Cabarrus Today

County of Cabarrus issued the following announcement on Jul. 28. 

Cabarrus County Government’s Information Technology Systems (ITS) department earned first place in the 19th annual Digital Counties Survey, held by the Center for Digital Government (CDG) and the National Association of Counties (NACo).

The award came in the 150,000 – 249,999 population category, which Cabarrus also won in 2019. The County has placed in the top 10 of that category for the past nine years.

The department’s role in maintaining operations during the pandemic was key to this year’s honor. In the award announcement, judges noted a variety of innovations in the wake of the pandemic, including:

• Providing more than 400 laptops for remote workers
• Creating a symptom checker to proactively identify workers with COVID-like symptoms
• Improving the county’s address data in a shared system to allow for better emergency response routing

“The world didn’t stop moving,” said Cabarrus County Chief Information Officer Todd Shanley. “Our team was here, working behind the scenes to make sure operations continued.”

Another example of comprehensive digital solutions came in the form of an online way to handle emergency rental assistance applications, which combined a custom chatbot, web forms and other applications to help disburse $6.5 million in rental assistance funding.

“Strategic planning and priority alignment of technology resources from the start of the COVID-19 crisis allowed Cabarrus County to respond quickly,” the award notification said. “This alignment continues to benefit the county. They also added a county innovations manager position whose work is aligned with IT as well as the Board of Commissioners, stakeholders, and department leaders.”

Other Cabarrus accomplishments included providing election support, installing a new software package for Cabarrus County’s child welfare department and migration to a new 911 response platform.

Cybersecurity and communication were two primary areas in which Cabarrus excelled, according to the judges.

“The resiliency of this team is the thing I’m most proud of,” Shanley said. “None of this would have been possible without a team in the office that stayed diligent and flexible, regardless of the situation.”

To learn more about the Digital Counties Survey, visit https://www.govtech.com/dc/digital-counties-2021-150-000-to-249-999-population-category

Original source can be found here.