Durham, N.C. – The National Association of Counties (NACo) has named Durham County among this year’s NACo Achievement Award recipients. For the third consecutive year, Durham County has secured multiple NACo Achievement Awards.
 
Achievement Awards honor innovative, effective county government programs that strengthen services for residents. Durham County’s seven NACo Achievement Award-winning programs include the following: 
• Delivery Management Application (Board of Elections)
• “County U” Program (Human Resources)
• Development of a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan: The Devil is in the Details (Information Services and Technology)
• Durham County Business Recruitment (Economic Development)
• Durham County Government Implements a Managed Security Awareness Service (Information Services and Technology)
• Hacking Into History: Discovering Racial Covenants in Durham Property Deeds (Register of Deeds)
• Read A. Bull Collectible Cards (Library)
 
The NACo Annual Conference and Expo, the largest meeting of county elected and appointed officials from across the country, will take place July 21-24, 2023, in Travis County, Texas. During the conference, Durham County’s Achievement Award recipients will be celebrated at the NACo Annual Conference Achievement Awards Lunch and General Session held on Sunday, July 23.
 
Durham County Board of Elections, Human Resources, Information Services and Technology, Board of Elections, Economic Development, Register of Deeds, and Library, will be recognized by the Durham Board of County Commissioners for their outstanding programs and projects selected by NACo during the upcoming BOCC Regular Session scheduled at 7 p.m. on Monday, July 10, 2023. 
 
“Our employees are outstanding and produce exceptional work that continues to make Durham County an exemplary local government organization,” said Durham County Commission Chair Brenda Howerton. “Thank you, National Association of Counties, for recognizing the efforts of our organization and selecting them as winning programs for the third year in a row.”
The following are details about Durham County’s Achievement Awards and its awardees:
 
Delivery Management Application (Board of Elections)
Durham County Board of Elections created the Delivery Management Application to address needs that arise during the elections’ preparation process. The in-house creation, focused on stewardship and innovation, is broken into two components. The first component, the administrative interface, provides pertinent information for decision-making on the same page as data entry. The second component, the mobile-based application for delivery tracking, pulls delivery information from the admin side and pushes back real-time updates on the progress of Delivery Teams.
 
“We appreciate the recognition from the National Association of Counties (NaCo),” said DCo Board of Elections Director Derek Bowens. “It is always a pleasure to coordinate with our world-class Information Services and Technology department to develop cutting edge tools to advance innovation in the election administration space.”
 
Implementation of the application has ensured the efficient and timely arrival of critical supplies needed to prevent delays in the voting process and much more.
 
“County U” Program (Human Resources)
County University (County U) is the training program for all Durham County employees that encompasses all the training and development opportunities over the course of an employee’s career with the county. The goal of County U is to provide opportunities for employees to invest in their career, personal, and professional development, thus enhancing overall employee satisfaction and performance. County U offers courses and programs focused on management/leadership development, business skills, personal development/soft skills, compliance, and personal wellness.
 
“Offering quality and timely training opportunities to our employees is key to overall job performance and job satisfaction; and will ultimately help the County reach all its strategic goals. I believe offering the trainings in the model of university courses not only allows employees to keep an organized record of their training, but also enhances their experience by giving them a sense of accomplishment when they see that they have completed the various programs and majors offered,” said Chief Human Resources Officer/Chief Employment Counsel Kathy Everett-Perry. “We look forward to expanding the programs and providing even more training opportunities to DCo staff in the future.”
 
Development of a Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan: The Devil is in the Details
In March 2020, Durham County Government was the victim of a crippling ransomware attack. The economic impact to Durham County of the downtime and recovery was monumental and showed the need to significantly strengthen the County’s ability to quickly recover critical technology systems and have associated business continuity protocols. The County has successfully architected a managed Disaster Recovery solution through partnerships with multiple vendors to establish a geographically distant secondary data center that is beyond a 60-mile radius of the primary data center in Durham and address the backup modernization through a cloud solution. The milestone of architecting and planning this effort is significant because the “devil is in the details.” This portion of the project included the complex integration and collaboration to establish a clear set of requirements that were vetted and approved by the County’s leadership. These requirements drove the specifications of the secondary data center, hardware, networking connectivity, software, backup modernization, and the managed disaster recovery services provided by a vendor. The scope of a well-planned project also included IT Disaster Recovery Planning (ITDRP) to be executed upon occurrence of a disaster or malware attack. The end of the fiscal year 2023 (June) is targeted as the go-live delivery date.
 
“Every day, Information Services and Technology employees are challenged to solve problems through creativity and innovation using technology to help our departments achieve their business goals,” said Chief Information Officer for Information Services and Technology Greg Marrow. “We’re honored to work with and support our county departments to improve services delivered to the residents of Durham County.”
 
Durham County Business Recruitment
In 2019-2020, with a significant commercial interest in the Research Triangle Park and the County as a whole, Durham County saw the opportunity to align business recruitment efforts with broader strategic priorities like equitable well-being, livable wages, and poverty reduction. This led to the creation and approval by the Durham County Board of Commissioners of the 2020 Resolution Amending Economic Development Policy. The goal of that action was to increase the tangible community benefits resulting from recruited projects like increased contracting with Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprises (MWBE), sustainable design, construction, and operational practices, Transportation Demand Management (TDM), and access to childcare among others. Just as important, the County sought to increase the number of Durham residents in recruited positions by soliciting companies that would significantly engage the workforce development pipeline.
 
