4 Pierce County Programs Recognized In NACo Achievement Awards

PIERCE COUNTY, WA — Several Pierce County programs are being recognized for their hard work by the National Association of Counties (NACo).

NACo on Monday announced the winners of its 2021 Achievement Awards, recognizing 844 programs from counties and state associations across 28 states.

Of those, Piece County won four awards — the most of any Washington county. The four programs Pierce County was recognized for are:

• CARES Act Fund Reporting: Accounting for Every Dollar
• COVID Emergency Communications: Response, Resilience, and Recovery
• Pierce County Elections 2020 Voter Outreach Campaign
• Remote Piloted Aircraft System Program

The first of those may not come as a surprise to longtime Patch readers. Back in March NACo recognized Pierce County for effectively using its CARES Act funding, saying county leaders were "paying special attention to programs focusing on inclusive economic recovery and on assisting vulnerable and underserved populations."

"As one of the first counties in the nation to be hit by COVID-19, Pierce County needed accurate and timely information for pandemic response," writes Pierce County's John DeWeese. "The County built a comprehensive public-facing report and dashboard to track $158 million in federal CARES Act funding. The report was built upon the County’s values of accountability and transparency, and was instrumental in allowing County leadership to meet the needs of our residents."

Meanwhile, the county's Response, Resilience, and Recovery program earned its award for efficiently and quickly informing the public about COVID-19 relief spending and how to seek help.

As for the non-COVID awards: The Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems program manages drones for data collection. The county's voter outreach campaign is self-explanatory, but shouldn't be discounted — thanks to the efforts of the Pierce County Auditor's Office 82.26 percent of registered Pierce County voters cast their ballots in the Nov. 3 general election.

The other Washington counties recognized by NACo are Thurston County, which was recognized for adapting its election plan to the pandemic, and King COunty, which was recognized for building an online portal to help senior citizens apply for property tax exemptions.