Ralph W. Ketner Employee Productivity Awards

Each year the NCACC solicits entries for our Ralph W. Ketner Employee Productivity Awards from county employees on productivity, creativity, innovation and commitment to improving county government.

Mr. Ralph Ketner of Food Lion, Inc., generously donates $10,000 annually to the Association to reward innovative county employees for their successful productivity improvements. Awards of $1,000 each are presented at the North Carolina Association of County Commissioners' Annual Conference. We believe that this provides the best forum to advertise and highlight what county employees are doing to improve productivity. Ten awards of $1,000 each are given to recognize the best productivity enhancements implemented in county government each calendar year. These awards will recognize the best productivity enhancements implemented in county government during the 2007 calendar year.

All county staff are encouraged to submit their productivity improvements to the Association. All appointed officials are eligible as well, including county managers and department heads. County managers and the employee's immediate supervisor must approve all submissions. All 2007-08 applications should have been submitted by June 2.

Productivity enhancements are those that improve the efficiency of county programs, services and general administration. In other words, productivity is a better way of doing business! To help you in advertising this program, we define productivity improvement as achieving one of the following:

• the same level of service is delivered at a less expensive cost
• a higher level of service is delivered at the same cost
• future cost increases are avoided

The Association has established two categories of awards: one for line staff and one for managerial staff. Line staff include any employees not exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The current NCACC president appoints two committees of county commissioners, county managers, county staff and Institute of Government faculty to review and evaluate each productivity suggestion in mid-June of each year. Each committee selects the five most outstanding improvements in their category, and the winning employees or team of employees each receive $1,000.

The review committees look for those improvements that reflect innovative and creative solutions to problems, as well as enhancements that are easily transferable to other jurisdictions.

The Association recognizes that many counties have adopted a team approach to management and program operation. Therefore, a team of employees may submit their productivity improvements for consideration. Any award of $1,000 to the team is prorated based on the number of team members.

An entry application form (Word doc) is to be used to submit productivity improvement entries to the Association. The form is to be used to submit productivity improvement entries to the Association and please limit entry descriptions to the two-page form. We would prefer an electronic submission.

The form should be distributed throughout each county in order that all of county employees have a chance to participate in the awards program. There is no limit on the number of entries a county can submit.

If you have any questions or comments about the Ketner Productivity Awards Program, please contact Rebecca Troutman at rebecca.troutman@ncacc.org.