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NCACC announces 2004-05 Ketner Award winners The Association would like to announce the winners of the 2004-05 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 14th year in organizing the program — to date, the program has attracted 1,164 project applications representing over $87 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 28, to consider all eligible applications for the 2004-05 Ketner Productivity Awards Program. Based on the committees’ review, the following county employees were selected as having submitted the best productivity enhancements: Recaps of each winning program are 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 Mecklenburg 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.
Brunswick County Collector of Revenue Tom Bagby and team
Unprecedented growth in the coastal county of Brunswick had led to an overburdened Tax Office and a tax collection rate that had been in decline for six consecutive years before the office underwent a “makeover” in 2004. A number of improvements implemented after the arrival of Tax Collector Tom Bagby in December 2003 helped turn the tide on the sinking collection rates and customer service problems that included a six-hour average delay in returned phone calls and 10-minute waits for walk-in customers. All of these improvements were accomplished without adding staff. Among the improvements, a unique delinquent bill for motor vehicles that lists all outstanding property and vehicle debts resulted in the collection of a larger number of debts at a reduced postage cost, and reminders about outstanding balances were included on all correspondence to customers. A public information campaign that included newspaper inserts and speaking engagements got the word out about tax laws and due dates, while promotion of the county’s online tax information and receipts led to a reduction in phone calls to the office. The results of the initiatives speak for themselves. Brunswick recorded its highest ever collection rate, adding more than $600,000 in revenue for the 2003-04 fiscal year and $1.5 million for 2004-05. The county eclipsed a 100 percent collection rate for both motor vehicle and property taxes after combining delinquent and base year bills. The public also picked up the pace with payments, generating an extra $8 million in cash flow during the final four months of 2004. The county avoided having to hire two additional tax specialists, while customer service improved for walk-ins – who saw their waiting time cut in half – and phone calls, which are now returned in an average time of one hour. Cabarrus County Director of Social Services James Cook  Low-income Cabarrus County residents are now not only able to help themselves during a visit to the Department of Social Services, but also help control the pet population. As the cost of animal shelters and number of stray and abandoned animals euthanized continued to rise – the county’s rate of 28 animals killed per 1,000 residents was almost double the national average – county officials began to look for a humane solution. With help from the state’s Spay/Neuter Program, Cabarrus County was able to achieve that with its own SNIP (Spay/Neuter Improvements for Pets) program. The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services supplements the costs of a low-income reimbursement program for spays and neuters in cities and counties through special $10 “I CARE” license plate fees, a $1 rabies vaccination fee and voluntary “I CARE” rabies tags. Since individuals or families must receive one or more low-income public assistance programs in order to qualify for the animal spay/neuter funds, the county assigned management of the SNIP program to its DSS, thereby creating an almost perfect blend of services for low-income families and their pets. Participants are given either a $50 spay/neuter voucher or a $60 spay/neuter/rabies vaccination voucher, redeemable at a number of local veterinarian offices. In addition to creating a more humane alternative to euthanasia, the potential savings to the county is great. According to an estimate from SpayUSA, a dog and a cat, left unsprayed and un-neutered can along with their offspring produce more than 133,000 puppies and kittens over a six-year period. At a $75 per animal average, the cost for shelter and euthanasia for 20 percent of that number reaches $1.9 million. From October 2004 through May 2005, the county DSS issued 118 vouchers – at a potential cost of $6,010. Catawba County Director of Social Services Bobby Boyd  More than 200 children in foster care in Catawba County stood to lose once mental health reform legislation calling for the divestiture of area mental health programs took effect July 1, 2004. Determined not to let children and families in need – not to mention the numerous mental health professionals and licensed clinical social workers who were delivering prevention services – slip through the cracks, the county consolidated and merged a range of therapeutic medical and social welfare services into a new Department of Social