“When we started the policy revision process in 2019, we saw the opportunity to leverage more value through the recruitment process by soliciting shared values to achieve greater collective impact,” said Durham County Economic Development Director Andrew Miracle. “While we are starting to see the results of this innovative work, we will continue to pursue iterative improvements so that more residents can benefit from the County’s Business Recruitment program.”
 
Starting in 2019 with projects that were influenced by the revised policy, Durham County and partners have recruited 5,300 jobs, and announced $2.3 billion in new capital investment that is anticipated to bring in $37 million in property tax revenue over the first 5 years of the project. In 2021, recruited companies spent $74 million utilizing diverse vendors to include $68 million with MWBEs and $3.5 million with veteran-owned businesses.
 
In 2023, new project announcements have included aspirational commitments from three companies to spend a total of $42.6 million with MWBEs. Twelve companies have agreed to provide internships, to include annual opportunities once operational. Thirteen companies have agreed to partner with Durham Public Schools Career and Technical Education programming that includes educational sessions, hosting teachers and students, and advisor roles. Commitments to sustainable building design, construction, and operating practices and Transportation Demand Management are included as well among others.
 
Durham County Government Implements a Managed Security Awareness Service
The ransomware attack on Durham County Government in March 2020 included the loss of email and the primary network. In a 2020 article in Forbes detailing the attack, “A total of seven computers have been identified that are likely "patient zero" sources of the infection, with both city and county employees clicking on links in emails.” In October 2022, Durham County Government implemented a Managed Security Awareness service. This service was put in place to engage employees to reinforce behaviors that protect themselves and the County from malicious events. In addition to mandatory cyber training, employees were “phished” at least once a month. Information Services and Technology (IS&T) sent an intentional phishing email to employees. Through training, employees should have known to leave the email unopened and report the email to IS&T via a “report phishing” tool in the email system. However, if the employee opened the offending email, they received an immediate message of “you’ve been phished” and had to complete an immediate lesson related to identifying and reporting phishing emails. This has been a successful effort as we have measured a 50% decrease in the employee open rate on phishing exercises – 14% to 7%.
 
“NACo Awards show how our workforce is meeting challenges head-on and I am pleased to see the great work they do each and every day recognized on the national stage,” said Marrow.
 
Hacking Into History: Discovering Racial Covenants in Durham Property Deeds
Hacking Into History: Discovering Racial Covenants in Durham Property Deeds aims to tell the story and impact of racially restrictive covenants contained in property deeds in Durham, using public records information and archival documentation. As instruments of discrimination, racially restrictive covenants codified segregation into law and allowed segregation to persist once the federal government had begun making it illegal. The resulting widespread economic and social disenfranchisement has resonated across generations. These restrictions are still part of the property deeds in communities across the country today, and we believe the practice of interrogating them as a community can inform our efforts to dismantle racism in Durham County.
 
“It’s always special when a community can come together to explore and, when necessary, challenge its past, honestly, and earnestly. We believe that this project has helped illuminate parts of both Durham and America’s history which everyone should be familiar with,” said Assistant Register of Deeds J.T. Tabron.
 
Read A. Bull Collectible Cards
Durham County Library’s Read A. Bull Collectable cards were created to promote the wide array of programs and services the library provides for the Durham community. Featuring the library mascot, Read A. Bull, these baseball card-style promotional giveaways highlighted key library initiatives like the Bookmobile, self-checkout machines, sensory rooms, and North Carolina Collection. The collectible cards were distributed throughout the library system as an innovative way to inform the public about available services.
 
“Durham County Library’s mascot Read A. Bull is a beloved symbol of everything the library has to offer,” said Durham County Library Director Tammy Baggett. “Creating Read A. Bull collectible cards was a great way for us to showcase everything from Spanish Language programming, to the Tech Mobile, to STEAM services, and more. We at the library look forward to continuing our innovative programming in service of all members of the Durham community.”
 
The employees of Durham County Government are committed to community and the ongoing betterment of county services and programs. 
 
“All across the country, counties are working tirelessly to support residents and drive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This year's Achievement Award-winning programs showcase how counties work every day to build healthy, safe, and thriving communities,” NACo President Larry Johnson said.
 
NACo awards are given in 18 different categories that reflect the vast, comprehensive services counties provide. The categories include categories include children and youth, criminal justice and public safety, county administration, information technology, health, civic engagement, and more. Details on all Achievement Award winners for 2023 are available here.
 
Started in 1970, NACo’s annual Achievement Awards program is designed to recognize county government innovations. Each nominee is judged on its own merits and not against other applications received. 
 
Durham County also won seven NACo Awards in 2022, including the following:
• Durham County Transit Plan
• Durham County Administrative Assistant Chatbot
• Durham County Government, Board of Elections – Ballot Tracking Application
• Durham County Social Services (DSS) Low Income Homeowner’s Relief Program
• Durham County Social Services Emergency Rental Assistance Program
• Durham County Library Innovation League
• Mobile Integrated Healthcare (MIH)/Community Paramedic (CP) Program 
 
Learn more about all of the 2023 NACo Achievement Award winners and past awardees, including those awarded to Durham County Government, using NACo’s searchable awards database.
 
For more additional details about Durham County’s Achievement Awards, email publicinformationoffice@dconc.gov. 
 
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