President's Message- Legislative Preview
Issue 2003
Association Needs to Examine Vision
for Future
There is a down side to making
progress in the Association business.
As an Association takes on
more tasks, works to reach more people and provides better
services, it eventually runs out of hours in the day.
Our Association is about to that point.
Certainly this is a good problem. It is much better to
be facing difficult decisions because of success than
to be facing difficult decisions because there is little
interest in your Association and its activities.
A couple of recent events serve
as great examples of the success of our Association activities.
In January we completed a very
successful first venture into training programs for the
people who serve as supervisors in the county engineering
departments. These employees are the people facing some
of the toughest jobs in county government and we have
done little to train them in the tasks of management,
leadership, personnel issues and the like.
For a number of years we have
talked about the need for training these employees. But
there have always been other more "pressing"
activities that pushed that program into the future. This
year, it finally happened.
This two-day program was offered
on two different occasions in January. Almost 150 supervisors
attended the sessions and were, in many cases, exposed
to their first formal educational sessions on the challenges
of their positions.
Our educational programs are
second-to-none in the Association arena. We offer programs
for county commissioners, engineers, administrators, county
revenue officers and certified revenue examiners. It is
safe to say that we can now permanently add the supervisor
training program to that list.
The program evaluations filled
out by the participations were outstanding. The ratings
of the speakers, content of the program, and program location
were very, very high. I want to personally thank a county
engineer, Henry Hawkins of Chambers County, who took time
out of his schedule to carry three hours of the program.
Henry is one of the Association's most active members
and we rely on his expertise, leadership and knowledge
- he again did an outstanding job.
I also want to thank Rick Hill,
an attorney with the Webb & Eley firm in Montgomery.
He provided outstanding information on personnel and other
important legal issues. And our Association staff members
did their usually-great job of rounding out the program.
This new training effort is
just another example of Association taking on more responsibilities
and providing more programs to counties and county employees.
A second example of the ACCA's
growth is the number of affiliate organizations now working
as part of our effort. In a very short while, you will
hear about another affiliate organization joining our
Association. This group will be one of largest affiliates
and will make our organization even stronger in the halls
of the Alabama Legislature and on the local level back
home.
Our affiliate organizations
now include the associations for county engineers, county
administrators, county revenue officers, city/county managers
and county emergency management directors. This new group
will mean even more activities by the ACCA staff, but
it will pay dividends for this Association.
There is no question that one
of the major sources of our strength is the way our Association
has broadened itself at the county level. By organizing
the employee leaders - such as revenue officers, EMA directors,
engineers, administrators and others - we are providing
educational and professional development services as well
as enhancing the influence of county government. And that
is our goal - to make county government stronger and to
provide better services to the people back home.
This improvement cannot be
achieved without the Association growing to address the
challenges of new activities and programs.
Recently the National Association of Counties hosted a
meeting for state presidents and Association executive
directors. Buddy Sharpless and I attended the meeting.
Much of the program focused on the programs NACo has planned
for the year and how states can be more involved in the
important activities of NACo on the federal level.
The session was informative
and productive, but one of the most important outcomes
of the event was the opportunity to learn about activities
in other states. I left the meeting with two convictions
about our Association.
First, we can all be very proud
of our Association. The performance of our staff, elected
leaders, rank-and-file members and county employees is
among the best in the country. This Association is viewed
- and rightly so - as a leader among county associations
in our country.
And secondly, that we have
reached a point at which we must make some decisions about
our Association's future. There is so much more that we
need to do - both on the state-level and with NACo on
the federal level.
Our membership and staff has
proven that it can - and will - respond by providing outstanding
services and programs for the members. But there is a
limit to what can be done with existing resources and
personnel.
During the coming months, I
will ask the Associations' board of directors to take
a hard look at the Association and to develop a vision
for the Association's future. And once that vision is
developed, we will come to the membership and ask that
you support a plan to reach the goals.
The Association is certainly
providing counties with expertise, advice, leadership
and education that is vital to our ability to represent
and serve the citizens. But there is more to do.
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