Talk of the County | One Franklin County Initiative

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:00:14

Good afternoon. This is the, Talk Of The County live from the NACO Annual Conference in Hillsborough County, Florida. We are pleased to be here to talk about Franklin County and IT Technology. The things that, are we do to make life work better on behalf of the 1,350,000 Franklin County residents and all in the theme of serving every resident every day. We are here. Franklin County has just been freshly awarded one of the top 10 digital counties with a population over 1,000,000. Adam Frumkin is the data center CIO, and Juan Torres is the Franklin County BOC, CIO. And I want these gentlemen to tell me a little bit about this award and how in the heck did Franklin County receive it.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:01:24

Well, I think one, we've been trying to move in this direction for probably the last 5 or 6 years since Juan and I came in and to, our positions. And this year, we have we've accomplished it. And you know the one thing about the digital county survey is it illustrates how counties are on the cutting edge pursuing innovative approaches to serve our residents and recognize the accomplishments and continuing efforts to use technology and how we make government better for our residents every day. And it's a huge accomplishment for us to be able to move in this direction and it's just the start of where we want to go and I think it is a testament to the innovative ideas that we have and we come up with but more of a testament that the commissioners and county administration are willing to support and move us in a direction and fund us to allow us to be innovative in how we help our residents.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:02:27

Juan, you have anything to add? I think

Juan Torres [: 00:02:31

one that the survey actually takes into a lot of different, components. So everything from, cybersecurity to, how much does the county actually invest in technology? Are you doing any actual, infrastructure are you doing

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:02:47

any actual, infrastructure technology?

Juan Torres [: 00:02:47

Are you doing, obviously, the the hot topic right now is AI, robotic processing. So, it took us multiple hours to actually sit down and and really digs into the financials of of our investment in the technology, and then sort of strategic planning. And so, yeah, this is the first time we've been awarded it. It was an honor. And then just to be recognized with other counties, Alameda County, was named number 1. They have great leadership there, and so, we just strive to move up the rankings, and but it is a huge accomplishment to be awarded the first time.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:03:30

And and one of the other pieces that it it helps us focus on is replacement of legacy technology and utilizing good technology to be able to move us forward. And that's that's been our focus for the last few years is how do we remove or move from legacy to innovative cutting edge environment. In in

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:03:48

my opinion technology's greatest value is how it helps people in real life and how it helps people be more efficient in real life. Bells and whistles don't matter if you have no sound. You gotta make technology work for people. And I think receiving this award is a reflection that we moved far beyond the telephone being the primary tool to help our constituents. I can remember a day where the telephone and our IVR system were the primary tools to help our residents, communicate with county government. So let's talk about what role does point on in more detail, to my comments. What role does technology play in enhancing the efficiency within, county operation? Specifically, a county as large as Franklin County being the largest in the state of Ohio and and one of the largest in the country having well over, 1,000,000 residents. And before we blink our eye, we will be at 2,000,000 residents.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:05:05

You wanna take it first? Yeah. So, you know, I think first and foremost, we should always, focus on what the needs are and what the needs of our residents and who we serve. And this allows us to enhance or implement technology that helps us deliver services more efficiently and I think sometimes people have this misnomer that efficiency means we're cutting costs or we're gonna change the how the makeup of people are and that's really not what it's about.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:05:38

Well, glad you directed things, Dan. Well

Adam Frumkin [: 00:05:40

he does.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:05:41

But he does.

Juan Torres [: 00:05:41

But he does. That's his role.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:05:44

And we appreciate his role very much. But the other side of it is you know efficiency allows us not necessarily save money but it allows us to look at how we can better serve our residents and deliver more services or additional services to those that are seeking it from the county. You know if we truly live our motto of every resident every day finding efficiencies allows us to serve them better and that's where efficiency really helps county operations it's really our focus which is the people outside the four walls our residents.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:06:18

Is that you that you walked right into that, Adam, because one of I believe one of the first, panels, Juan and I, presented together as the administrator, the CIO was the subject was budget versus technology. It went to the cost bills that announced. You remember that one?

Juan Torres [: 00:06:41

Yes. Yes. We and, so much has changed for for the cost of technology. Before, it was just the cost of the laptop. For ages, government didn't have laptops. Government focused on desktops, seats, staff in in offices, and so COVID really changed, our approach, to a hybrid workforce, changed into cloud technology. So the number of cloud solutions that we've launched over the the 5 years, That was actually one of our first initiatives that you had challenged us was, moving email to the cloud. And so that was a a huge first step.

