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Hi a l l , I hope you’ v e had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends, and didn’t over indulge too much of the Thanksgiving feast!
As the bleak predictions of lower severance tax collections start to materialize, our legislative priority of working with RJA and the Legislature to find ways to contain regional jail costs becomes crucial to local government budget survival! The Jail Steering Committee met on November 19,
2012, and renewed our enthusiasm for the coming session, however it will take each one of us, pursing the goals, to attain some level of success.
We are seeking a better method for collecting currently outstanding court costs; supporting passage of a pretrial diversion program similar to one being used in Maryland, called “Probation Before Justice;” supporting RJA’s proposals for more latitude in per diem formula and personnel budgeting; supporting legislation to require all arresting officers’ entities to have “skin in the game:” and finally following the session, to hold regional meetings to share best management practices among ourselves. We need your help and support for these initiatives! Please make an effort to attend the CCAWV Regional Roundtables coming to your area in the next couple of weeks and talk with your local legislators about problems and solutions for this dilemma! I hope to see you there!
As the holidays approach, I hope you have the opportunity to slow down a bit and enjoy time with family and friends. Make yourself feel good by doing something for someone less fortunate. Merry Christmas to ALL!
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Washington, D.C. – Vivian Parsons, Executive Director of the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia, was recently honored by the National Council of County Association Executives (NCCAE) and the National Association of Counties (NACo) for graduating from the Certified County Association Executive Program.
The Certified County Association Executive Program (CCAEP) is a structured continuing education curriculum for the professional development of executive directors of county state associations. The
program is structured to comprehensively train county association leaders to be fully knowledgeable of leadership and association challenges and better prepare them to find ways to address emerging issues. The CCAEP is sponsored and credentialed by the NCCAE and Cornell University with the support of the
National Association of Counties.
The CCAEP has a core curriculum including budgeting, human resource management, effective board relations, succession planning, advocacy, media relations and leadership skills and strategies. These are supplemented with electives, training sessions and continuing education courses designed to assist association leaders in serving their constituents their members to the best of their ability.
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I have just returned from my national conference for County Association Executives and one of the
most attention getting presentations was “Cyber Security Education.” It is amazing what computer
“hackers” can do to “screw-up” our lives! They can be running programs in the background, without
our knowledge, that will copy each keystroke on every computer connected to the network!!!
The Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) i s a volunt a r y and
collaborative effort based on a strong partnership with the National Cyber Security Division within
the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The MS-ISAC has been designated by DHS as the key resource for cyber threat prevention, protection, response and recovery for the nation’s state, local territorial and tribal (SLTT) governments. Through its state-of-the-art 24/7 Security Operations Center, the MS-ISAC serves as a central resource for situational awareness and incident response for SLTT governments.
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Fall is here, bringing with it thoughts of legislative issues and regional meeting schedules! Since this is a presidential election year, the legislative session will be delayed by a month, and so will our normal regional meeting schedule. In fact, because of many election changes among our members as well as changes to legislative membership, we are waiting until after Election Day to begin. Most meeting will be scheduled in late November and December. Watch your mail for the schedule, arriving soon!
Speaking of elections, we are currently planning our agenda for the upcoming “Basic Training for Newly Elected and Veteran County Commissioners.” It will be held at the Best Western Hotel, Bridgeport, Harrison County on November 28-30, 2012. Please save the date. We’ll cover all the standard topics with some new twists as well! We’re working on a brand new interactive session titled “Establishing Effective Communication, Can You Hear Me Now?” borrowed from a fellow association’s communication officer, prepared for a National Association of Counties’ meetings! I think it will be a fun and informative session, regardless of your tenure in office! So plan to join us on November 28th, to learn, to mentor and to exchange ideas and issues!
Finally, let me encourage you to send us things that you are doing out in the community to bring public awareness to the office of county commission. We want to future your story in our monthly column, “County Commission Outreach”, to applaud your efforts and to encourage your fellow commissioners to get out there and get involved as well!
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I have been asked to serve on a subcommittee of the Broadband Deployment Council. The mission of this subcommittee is to fulfill a new duty added by the passage of recent legislation, SB 110, regarding e-government for counties, including a plan for streaming of all county business on line, over the next 2 years. The objective would be to draw up a plan to achieve this goal WITHOUT costing counties any additional money. I will keep you posted as this committee meets
and will look for your input and guidance. Please stay tuned!