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The Cannon County Election Office has been awarded the first county Department of the Year Award.
During the budget hearings of 2015, the local government departments in the General Fund were asked to trim their spending.
Some accepted the challenge and found creative ways to reduce the spending of taxpayers' money.
Some departments, it appears, did not embrace this request as well as others. During the budget hearings of 2016, it was found that some of these departments actively worked to find new ways of saving taxpayer dollars over the previous year.
Those departments that actively worked to become more efficient in their operations and succeeded in a reduction in the costs of those operations should be acknowledged and rewarded for their efforts. Business history has shown that successful companies often use a variety of approaches to challenge their employees in performing at a higher level.
In order to achieve a continuation of this success, the program must be implemented in a fair and impartial manner. It must be passed on quantifiable, tangible metrics and not left to personal or political influences. Any award should be tied to performance measurements to ensure continual improvement.
As of now, there are no known counties in Tennessee that have this type of program. Ben Rogers, our county's CTAS representative, has been contacted to ensure that it is appropriate, legal and viable. Ben sees no problem with a program such as this and, in fact, views it as a new and exciting platform to increase efficiency and boost morale if implemented properly.
A single department, based on established measurable metrics, would be selected by the Board of Commissions after the year-end books are closed. If approved by the Commission, the department, department head/elected official name and year of accomplishment would be engraved on a plate to be attached to a nice wall plaque which will be mounted in the Cannon County Courthouse.
• Encourage creative thinking among department heads and their personnel.
• Promote teamwork in departments.
• Aid in reduction of operational costs in our local government.
• Encourage friendly competition between departments.
• Publicize to the community the desire to lower governmental spending.
• The selected elected official can use this award as a way to validate their dedication to the continual finance efficiency of their department and show the citizens of our county that he/she is working to increase operating efficiency to keep their taxes low when seeking re-election.
Criteria for being selected as the Department of the Year Award are as follows:
1) Lowest percentage of actual expenditures compared to the original approved budget
for the given fiscal year. The numbers for this requirement will come from the 'Year-End Financial Report' _which can be obtained in the County Executive's office.
2) No budget amendments presented or approved by the Commission for the given
fiscal year. (This criteria is being used in an attempt to have the department head/official to become familiar with their budget(s) and plan ahead for what is actually needed financially and to be able to convince the Budget Committee of those needs.)
3) No unapproved (by the Commission) spending for the given fiscal year will be considered.
4) Any documented and validated new creative methods of cost cutting that has not been used previously by that department will be considered. (This item is not necessary, but will give added value in the selection of the award, if validated.)
5) All criteria above, with the exception of item 4, will be available in the County
Executive's office after July 30th of given year.