Juan Torres [: 00:07:25

Since then, we've moved a ton of applications to the cloud. We've moved solutions for our fleet management, our office on aging, our animal shelter, our recorder's office, and our auditor's office, for multiple units, our ERP system. And so, yes, many of these solutions do come with, cost, but they also come with efficiencies, and more reliability, and then security and stability.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:07:56

One of my goals as administrator is to use technology to ensure that the county is as transparent as possible as far as making data available to the residents. As far as, again, technology working for our residents in a real life situation. And on that note, Adam, you were intricately involved in the long process, relatively speaking, to implement body worn cameras for our Franklin County Sheriff's Department. Talk about how much technology is involved in making body cameras work in the field.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:08:38

So I don't think people really understand the the first note of what we go through to get to that point. It is everything you have servers upon servers and technology that sits behind it behind it in the cloud perspective of how videos just in the field are taken where it then lays out into where it's saved and then the chain of custody in the technology of how those videos are secured so that they cannot be modified or changed so that they can be used when needed to help resolve or have a discussion around something that may have happened. And so the technology behind it and the negotiations that we went through to get to where we are and even to the point where Franklin County pushed the limits of the vendors and the vendor that we we decided upon and having them change their process in what they were doing to meet the needs that we were we were seeking so that we could give the technology and the ability

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:09:45

of what

Adam Frumkin [: 00:09:45

we were seeking so that we can better serve our residents. The technology is not something that's easy to to look at even to the point where when a deputy comes off shift, we had to look at how we looked at technology and had to transform technology so that we weren't in a hub and spoke environment where everything came back to the data center but yet we worked in an SD WAN to build out technology so that at the location that that deputy was coming off shift, it could be saved directly to the cloud in less time than it would be needed so we wouldn't have to even keep the deputies around.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:10:25

Yeah.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:10:25

And we transformed that even to making it WiFi capable so it would actually upload during the day.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:10:31

Right. Right. Right. Technology, another key area where technology plays a a vital role. And I work very closely with the data center and that is the administration of elections. Literally, in, democracy. Making sure democracy works effectively and efficiently. Yes.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:10:55

Elections are paper intensive, for absentee ballots and such. But at the end of the day, tell the podcast listeners the rubber meets the road, with your technology working.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:11:09

So, you know, using technology in an election environment is not easy because you have to ensure it in so many ways that there is a trust factor. And one of the things that I live on and breathe on every day is in government the value of what we do and the currency that we do we have for our residents is trust. That has nothing to do with money. It has to do with trust. And how we build that is what we use and what the technology that we put in place not only for day to day interactions but in the elections environment. And, you know, we've gone through a replacement of our system that allows for people to register to vote. Mhmm. And now we've actually gone through the process of updating and upgrading our environment for when they check-in to vote so that we can ensure a fair, secure election no matter what.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:12:08

When we stand at the end of the day, we can we know that we've done the right things to serve the public in the best way possible to have a secure and great election environment and their time that they've spent walking in to cast their ballot was done with efficiency but with secure.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:12:31

And, you know, I'm I'm I'm happy to be, the administrator in a county where the board of commissioners are willing to make all of the necessary investments to ensure that we have the best resources to go towards the Board of Elections. Yeah.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:12:51

We we we've I think we tend to strive to overcome and to be the best. And sometimes that that's not easy, but sometimes we look at directed directives that we we have from the secretary of state's office or from the state of Ohio. And because counties have the jurisdiction of the election, we have to think what's best for us. And sometimes it's going above and beyond those directives so that we can say what we've done is for the residents and how they cast their ballots and making sure that they know without a shadow of doubt that that ballot that was cast is secure, counted, and it's what they wanted.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:13:39

On that note, Adam and Juan, what are the challenges the county has faced in implementing new technologies and how we've been able to overcome those?

Juan Torres [: 00:13:49

Well, I think probably the biggest challenge is how broad we are as a county. So, just here in this short time, you brought up body cameras, which is a massive initiative. You brought up brought up, elections. You brought up our going to the cloud. We are not a a private sector entity that focuses on one business unit. We provide services on the county, everything from health and human services to economic development, and public safety, public health. And all these agencies have their own necessary technology to deliver their services. And so there's not a chance where we can say, hey, we're not gonna do this today.