Services unit called Family NET (Nurturing, Education and Treatment). Of the more than 200 children in foster care in Catawba County, 60 percent receive mental health services through Family NET. Outpatient services for children, women and families; school social work; the ACT day treatment program for children; post-adoption services; intensive family preservation and case management, and women’s support are included in the services under the Family NET umbrella. Not only did the redesigned service structure help save and expand programs like ACT day treatment, which treats more than 30 children annually, but also saved substantial dollars by helping the county avoid negotiating multiple contracts with numerous service providers. In addition, no child in foster care experienced a break in care provision due to the well-timed transition. Family NET also expanded the number of Medicaid-billable opportunities for the county DSS for intensive family preservation, school social work and post-adoption services. In one year’s time, Family NET generated $40,000 in Medicaid and third-party funding. New Hanover County Fire and Life Safety Educator Sarah Chapman and team New Hanover County Meals on Wheels clients got a little something extra with their lunches in October 2004. In turn with Fire Prevention Week in 2004, the county’s Fire Services teamed up with the Department on Aging’s Meals on Wheels program to check and install smoke alarms in the homes of those who are most vulnerable to death or injury during a home fire – senior citizens. Since the Department on Aging is always short on volunteers to provide the service, having county and city fire personnel – who already know their way around town – run routes saved time for senior center staff members. Fire officials, meanwhile, were able to inspect smoke alarms in 132 homes during the month. A total of 83 alarms were installed in 68 homes – or 52 percent of those visited. The alarms were provided by the N.C. Office of State Fire Marshal through a National Fire Protection Association grant. The county plans to repeat the program in 2005. Pitt County Assistant County Attorney Janis Gallagher
Through Pitt County’s Electronic Offender Monitoring Program, non-violent inmates who would normally be stuck in an unproductive cycle behind bars are able to take part in the workforce and make their child support payments through a wage garnishment system. The Sheriff’s Office received a grant in December 2004 to fund the purchase of 25 monitoring units that utilize global positioning technology. Eligible defendants who are housed at the county detention center are allowed to return to their jobs during the work day, while those who are not employed participate in Project Strive, a community resource dedicated to job training and employment assistance. For each detainee enrolled in the program, the county saves approximately $35 per day, for a potential daily savings of $875 and yearly savings of $319,375, all while reducing the daily jail population by 25 inmates. During the program’s first few months of operation, more than $5,000 in delinquent child support payments were collected from inmates, many of whom had not been employed in years. Rockingham County Social Services Eligibility Director Toni C. Fain and team
Technology and organization helped the Rockingham County Department of Social Services realize a 46 percent increase in workload – without taking on additional staff. Prior to 2004, public assistance applicants were subjected to as many as three interviews to determine eligibility for a variety of programs. The application process could sometimes last an entire day due to a wait time before and between interviews that lasted one to two hours. Some clients left before completing the full interview process, leaving open the possibility that not all applicants were receiving their full potential benefits. In 2003, DSS began developing an Intake Triage, in which a single screener interviews potential claimants and completes a series of online application forms for Family Medicaid, Work First Family Assistance and Food Stamps. Staff was reorganized from divisions based on programs to one that consisted of screener, processor and ongoing caseworker positions. The changes helped staff process a number of public assistance applicants that numbered 572 in December 2003 and swelled to a high of 900 in August 2004. Total time for a single interview was reduced to a maximum of 90 minutes, while lobby wait times were also cut to 90 minutes – a drastic improvement over what used to amount to one day. Client confidentiality was also improved during the process, as applicants are received by an assigned number rather than their name. Since the total number of staff members remained stagnant, the only cost incurred by the department is a $5,700 annual lease on six printers – one for each screener’s office. Swain County Sanitation Supervisor Charles Bailey
