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Problem solvers Seven counties address problems through innovative ideas and earn Outstanding County Program Awards from the NCACC The NCACC is recognizing seven county programs in May with Outstanding County Program Awards for 2008. Established in 1991, the NCACC's Outstanding County Program Awards recognize innovative county programs that other counties might want to emulate. Programs involve a uniquely innovative process, solution or idea to address a county or multi-jurisdictional issue and/or to prevent a future problem from developing. Throughout the month of May, NCACC staff will be presenting the awards during the winning counties' Board of Commissioners meetings.
Cistern Project A Burke County Cooperative Extension project to provide 25 community gardens almost dried up in 2008 as extreme drought put a priority on water conservation. With the help of the county's Master Gardeners Volunteer Association and a grant through the Soil and Water Conservation District, however, the county was able to save the garden project at no additional cost to taxpayers.
When drought threatened the future of the community garden project, the Soil and Water Conservation District offered the county a grant through its Community Conservation Assistance Program that would fund up to 75 percent of the cost of installing two 1,200 gallon cisterns to collect rainwater from the roof of the nearby County Agricultural Building. The underground cisterns – purchased locally and made from recycled plastics – receive water from 30 percent of the building's roof area via existing gutters; just one inch of rainfall will fill the cisterns. The only other items needed to make the system a reality were a pump and a water faucet. The county expects to save $1,500 annually in water expenses. In addition, the county is serving as a good steward of the land by keeping the water from running off into a nearby pond. County departments and area businesses also volunteered time and resources to the project: General Services Department employees used county equipment to dig holes for the cisterns and water lines and supplied the electrical work, saving additional public money. Cooperative Extension and Master Gardeners volunteers provided manual labor and storage for supplies. Several local businesses provided discounted materials, labor and advice. For more information, contact Burke County Extension Director Spring Williams-Byrd at spring_williams@ncsu.edu or (828) 439-4460. Joint Wide Area Network Project Craven County broke new ground in cooperation with community college, school system and New Bern and Havelock city officials with an Information Technology project that boosted the bandwidth of Craven County Public Schools and increased the connectivity of all involved.
What literally began as a lunch discussion idea drawn on a napkin evolved into a 60-plus mile fiber project involving the five entities and 40 locations. IT directors from each of the entities began meeting for lunch each month in early 2005 in order to discuss IT related topics, policies and procedures, resources and limitations. When the need for higher bandwidth for public schools was brought up in August 2005, the groups decided to seek support for a joint telecommunications project to link existing fiber networks in New Bern and Havelock. The project involved installing fiber at each school and government facility along the route. When the project was completed in December 2008, 20 public schools, two community college campuses and 18 government buildings were upfitted to fiber infrastructure allowing for voice, video and data transmission.
The total budget for the project was $1.6 million, however all entities realized $300,000 in annual savings by dropping leases on slower frame relay circuits. The project boosted backbone bandwidths for all involved to 100 mg/1gb speeds from 256k/1 mg circuits. The involved IT groups are now considering future expansion into county libraries, law enforcement agencies and fire and rescue operations. For more information, contact Craven County IT Director Dennis B. Holton at dholton@cravencountync.gov or (252) 636-6609. Training and Mentoring Program for Income Maintenance Caseworkers The Forsyth County Department of Social Services remedied a high turnover rate of Income Maintenance caseworkers in the Family and Children's Medicaid program by developing a unique training program that addresses the needs of caseworkers from an individual rather than a group perspective.
Departing staff indicated that they felt overwhelmed with the volume of work and suggested that better training could have helped them better manage their responsibilities. Social Services staff visited six other counties and talked with another during development of the training program. The program has two major components – a three-week formal classroom training period and a six- to eight-week individualized mentoring period during which trainees are paired with lead caseworkers for one-on-one support. The classroom sessions utilize hands-on activities such as role-play and budgeting exercises to reinforce learning, and remedial training is provided if a trainee does not score well on an assessment. During the mentoring period, weekly conferences with the trainee, mentor and their respective supervisors gauge progress made and help determine strategies to overcome identified challenges. Since implementing the program in March 2008, 23 of 26 participants have remained employed with DSS. The higher rate of retention has saved the department money in terms of hours spent on training and development. The only money spent for program development were for travel expenses related to site visits, and purchase of a projector and remote for classroom training. The county has shared information on development of the training program at the annual Social Services Institute, and eight counties have sought further help in developing their own training program. For more information, contact Social Services Director Joe Raymond at raymonjh@forsyth.cc or (336) 703-3401. Therapeutic Hypothermia In late October 2008, McDowell County Emergency Medical Services personnel began administering a cutting-edge medical procedure to cardiac arrest victims who had been resuscitated in a pre-hospital setting. Therapeutic hypothermia, which is recognized and recommended by the American Heart Association, involves lowering the patient's core body temperature to 93 degrees in order to prevent brain damage and reduce injury to major organs.  