Juan Torres [: 00:14:39

We are it's such a broad offering of services that we have. But then also meeting where the resident where they're at. So having such a diverse population in our community, do we have we have multilingual services. We have applications that have to run 247. We have so we've got, obviously, jail management systems. We got sheriff's office. We have agencies that are always around the clock. So when you're trying to do either a maintenance or a release or any type of introduction, new technology, like, there's a lot of that's dependent on it.

Juan Torres [: 00:15:18

And then with elections, with some of the rules, we have certain blackout periods, that we're not permitted to to make any changes. And so here we are trying to get through a process, and we have to either make our release or we have to determine to to delay that. Mhmm. But, we also we can take in generational. We have a whole different generation of workforce that's coming in. We also have some legacy technology, that we're making every effort to to replace. So we have solutions that have been around the county for years. We have solutions that are using the latest, greatest technology that was just released, that is getting quarterly, monthly updates.

Juan Torres [: 00:16:04

And so, really, I think the the challenge is keeping up pace of all these solutions, but then staff development and training.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:16:14

Change is hard. Yes. And sometimes it's not necessarily the technology. That's the hard part. Sometimes it's the people side of it.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:16:22

Yeah. I think people understand.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:16:24

We have to make change and change is good. And sometimes changing the way they do their work can be helpful.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:16:31

Yeah. Yeah. You know, we we, you know, we have, nearly 7,000 employees. And if you wanna get, people upset, upgrade us upgrade us, a software system. You wanna get a bunch of people mad and and have a a congregation come in with pitchforks, change an app, or upgrade an application. But we have to do it sometime. Even me as administrator, I get grumpy and say, what's today today we had to do that? For whatever reason.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:17:10

We do ask that a lot.

Juan Torres [: 00:17:11

Yes. Yes. But I I think on that, it's timing of these. So we have so many services that are on daily, weekly, monthly processing. So we can't say, hey, the 1st week of the month, we're gonna do this. I think the biggest one big challenge is looking across the entire county of when this change goes into place, which agency is affected, because it tends to be a rippling effect. So it might be great for this agency. Like, this is the perfect window to release this upgrade.

Juan Torres [: 00:17:39

This is not the great window for for neighboring partner, sister agency. And so, that communication across the county of of everything from different elected officials to staff or you got evening staff, you got morning staff. So how do you we keep that communication.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:17:59

The one thing that, you know, we talk about those keep you up at night issues is while we're talking about the nuts and bolts of technology, we need one very vital ingredient for any of this technology to work. And it's what? Electricity. And during the summer months, especially, it appears that in Franklin County, Ohio, there's stress on our electrical system. And one of our blessings is having a large number of data centers that support various cloud based applications and other great things, but those centers use a lot of electricity. And I've seen both your faces when you got a blip or you got a long time, an outage of more than 15 minutes of electricity to feed all these systems and then especially tech servers and such. That's why it's probably a is blessing as we move more to the cloud because we don't have as many on premise. Did I is that the right word? No. Yep.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:19:22

We don't have any as many on premise servers and such that we have to worry about getting hot and overheating and and being the damage that could be done when they're not online?

Adam Frumkin [: 00:19:35

We'll we'll never get away from having on premise servers, But the more crucial and critical applications we can move to the cloud or alternate data centers helps us be successful in maintaining the continuity of government business.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:19:52

Yeah. I mean, electricity is like everything because you got a all of these systems, they could be the best systems designed in, in the world. And if they don't have electricity to feed them, you got you got problems. Let's move on to another exciting initiative that is part of when it when complete, it will improve, our face in, the community, and it will improve how we communicate with our residents. Let's talk about One Franklin County. Explain what One Franklin County, what this project is to our residents, and what it will ultimately mean, for our county.

Juan Torres [: 00:20:38

So One Franklin County, is our, really our our first initiative to go along the government experience. So in the private sector, there's been the customer experience, the customer journey. And so we have brought that mindset into the county to focus on the experience of the resident. So right now, our web presence was designed, with a focus on government structure and how agencies are aligned. However, a resident doesn't know all doesn't always know what agency they need to speak to, to to receive a service. And so we sat down, and identified a partner that can really look to transform our our web presence and really focus on services for, residents and businesses of the community. And so, we are taking, the first of the 14 commissioner agencies. Right now, they all so one of the studies we did, we have 14 commissioner agencies, and we had 29 different unique URLs for residents to go to to receive a service.