The residents of Swain County are paying a lot less for trash disposal, thanks to Sanitation Supervisor Charles Bailey. Bailey, an 11-year county veteran, designed and fabricated a hopper waste management system that allows county sanitation workers to sift through solid waste and pull out recyclable material that would ordinarily be shipped to a transfer station and then to a landfill in South Carolina for final disposal at a cost of almost $57 per ton. The system allows large collection trucks to back directly under a 20-by-15 funnel – or hopper – while solid waste is slowly dropped from a front loader into the collector area. Two employees stand on either side of the hopper and monitor the waste’s flow, picking out as many recyclables as possible. The creation of a Swain County transfer station eliminated the need for the county to ship the waste to the Cherokee Tribal Transfer Station and also streamlined the county’s recycling efforts at one location. The financial savings were impressive as well, as the county shaved $16,000 off its normal $45,000 monthly solid waste disposal bill. The savings allowed the county to fund other recycling efforts. In addition, scales that were purchased for the hopper system allowed the county to more accurately weigh citizen construction and demolition materials. Union County GIS Technician Sou Moua Union County GIS Technician Sou Moua’s knowledge and implementation of Adobe Acrobat software in the Tax and Register of Deeds offices saved employees a lot of redundant work, eliminated the chance of misplaced deeds and even saved printer and paper supplies. Using the software, Tax Office employees can convert deed images from the Register of Deeds’ database into Portable Document Format (PDF) and annotate the files on-screen. Considering the Tax Office processes several thousand deeds per year, this by far trumps the previous system, in which deeds were printed on paper, annotated by hand, and then scanned in for digital storage and transfer. The new system of recording deeds addressed three major issues the county was facing: the time-consuming process of deed scanning; lost, misplaced or duplicated deeds; and paper and supply consumption. The elimination of the scanning step alone saved Union County almost $267,000 annually. Due to the convention used for naming the files and the resulting digital storage of the files on the county network, losing or duplicating deeds is a thing of the past. The process is also more environmentally friendly. Each deed uses an average of 2 ½ sheets of printed paper, and the Tax Office processed approximately 13,000 deeds over the past two years. If the system had been in place over the entire time frame, around 19,500 sheets of paper would have been saved since only the first page of each deed needs to be printed now. Wilson County Child Care Supervisor Tracey Mooring In order to weed out fraud in applications for the county’s Child Care Subsidy Assistance Program, Wilson’s Program Integrity and Child Care Subsidy teams went into sleuth mode. The initiative saved $94,150 in subsidy funds and allowed the Department of Social Services to serve 40 additional eligible, truly needy families who were on a waiting list for assistance. The teams started by targeting every program applicant who was not already receiving child support. An intensive front-end investigation was conducted, beginning with a computer-based data collection effort through inquiries into various records, such as criminal, eligibility, employment security and Department of Transportation files. The Special Investigations Team then conducted field visits, which often found that the supposedly absent parent was still living in the home. Investigations also turned up differences in reported and actual income, or that one parent was not employed. Both parents must be employed for a family to be eligible. In all, 88 out of 255 families – approximately 34 percent – were rejected following an investigation. With insufficient funding to provide assistance to all children in need, the detective work helps ensure that those families who truly need help have the opportunity to receive it. Wilson County Child Support Agent Delois Jones and team  Thanks to a concept that led to the formation of Child Support Judicial Teams with specialized functions in July 2004, more children in Wilson County are being taken care of financially by non-custodial parents. As of April 30, 2005, the improved, specialized process resulted in collections exceeding $7 million – an increase of more than $150,000 for the same time period in 2004 – and the monthly collection rate increased from 60.2 percent to 63.1 percent. Customer cases that had not been worked in two to three years are now being assessed, with appropriate documents served by Sheriff’s deputies. Cases taken to court increased from 450 to 650 per month. The state child support office that monitors the quality of work being produced confirms a 95 percent accuracy rate by the county. In addition, intense monitoring of cases has led to the enforcement of orders for health insurance – resulting in more than $185,000 in Medicaid program savings during the first 10 months of the 2004-05 fiscal year. |
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