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Employee innovation inspires Ketner Food Lion co-founder extends sponsorship of awards program for two years
The Association had a surprise in store for Ralph W. Ketner during the NCACC’s 99th Annual Conference. As it turns out, Mr. Ketner had an even bigger surprise for the Association. For the past 15 years, the co-founder of Food Lion, Inc., had donated $10,000 annually to the Association to sponsor the Ketner Employee Productivity Awards Program. Prior to this year’s conference, Ketner had informed Association staff that this would be his final year of funding the program. To thank Ketner for his contribution to county government, the Association prepared a framed certificate and a present to be awarded by NCACC President Kitty Barnes. But when Ketner was called to the microphone to receive his due recognition, he surprised the audience and announced that he would continue the awards program for two more years.
Productivity enhancements improve the efficiency of county programs, services and general administration. Improvements are seen as achieving one of the following: delivering the same level of service at a less expensive cost, rendering a higher level of service at the same cost, or avoiding future cost increases. Each winner or team of winners receives $1,000. To date, the program has attracted 1,226 project applications representing more than $95 million in savings to counties. Barnes appointed two review committees made up of commissioners, managers, county staff and Institute of Government representatives. The committees met Aug. 17 in Raleigh to consider applications. Cumberland County Presented to: Recycling Coordinator Jan Albert
Cumberland County’s trash has become one company’s treasure. Mountains of yard waste dumped at the county’s landfill by citizens, landscaping companies and the City of Fayetteville not only takes up valuable space – it’s also a highly combustible fire hazard. The county, which turns the waste into a mulch-like material by placing it into a tub grinder, had used the waste for erosion control at another landfill, but it cost $97 a truckload to move the mulch. Enter Recycling Coordinator Jan Albert. After researching the subject on the Internet, she found the material could be used as boiler fuel for large industries. Albert found a willing corporate partner in International Paper Co., which has a manufacturing plant in a neighboring county and agreed to pay $5.50 per ton for the material. International Paper also uses its own personnel and transport vehicles to pick up the material. The company was recently collecting four trailer loads each day, with each truck capable of hauling away a 24-ton load of the material. The county estimates that the program will generate an additional $100,000 in revenue – all without any additional fees or cost to the citizens – and of course helps mitigate a potential safety hazard. With the added revenue of the program, Cumberland County is now able to afford some large specialized equipment for its Solid Waste Department to deal with yard waste. Davidson County Presented to: Tax Administrator Joseph O. Silver N.C. General Statutes provide counties with a number of ways to collect delinquent taxes. Without using any of those options, Joseph Silver in Davidson County has found the means to collect delinquent and current-year taxes. After implementing a payment plan schedule for those who owed delinquent taxes, Silver and his staff found that many delinquent taxpayers would participate for a few months and promptly forget about the payment schedules. This, of course, sent the county back to square one for delinquent tax collections. Davidson County needed a way to “remind” taxpayers about their payment schedules without resorting to the often expensive and tedious General Statutes provisions for collection. During an offsite trip to an outsourcing agency, Silver noticed that the agency made payment books for a local bank. After studying the book and making some modifications, Silver was able to adapt the payment books into payment schedule reminders for both delinquent and current-year taxes, complete with mailing labels for payments. The payment books have been wildly popular in Davidson County since their inception. Since July 2005, 25 delinquent taxpayers have used the payment books to pay their taxes along with another 183 taxpayers who have requested the book in order to pay their current-year taxes. The booklets cost the county $1.35 each to print. Since then, $2,543 in delinquent taxes and $29,525 current-year taxes per month have been collected with the help of the payment booklets. The booklets also are not date-sensitive and may be used year after year for the same purpose. The number of people using the books to pay is expected to increase in the coming years, bringing with them further efficiency in delinquent and current-year tax collections. Another fantastic benefit of the payment booklet program is that the staff at the Tax Department has more time to focus on the service of Davidson County without the heavy burden of delinquent tax collections. In Davidson County, it seems that delinquent taxpayers just needed a reminder to pay their taxes. Silver and his staff have been happy to oblige with providing the reminder. Durham County Presented to: LME Area Director Ellen Holliman Numerous at-risk children in Durham County simply needed a welcoming home in order to cope with times of crisis, abuse and neglect. Ellen Holliman and her team at The Durham Center (TDC) made sure these children had a place to go in their time of need. After identifying at-risk children, Durham County traditionally removed the children from their homes and labeled them for institutional placement. This upheaval and relocation to the institutional setting is not only psychologically damaging, but is also quite expensive to the county. That’s why the staff at TDC developed the Rapid Response Homes (RRH) program for Durham County. By utilizing the existing Caring Family Network, Durham County was able to team up with trained and certified therapeutic parents who have voluntarily agreed to accept at-risk children into their homes on a 24/7/365 “no eject/no reject” basis. The RRH program is now able to identify and quickly place at-risk children into a welcoming setting of an existing home. While at a Rapid Response Home, the child receives services such as assessment, care and further evaluation in order to determine the best course of action for future placement of the child. In 2005, the RRH program responded to the needs of 69 children in Durham County who otherwise would have been placed in institutional settings that cost approximately $250 to $500 per day. Instead, the RRH program averages a cost of approximately $112 per day for each child. In addition to the savings associated with the per-day costs, the RRH program has enabled Durham County to close an emergency shelter that cost approximately $350,000 per year, instead contracting with the existing Caring Family network for less than half of that price. The savings in Durham County have been reinvested into mental health services and toward other services such as foster care. The greatest savings have been found in the process of sending at-risk children into a welcoming and therapeutic environment while simultaneously saving county dollars. During the span of the program, only two children required placement into a more restrictive setting for treatment. Most children were able to return home, were placed with a relative, or were transferred to equal or lower-level care. These facts help to quantify the program that, at its core, is unquantifiable in regard to its benefit in placing children into therapeutic homes. Gaston County Presented to: Business Services Administrator Selena Moss and team
Gaston County, realizing the flaws in its existing Department of Health collections process, recently initiated a collaborative project to revamp the process between the Business Services Division and the Information Technology Department. After a review of the process, it became clear that valuable county resources could be saved by automating the process of collections processing and aged self-pay accounts. Without having to resort to outsourcing or add staff, Gaston County was able to significantly increase the efficiency of its health collections program. Significant work went into existing IT infrastructure and software to introduce the automated system. The system now designates accounts in a “collections” status and automatically generates collections letters to these individuals. The new system also integrates with the state’s Debt Setoff Program, allowing an even greater reduction in work volume for the staff. In total, the program has allowed Gaston County to better serve the needs of its citizens while retaining the same staff and reducing costs. The department, plagued by a staff shortage prior to the automated system, has freed staff to work on other projects and has also been able to eliminate the use of an outside vendor for collections. The new system has saved $49,634 in county funds while helping to generate an additional $29,400 from individuals. Better information and better service is now offered by Gaston County through the collaborative efforts of staff and the implementation of this automated collections system. Mecklenburg County Presented to: Director of Revenue Collections Neal Dixon and IST Department
The new Privilege License System (PL-Sys) in Mecklenburg County illustrates how IT solutions can streamline county operations and save precious county resources in the process. Like many urban counties in North Carolina, Mecklenburg County has a responsibility to issue privilege/business licenses to businesses that wish to do business in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg area. The sheer number of applicants combined with the urgency of delivering these licenses makes for a major undertaking for Mecklenburg County, which must then spend considerable human, financial and technical resources to fulfill its privilege license responsibilities with more than 45,000 accounts in operation. Neal Dixon and the Mecklenburg County IST department worked to change the county’s approach toward nearly all aspects of privilege licensing in the county. The Windows based PL-Sys program is a Web-based intranet application that allows for faster, easier and efficient processing of new and existing privilege licenses. The system also allows other Mecklenburg County departments access to information of their particular interest in real time, providing seamless integration with other pivotal county operations such as tax collections. The savings of the new PL-Sys have been substantial. In 2005, the system processed 415 more licenses than the previous year, leading to a 25 percent increase in revenue and resulting in a $1 million increase in the first month of implementation. Also, 11,746 more licenses were processed by mail, which helped shorten the renewal period by one-and-a-half weeks. During the renewal period, staff was able to handle more than 8,000 additional telephone calls while reducing overtime costs by 30 percent and the need for extra personnel. Although the implementation of these new services was by no means an easy undertaking, the PL-Sys was put into practice without any additional cost for software, hardware or licensing with existing staff. This is truly an example of how information systems technology may be implemented to better serve the county. New Hanover County Presented to: County Engineer Greg Thompson and team Like many N.C. counties, New Hanover is overrun with requests for information about water and sewer availability to given parcels around the county. Citizens, realtors, developers and engineers who need this information are all funneled to the Engineering Department. The shear number of requests had greatly impacted employee productivity, while the turnaround time for answering requests was expanding. Something had to be done. By harnessing the power of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, the county now has the ability to process requests for information with the technology to provide detailed geographical maps and user specific responses via e-mail. The new system allows for more clearly communicated technical information regarding water and sewer availability for the end-user, while reducing the turnaround time for requests, eliminating the need for countless meetings, and making better use of staff time. Since October 2005, the new system has processed more than 330 requests for information, 68 of which were repeat requests. The savings in staff and engineer human resource hours has topped $20,000 with future savings expected to grow due to the popularity of the new program and its ability to process more repeat requests. New Hanover County is now able to more adequately serve the development community while better serving the needs of its staff and its citizens, all while saving county resources. Orange County Presented to: Solid Waste Planner Bob Taylor and team
