 National Association of Counties * Washington, DC / Vol. 30, No. 14 * July 20, 1998 Los Angeles County, Calif. In a typical year the Los Angeles County Recorder/ County Clerk's Office issues approximately 75,000 marriage licenses, processes 750,000 birth, death, and marriage records and performs 9,000 marriage ceremonies. In 1997, as a result of county budget cuts, the department experienced staff reductions and critical vacancies that resulted in daily backlogs. In an effort to reduce this backlog, the Marriage Ceremony Volunteer Program was developed. This program uses volunteers to perform the civil marriage ceremonies. The volunteers, who are recruited through local newspapers, go through an orientation program which consists of an overview of departmental policies and procedures, an explanation of the county's volunteer program and the state laws governing the performance of marriage ceremonies. At the completion of the orientation process, volunteers are deputized as deputy commissioners of civil marriage. Since the program's initiation in March 1997, 16 volunteers have performed approximately 7,000 marriage ceremonies. The use of these volunteers has allowed the county clerk's staff, who previously conducted these ceremonies, to be reassigned to more complicated specialty tasks, thus reducing the backlog in the office. Gloucester County, N.J. The Gloucester County, N.J. Animal Shelter is a remote area of the county. Many county residents were not willing to drive there, and consequently were adopting animals from an adjacent county's closer facility or purchasing pets from stores. The facility was also sheltering more abandoned pets than usual. These factors contributed to the increasing number of healthy, adoptable animals that had to be euthanized on a daily basis. In an effort to reduce the euthanasia rate, the Students Building for Animals Program was developed. The program included the development of a satellite county adoption center that was designed and built in PETsMart, the local pet supply store, with the help of the county's vo-tech students. This center included a room where pets could be housed 24 hours a day without compromising their health and safety. The facility is operated by the county and is staffed by trained volunteers. The county also reached out to area junior and senior high schools in an effort to provide dog houses for dogs owned by senior citizens and needy people. Schools willingly incorporated the building of these dog houses into their curriculums, while local businesses and civic organizations donated the materials needed to build them. The program has been very successful. In the first year, 420 cats and 12 dogs were adopted from the satellite location. This figure is more than double the number of cats adopted from the shelter the previous year and nearly 30 more than the number of cats adopted from the main facility. Due to the availability of dog houses, many senior citizens have been able to keep their dogs rather then being forced to give them up. With the help of public and private partners, the program was implemented at no cost to the county. Chesterfield County, Va. In 1996, Chesterfield County, Va. initiated a comprehensive water quality program. This program was implemented, in part, to comply with the Federal Clean Water Act. The program's two goals were to monitor storm water run-off to determine the current levels of pollutants and implement a variety of measures to reduce the amount of pollutants entering the county's waters. One of these measures included public education and involvement, thus the Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program was born. The goals of the Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program were to establish baseline data on the health of the streams of the county and ultimately, to enhance the quality of these waters. The objectives were to establish a core group of volunteer citizens interested in biological monitoring; to train this core group in biological monitoring techniques; to assign monitoring sites and have the volunteers collect data; to provide refresher training on an annual basis; and to provide accurate data to the State Department of Environmental Quality as a supplement to the county's monitoring program. The program has been very successful. As a result of a core group of 12 volunteers, data on overall water quality at a total of 32 stream locations was gathered. Water quality degradation or improvement can now be traced along these stream systems. Information from the volunteer program is proving to be invaluable in assisting the county in identifying and planning to correct water pollution problems that have been identified. Programs described in "Hats off" are winners of the 1998 NACo Achievement Awards. For more information on these programs, contact the NACo Research Division at 202/393-6226. (Hats off was compiled by Peggy Beardslee, research associate.) Hats Off Contacts Marriage Ceremony Volunteer Program Students Building for Animals Volunteer Stream Monitoring Program |