. They also developed a single-standard real estate database used by RE/LOOKUP, GIS/mapping (POLARIS), and the GIS group in the Property Assessment and Land Records Management department for ad hoc reporting.

For its 2003 revaluation, Mecklenburg County purchased and implemented a new appraisal system. At that time, the county decided to develop its own system to make real estate data available to the public and provide a shared database for other county Web-enabled systems.

The system is a first for the county using Microsoft .NET Framework technology. Four types of searches for 2003 real estate information are available on the Web site. Links to tax billing, property photos, deed information, mapping, street directions, and summaries of property information and revaluation notices are included.

Using internal resources, the county implemented the new system in a cost-effective manner. IST staff spent 1,700 hours on the project. The RE/LOOKUP system used an existing database server, while the Web and application servers cost $15,000.

John E. Parris, Tax Department administrator
Wayne Vest, assistant assessor
Willard Hiatt, revaluation coordinator

Moore County
Public Relations Above and Beyond, “The Tax Department on the Road”

A drastic upswing in property values prompted the Moore County Tax Department to hit the road during its 2003 revaluation process. Tax Administrator John E. Parris and his team of key office representatives weren’t running from taxpayers, however; they were hosting informal appeal meetings across the county.

Hundreds of homes had increased in value by more than 300 percent, with thousands more doubling in value, in the eight years since the county’s previous revaluation in 1995. Tax officials decided the best way to address county and taxpayer concerns about the revaluation was to meet face-to-face with as many taxpayers as possible.

From February to April 2003, department officials worked 20 different days in 15 separate temporary office locations. An estimated 6,000 taxpayers representing 15,000 parcels – or 25 percent of the county’s tax base – met with department representatives. By making use of dial-up modems and direct internet connections, tax officials were able to access all department computer files on any parcel for the property owner – and make any changes or corrections on the spot.

In the weeks prior to the meetings, the department promoted its meetings and detailed the appeals process via The Pilot, a local newspaper. The county also placed a four-page insert in the paper one week before notices were mailed to taxpayers, and also included on the back of each revaluation notice form information on the revaluation process and the dates and times of community meetings.

The department’s approach to dealing with a potential public relations disaster generated positive feedback from both the local press and county citizens.

Ray Church, Department of Environmental Management director
Jason Hale, solid waste planner
Garry Moore, operator
James Thomas, supervisor

New Hanover County
Economic and environmentally friendly glass recycling innovation

A costly problem with glass recycling helped put the New Hanover County Department of Environmental Management on the road to a profitable solution.

The county was following the state standard for glass recycling: trucking glass to a cleaning and sorting facility in Raleigh before its shipment to a smelting operation hundreds of miles away. That method came with an annual post-collection bill of $6,400, so department director Ray Church asked solid waste planner Jason Hale to find a way to prepare and use the glass inside the county.

The high cost of automatic glass crushers sent Hale looking for a way to crush the glass to a uniform size using existing county equipment. Hale found that a large loading machine could do the job by repeatedly dropping the glass on an existing concrete pad.

Supervisor James Thomas and operator Garry Moore were enlisted for help with the screening process. Working together and utilizing Moore’s welding and design skills, the duo constructed a low-cost, large screen using scrap metal bars and on-hand mesh. The screen fit over a 20-yard roll-off container and made use of two small vibrating motors to sift out glass that was too large to pass through the one-half inch screening.

Church and Hale sent the resulting material to County Landfill Manager Steve Edens, who had a use for the glass. The landfill purchases rock to cover and add stability to roads, and trials proved the smooth and crushed glass would serve as a suitable and alternative road base material.

The change in operations resulted in an estimated net revenue of $2,300, a number that should only increase due to the one-time cost of the screen’s construction and the rising prices of fuel and labor – both of which were necessary with the previous glass recycling process.

Teresa Smith, health promotion medication management coordinator

Wayne County
“No Senior Without” (Prescription drug assistance)

Wayne County’s “No Senior Without” program seeks to assure that its needy senior citizens will never be forced to go without necessary medications again.

The county’s Services on Aging Department found that some seniors could not afford food and prescription medications on their limited incomes. This common practice prompted the agency to ask pharmaceutical companies for help.

The program relies on obtaining accurate information and building confidence and trust with seniors. The department reviews each senior’s medication bottles and gathers income information in order to complete a form that is presented to the pharmaceutical company. The Services on Aging staff then begins exploring whether the applicable drug manufacturer is willing to supply the senior with reduced-cost or free medication.

The search for a cooperating pharmaceutical company can be extensive. In some cases, department staff members accompany seniors to their doctor’s appointments to see if the physician is willing to prescribe a medication that is available.

Amber Denning, Human Services coordinator

Wilson County
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)/Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Outreach Campaign

According to the Internal Revenue Service, 25 percent of eligible taxpayers fail to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit. Wilson County decided that based on that figure, launching an education and assistance program for low- to moderate-income families could generate a potential $21.6 million in refunds and savings for eligible county residents.

In addition to the possible boost for the local economy, the EITC/VITA Outreach Campaign would help promote sound financial management and savings. The program enlisted the help of volunteers from the community and Department of Social Services to work with clients to prepare tax returns, change poor financial habits and promote financial security.

An aggressive campaign targeted citizens who came to the DSS for help. Work First clients; foster, single and non-custodial parents; elderly and disabled adults; and students all received help, while the county saved time and money by targeting its DSS population.

The first 110 clients, working with 51 volunteers over 380 hours, realized a total of $84,706 in combined federal and state refunds and $11,000 in savings on return preparation fees.

The campaign received national recognition in March at the National Association of Counties’ Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C. County representatives participated on a panel that presented the outreach program as a model practice.