Juan Torres [: 00:21:47

And so we are looking to have one Franklin County where we will focus on the services for residents to come to our website, to experience the county differently. So if a resident is in need of maybe, our health and human services or food assistance or are looking to adopt a dog,

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:22:14

I

Juan Torres [: 00:22:14

wanna adopt a dog, or how do I license, or how do I get a marriage license? Mhmm. These are services that residents are receiving from us every single day. But our current web design structure sends them to all these different URLs. And so we hope to to integrate all these services, but also cross market the services that that we have. And so you might have a service from our office on aging that needs to, then receive a service from our, job and family services or, receive a service from the auditor, treasurer, or or others. And so we are taking this government experience journey mapping, and we are actually, this is a milestone. We're collecting feedback from residents to to go through a wireframe exercise if anyone is visiting our website now. But, we're also introducing ADA compliance, multilingual services, all these new tools that are available, to make services available to the the 1.3 residents.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:23:25

Lot lot lot. And you touched on this one. What's gonna make one Franklin County such an important project is there are just so many lines of business that are impacted by this. You know, if we were an ice cream shop, we would definitely be a leader in the number of flavors served. We would most definitely be a leader in the number of flavors served if we were ice cream shop.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:23:51

I think one of the things that we've been that the county Frank County has been revolutionary on and something that that, Juan tipped off on or or brought up was the GX and changing and building and focusing on what we call the GX Foundry or the Government Experience Foundry and thinking differently. And this first step of One Franklin County is taking a website that most and I'm not saying it's just us. Most government websites are focused on the government, not necessarily on the people that actually use it. And what our role here is is taking that look of that government experience how does the resident or the business experience who we are and what they're looking for and making them the primary emphasis of what we do and making it so it's so easy for them to find what they need that they get a better experience with us. And they're not afraid to come to us. They're not afraid to look or or feel a challenge to not find what they look what they need. Mhmm. And that's what we're doing as a county.

Adam Frumkin [: 00:25:02

This is just our first step.

Juan Torres [: 00:25:05

I think we we can go on and on about this of of so much that we're doing differently. So, we've put staff through some training of writing for the web so we can communicate a much easier language for residents, try to reduce the jargon, reduce the the government speak, and make it understandable for for every level who comes to our our site, but also more of a a mobile first approach. Because what we found is that even here, we're using mobile devices, more tablets, more phones are are visiting our site. And everyone wants that that experience right now. And we hate to say that the Amazon experience and how do we introduce that concept, where you can do all your services online.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:26:02

I

Juan Torres [: 00:26:03

don't know. We're not gonna get there tomorrow. Right. But we're we're taking it piece by piece of what we what we have full control of.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:26:12

What do we anticipate this gonna this gonna do? Give me just give me one one example of what both of you are looking for the greatest benefit when we talk about resident engagement. And, Juan, to your point, making it easier for someone to find a website to renew a dog license or pay their taxes, pay your taxes.

Juan Torres [: 00:26:38

One of it's this it's this new close back loop, so or feedback loop. So residents at any point in time, on the new site being able to, hey, is this page helpful or not, and or I'm looking for this. We can now take that data, and same day make a change to the site based on feedback that is received. And so somebody is looking for a particular service, in the county, we call it something different. We can now link the the metadata. So that way, when that resident comes back to the site, they're gonna find the the services that they're looking for. I think that's one of the things I'm excited about

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:27:22

is, when

Juan Torres [: 00:27:22

we bring all these platforms together, a more usable search, a more usable interface for residents, but also cleaning up some of the the old content that's been out there for for years, and just making it what residents are looking for today. Yeah.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:27:40

Yeah. We have a

Adam Frumkin [: 00:27:41

tendency from a government perspective to come up with great names for things that are not common words. And and what Juan's talking about is we can still have the names and the things that are there but have common words that link to those. So when people ask or search or put a search in for what they think it may be called, we can find it. And the idea is utilizing what we have that when someone puts something in and they don't find it, it then gives us that ability to say that was asked for and now we can link that. So the next person that may use that common language will get exactly to where they need to go. So it's it's learning as we go as well.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:28:19

Okay. Now we got to talk of the county remix coming. I'm a take you guys in in your blue suits looking all conservative, all official and ask you one simple question. Tell the podcast listeners something funny about yourself and I already know what you're gonna say, mister Frumpkin. But I know I know one got a pretty got a lot of material because he has 2 little ones at home. Julian and Mia to give him a lot of material. He got a lot of material. I just watched those chronicles on Facebook and, so tell tell the talk of the county listeners something funny about you CIO type guys individually.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:29:12

Don't go too far, but tell the listeners something funny about you.

