Davidson County receives 2024 Top Digital Counties Award
Davidson County has been named by the Center for Digital Government as one of the Top 10 Digital Counties Survey Awards winners, among counties across the nation with a population between 150,000 and 249,999 people. Davidson County placed 9th in its population group.
The Center for Digital Government (CDG) and the National Association of Counties (NACo) have announced the winners of the annual Top Digital Counties Survey. The survey, conducted by CDG in partnership with NACo, identifies the best technology practices among U.S. counties, including initiatives that streamline the delivery of government services; encourage open data, collaboration, and shared services; enhance cybersecurity; and contribute to disaster response and recovery efforts. “This year’s survey results highlight how counties are responsibly embracing new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence in its various forms and other digital tools and platforms to respond to top priorities of their constituents and elected officials,” said Teri Takai, senior vice-president, CDG. “The Center for Digital Government is excited to recognize and congratulate this year’s winners for their accomplishments and continuing efforts to use technology to make government better.”
“The Digital Counties Survey illustrates how counties are on the cutting-edge, pursuing innovative approaches to serve our residents,” said NACo Executive Director Matthew Chase. “Counties are thoughtfully adopting technologies like artificial intelligence and data platforms to enhance civic engagement, increase efficiency, and strengthen our communities today and for the future.” Davidson County, N.C., completed a myriad of customer-centric projects while also keeping taxpayer costs at a minimum. To improve network security, IT staff implemented new policies, login restrictions, and security systems, including managed security services for the county's servers and computers, and created a new enterprise backup system in an isolated environment so that the county could fully recover from a cyber attack within minutes if need be. IT staff also worked with the county manager's office on an annual budgetary plan for replacing old computers, allowing the county to save thousands of dollars by buying in bulk.
For citizen engagement, IT developed Laserfiche forms and worked with the county manager's office and legal department to improve the process for filling public records requests and ensuring it complied with state law.
Other departments that did their part included the 911 center, which completed infrastructure renovations and the implementation of a new Motorola CAD system, as well as records management and jail management software; libraries obtained "Mi-Fi" mobile hot spots for people to check out and use in underserved areas of the county; and the fire marshal's office started using a Matterport 3D camera to more accurately determine the causes of fires.
