With everything from securing right of way for a new connector road in Silver Creek to acquiring more than $55 million in state and federal funds for bus rapid transit lanes on SR 224, it’s been a busy year for Summit County staff.
County Interim Manager Janna Young said she’s proud of their accomplishments.
"It was a busy, busy time and you know, like many entities across the nation, you know, we're very outcome driven,” Young said. “And sometimes we don't take the time to just sit back and celebrate our accomplishments. We just move on to the next thing and so I like that the council requested an update on our accomplishments for this year. They also wanted an update on our 2022 work plan."
But not everything the county set out to do in 2022 got finished; those projects will be added to their goals for the coming new year.
“We've been trying to secure some right of way in Old Ranch Road area for a connector there,” Young said. “That didn't make as much progress as we would have liked this year on that. We also had some goals around workforce housing, or 'local housing choice' is what we're calling it, that we sort of put on the back burner as we're doing this community visioning process and trying to understand really where the community wants us to go on that issue. We also are a bit delayed in our our renewable energy goals for county operations.”
Young is eager to see a budget approved with a 10 percent cost-of-living increase for all staff members. This comes after the county saw a record number of employees quit in November.
“Looking at employee turnover, the cost of that is much greater than the 10 percent COLA,” Young said. “And so, all the employees who have looked at this as well as our department directors and our other elected officials really see this cost-of-living adjustment as a way to help retain our employees. We're experiencing over a 14 percent turnover rate right now. We have 11 resignations in the month of November alone, which is our highest yet. Certainly this is a huge concern for me, as we're also losing a lot of great talent and some institutional knowledge.”
Click here for information on Wednesday's council meeting and to virtually attend.
