This year, the winning counties in the Digital Counties Survey from the Center for Digital Government are those that have used the challenges that have emerged since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as opportunities to learn, to invest, and to collaborate.
The shift to remote work fueled a need to examine and improve upon the strength of county workforces and cybersecurity. Federal funding opportunities that emerged in response to the pandemic have boosted investment in broadband. And the need to innovate quickly has driven the creation of new partnerships — both interdepartmental and those that involve public-private collaboration.
What sets apart the winning counties this year is their ability to leverage the challenging times to reimagine traditional strategies and propel their technology approaches forward.
Nevada County, Calif.'s small population did not stop it from making major strides in technology across the board this year. These advances start with having a well-running, mature IT organization as the foundation for innovation — something the county will continue going forward, according to CIO Steve Monaghan.
Woven together through all the county’s efforts is a collaborative enterprise technology governance model that allows interdepartmental collaboration, such as between the public records requests system and lobby management and queuing systems.
“That’s what an IT governance structure will do for us is provide that forum, that place to gather everybody and have those conversations,” Monaghan said.
For Nevada County, technology innovations range from security to digital equity. And to improve collaboration and connectivity, the county is working to position itself as a desirable county for Internet service providers to invest.
To do so, the county has streamlined the time-consuming environmental review process through a programmatic broadband environmental impact study. Monaghan explained that because of the California Environmental Quality Act, projects must meet a high threshold for environmental responsiveness. The study that Nevada County has conducted lays out the mitigation strategies providers can implement, which speeds the process and enables small local providers with fewer resources to participate in projects. In addition, by working with the Public Works department, IT has simplified the process of acquiring road encroachment permits for providers.
“We’re trying to make that barrier to entry very low so they can come in and do these projects and do them quickly," Monaghan said.
On the security side, a significant project was a countywide cybersecurity IT risk assessment, which involved interviewing county stakeholders. In addition, the county has created the position of an IT security manager. As Monaghan explained, this position will be the interface between customers and IT staff, focusing primarily on high-level security issues like risk, policies and procedures.
Monaghan also underlined the expected impact of the High Performing Organization initiative that the county has been working on for several years and is continually moving forward. Its aim is to decentralize process improvement, and it allows departments to re-envision how they do work. Not only will it improve productivity and the customer experience, but Monaghan expects it to reduce service demand reliance on employees through automation, ultimately increasing financial sustainability.