Since most major pieces of equipment were already in place on ambulances, the county's initial startup cost for additional equipment – special thermometer probes and additional ice packs – was a mere $25 per ambulance. Through a partnership with McDowell Technical Community College, county paramedics received free training on the procedure from Jim Mobley, director of Air Medical Services for Regional One Helicopter in Spartanburg, S.C., and an expert in the field of therapeutic hypothermia. McDowell became the first county in western North Carolina and the first rural county in the state to implement the procedure. In fact, the county's EMS Department became one of only a handful in the nation that could administer the procedure; in November 2008 EMS Magazine estimated only approximately 100 EMS agencies nationwide were doing so. For more information, contact County Manager Chuck Abernathy at charlesa@mcdowellgov.com or (828) 652-3982. Mobile Dental Clinic: Forever Smiles
Despite the fact that 22 percent of children in Pender County live below the national poverty level and that there is a severe shortage of dentists in the county (just nine), Pender has managed to provide free dental care for low-income and indigent children – with no county appropriations. A large piece of providing that level of care is the county's new mobile dental unit, which was placed into service in October 2008. With funding from the Kate B. Reynolds Foundation and the Cape Fear Memorial Foundation and federal Medicaid money, the county was able to construct, equip and staff a $625,550, 50-foot trailer that includes three operatory clinics. The trailer spends roughly a month at each school before moving on to the next. No needy child is refused care. Being mostly low-wealth and rural in nature, Pender is rare in that it has a permanent dental program, a full-time dentist and support staff. The program is self-supporting through Medicaid funding and third-party payers, but keeping the program successful is not without challenges. The county says its primary problem is recruiting and retaining dentists, considering the pay is not in line with what dentists in private practices earn, and the general difficulty of pediatric dentistry. In general, the county has a shortage of dentists: Statewide, there is one dentist per 2,302 people, but in Pender there is one dentist per 5,403 citizens. Paying for equipment and supplies is also problematic.
The clinic's patient base continues to grow, and the primary dental clinic annually treats almost 6,000 patients. The mobile clinic has succeeded in no small part to the cooperation of the Board of Education and school administration, along with principals, faculty and school nurses at each school. For more information, contact County Manager Rick Benton at bentonr@pender-county.com or (910) 259-1200. Shingle Recycling A quintessential win-win scenario allowed Pitt County to become the first in the state to receive permission to collect tear-off shingles for recycling.
The county transfer station set a goal of reducing construction and demolition waste and, recognizing that shingles made up roughly 16 percent of the C&D waste stream, targeted shingles for recycling. The county found a local taker for the shingles – Greenville Paving, Inc. – which incorporates the shingles into its hot mix. The trick for the county would be gaining permission from the State of North Carolina. Previously no county was allowed to recycle shingles due to the possibility of asbestos in the shingles. Due to the duration of time since asbestos was used to manufacture shingles, along with the availability of a local market for the shingles, Pitt was able to get the OK from the N.C. Division of Waste Management. The recycling program results in an estimated cost savings of $102,293.65 in disposal fees, based on the 4,175.251 tons of shingles disposed of at the transfer station during the 2007-08 fiscal year. During the first 90 days of implementation, the county saved $17,432.80 in disposal fees and recycled almost 664 tons of shingles. In addition, the paving company foots the bill for transporting the materials, as well as the 20-yard boxes used for collection and transportation. Transfer station employees worked closely with local roofing contractors to inform them of how the shingles needed to be brought into the facility. For more information, contact Recycling Coordinator Paula Clark at ppclark@co.pitt.nc.us or (252) 902-3353. FluMist® Campaign Preventing the spread of influenza was on the minds of many in April and May as cases of the H1N1 flu (swine flu) began to show up in North Carolina. While vaccinations against the H1N1 flu strain are not available, Transylvania County began taking steps in October 2008 to vaccinate children with FluMist® on site at their schools through an N.C. Division of Public Health pilot project.
FluMist®, which is administered as a nasal spray, diminishes the typical aversion that parents and children may have to injected vaccines. Administration is simple, making it an ideal form of vaccination for the program, which targets children because they serve as the primary means of transmission for flu and other communicable diseases. The state's Immunization Branch provided the FluMist® product to the county at no charge. The county boards of education and health, the school administration, the Department of Public Health and the medical community at large promoted and supported the campaign. Clinics were held at 10 separate school sites, resulting in exceptional uptake rates: 54 percent for elementary school students, 45 percent for middle school students and 28 percent for high school students. The quantification of cost savings will center around evaluation of decreased absences for students and teachers during the school year. State funding per pupil is influenced in part by days of attendance so substantial decreases with absences would improve the amount of state funding achieved within a school system. The county has only experienced typical levels of absences during the flu season despite elevated absentee rates in school systems in surrounding counties due to flu-like illness. The campaign marked the first time that FluMist® has been utilized in North Carolina in a mass vaccination application. For more information, contact Health Director Steve Smith at steve.smith@transylvaniacounty.org or (828) 884-3135. |
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