Many counties shy away from the work and cost associated with keeping toxic materials out of public landfills. In Orange County, Bob Taylor and his team have worked hard to ensure that the county is taking every measure it can to properly dispose of these materials while keeping associated costs low. The Toxicity Reduction Improvements Program was initiated for just such a purpose. Orange County ranks No. 1 in the state in reported per capita recovery of electronics waste and as one of the top counties in the nation in pounds recovered per capita. By reducing toxic materials, the TRIP initiative reduces the total amount of waste stored in landfills but also greatly reduces the risk of groundwater contamination in the area, which can lead to future savings in insurance costs. Under Taylor’s leadership, the TRIP program has brought together many different entities from around Orange County to help with the issue of toxic waste materials. Contractors, local retailers, town governments, county departments, and even local artists have banded together in the effort. The spread of the TRIP program around the county has greatly contributed to its success and helped keep costs down. The cost per unit declined in 2005 from $0.245 per pound to $0.224. All costs associated with the entire TRIP program are covered by the 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) fee levied annually by the county. Keeping costs low is essential for the success of the program. The TRIP program has even recruited the help of local artists. Riley Foster of Orange County takes helium and other gas tanks at no cost, turns them into works of art, and sells them at low cost to the public. This is just one way that the county is using its resources to keep hazardous waste outside of its landfills so that they may continue to function long into the future. Pitt County Presented to: Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Michael Rogers
Food for thought for all county employees: what are you throwing away today? In Pitt County, employees were ready to toss out an old chiller that had outlasted its use – or so it would seem. Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Michael Rogers decided the machine still had some use left in it yet. This was an enticing proposition for Pitt County, which only last year experienced an extremely costly blowout of a chiller that resulted in an uncomfortable temperature of 90 degrees in one building. The county had to track down a rental chiller in Texas at a cost of $14,000 per month, and then wait as it made the more than 1,000-mile trek to Pitt County. With an unrivaled personal initiative, Rogers had a vision for a mobile chiller unit that could be used as a backup for Pitt County facilities and double as a rental unit available to outside entities at well below the market rate. Rogers found a new compressor for the old chiller at a cost of $5,300 – well below the compressor’s market value of around $11,000. After contacting a local vocational center in Greenville, Rogers secured the donation of a trailer, which was then treated and repaired. After a full Saturday of painting, Michael had the trailer ready for the installation of the chiller. While the new chiller was being installed, the contractor, at no extra cost, installed tees and valves so that the old chiller/trailer might be quickly installed as a backup system. If the new chiller ever failed, the trailer chiller system could be fully operational within 24 hours. While Pitt holds out hope that no future chiller blowouts occur, at least now the county is prepared for such an event, thanks to Rogers’ efforts. Pitt County Presented to: Senior Systems Analyst Ron Crisp and team The future of 911 services is now in Pitt County with the implementation of the E911Plus software system. The system gives county dispatchers the ability to identify caller name and location by matching the phone number with its address, and can locate a cell phone caller within 50 to 100 meters, displaying to the telecommunicator valuable latitude and longitude coordinates. The old system was tedious for telecommunicators in that it relied on a “cut and paste” system of transferring data from one application to the next with no link between applications and no guarantee of the information’s accuracy. Converting to a client-server based system from the county’s old mainframe has allowed these significant changes to take place. Working between departments, Senior Systems Analyst Ron Crisp and his MIS/Communications team were able to get the new servers up and running with the new E911Plus system by June 2005. With the new servers in place, the dispatch centers have a level of redundancy that was non-existent before. If one server has complications, another is able to fully run the E911 system indefinitely. The old mainframe has been decommissioned, saving the county approximately $150,000 per year in maintenance. Average length of calls has been decreased by five to 10 seconds as a result of the upgrade, illustrating the new system’s efficiency, and the system has the ability to instantly match names with medical information. The technology upgrade has also contributed to increased teamwork by the dispatch staff. Telecommunicators can monitor their co-workers’ calls in real-time, allowing one dispatcher to engage the caller with life-saving medical advice and enabling another to dispatch the necessary emergency services. Scotland County Presented to: Training and Operations Officer Mike Edge
Scotland County citizens are receiving improved Emergency Medical Services and employee morale is on the rise, thanks to the technical know-how and hard work of Training and Operations Officer Mike Edge. A less-than desirable collections rate for EMS services was cause for concern among commissioners prior to the 2004-05 fiscal year. In hopes of boosting collections and allowing for additional EMS workers, the county purchased $4,000 in software to upgrade and improve its existing electronic software used for EMS trip reporting. Edge was tasked with interfacing the new and existing trip software, all while ensuring the ability of EMS to maintain its functionality. Edge’s expertise paid off handsomely. Collections increased $50,000 to $550,000 for the 2004-05 fiscal year after the system became fully operational. The following year produced even greater results, with collections increasing to $750,000. Edge’s hard work is a win for the county’s citizens, who won’t see an increase in service fees. The county’s bills are now easier to understand, and the software has expedited the insurance claims process. The revenue generated by the implementation of the new software has also allowed Scotland County to hire three new EMS professionals, reducing “on call” status hours for existing employees. The guarantee of reduced hours – in addition to the enhanced staff – has increased EMS employee morale and reduced turnover for the department. |
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