Juan Torres [: 00:29:19

Funny.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:29:21

Can

Juan Torres [: 00:29:21

we go unique?

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:29:23

Unique, Dan. You don't wanna be funny. I don't wanna be funny.

Juan Torres [: 00:29:25

No. No. No. Everyone's got different humor. So so you talk about little ones. So having the opportunity to nearly deliver my son on the side of 3:15, during rush hour traffic, is probably the most unique opportunity or experience of using public service, public servants to help deliver a baby on the side of the road.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:29:59

Yeah. That's a good one. That is a good one. A unique experience. I believe that was on CNN. I think that made national news your experience. It was on CNN, folks. It was on CNN.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:30:12

CNN. It was national news. It was on all the I think it was CNN, the MSNBC, 4, 6, 10, all the channels. Don't wanna leave any channels out. You on all the channels.

Juan Torres [: 00:30:25

So, yes, that's that's the behind the scenes

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:30:30

And he's a healthy, bouncing Yes. Young man coming into shape.

Juan Torres [: 00:30:34

Yes. So the anniversary is coming up here in a few months. 3 years.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:30:42

What you got, sir?

Adam Frumkin [: 00:30:44

Oh, boy. I I feel like I'm a target rich environment.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:30:48

But

Adam Frumkin [: 00:30:48

I'm gonna give away something that I know some of the people that are listening and I know the people in this room know about me but some others or most others probably don't but our own Columbus Clippers have 2 mascots both Lucille and Crash. And, I actually played Lucille for for a few seasons as the mascot for our Columbus Clippers.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:31:14

That is that's a good one. He probably was on a commercial with with with mask ice, and we don't even know it. He probably was one of them mascots in a commercial, that many of you has probably seen. Probably seen the Franklin County CIO was in one of those costumes. You don't have to tell us if you was really in the commercial. Now you don't have to tell us a word.

Juan Torres [: 00:31:35

So I I I think it's only fair for for I know it's your it's your podcast, but, can can you share the residents something unique about yourself?

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:31:45

Some unique something unique or or funny about me. I am somewhat germophobic. I use a lot of hand sanitizer, Lysol, wipes, any kind of disinfectants I can get around me because I don't wanna be sick with cold or flu due to any, self inflicted actions of my own. So that's that's probably funny and unique at the same time. And I I don't do well during plagues or any, spreading of any kind of disease outbreaks because I don't wanna have anything on it. So you put me out there and I put it out there. Anybody that works with me already knew that, but the listeners of Tongue to County know that. Because if I'm separated from hand sanitizer, I'm like I'm not likely to eat anybody's french fries, potato chips, or anything with my hands if I'm if I'm away from, something.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:32:44

So on my parting, you all had advantage of being a being around podcast, so you won't be surprised. You'll be ready for this question and answer quick. Beach, mountains, or desert?

Juan Torres [: 00:33:00

Beach. I'll go beach as well.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:33:04

So they all went beach. Beach is the overwhelming thing. So all the beach communities in America should that's why they're full because everybody wanna be on the beach. You like getting sand on your feet? I my wife and I, we've been married for 35 years,

Adam Frumkin [: 00:33:17

and we tried to make it every year just to go for a walk on the beach. That's my favorite place to just go for a walk with my wife on the beach.

Juan Torres [: 00:33:30

I'll take anymore with sunshine.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:33:32

Okay. I got okay. I'm gonna have to bring a a guest on based on my internal intel that won't pick beach. I have some internal intel that I know I have some people that surprisingly everyone's not a fan of the beach or the ocean. They're just not. And you might find out. Listen to enough talk of the counties, and we we will expose some of the people that are not fans of the beach, believe it or not. Everyone has visions.

Kenneth Wilson [: 00:34:06

You would think of palm trees and beach. But in closing, this this talk of the county podcast, we had to after talking about all the heavy IT stuff, we had to go off offline a little bit here. But in closing, it's been a great conversation with Adam and Juan talking about Franklin County's IT initiatives and IT achievements. So in closing, as we always end, do you. Nobody else has time to. Thank you.