County Employees Research Articles

207 Building a community-academic partnership to facilitate translational research and identify and reduce barriers to mental healthcare services and resources in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Clinical and epidemiological studies focusing on Hispanics/Latinos are often designed by academic researchers with little input from mental health professionals in underserved communities. Our objective is to establish an academic-community partnership in South Texas to help improve mental health outcomes of Hispanics. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: Hispanics in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV, South Texas) are burdened with high rates of diabetes and obesity, and interventions have been identified for these conditions, but there is less information about strategies that may help improve their mental health status and address needs. We have explored mental health and psychological factors in Hispanics/Latinos in Latin America (Gil etal., 2021) and consider community participation in the research process to be an understudied topic. Thus, in the present study, we recruited mental health professionals in the RGV to establish an academic-community partnership as a strategy to facilitate translational research that focuses on RGV Hispanics. Partners worked as a team to generate information, identify problems and solutions, and design future projects. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Our academic team (at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) successfully established a partnership with the Cameron County Mental Task Force (CCMHTF), a non-profit organization in South Texas that seeks to “meet the mental and behavioral health needs of the people” in South Texas. The CCMHTF comprises 12 board members that are representative of RGV mental health providers: counselors, social workers, academic clinicians, hospital and county employees, and mental and behavioral health facility providers/clinicians. Our partnership generated qualitative descriptions of the mental health needs of RGV Hispanics/Latinos and barriers to access and utilization of mental health services in South Texas. In the future (phase 2 of the study), we plan to report results of focus groups and mental health assessments. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE: Hispanics/Latinos are underrepresented in clinical/translational research, and this lack of representation is particularly true for Hispanics/Latinos living along the U.S.-Mexico border of the RGV, South Texas. Our academic-community partnership may serve as a model to facilitate translational research in underserved Hispanic communities.

Produktivitas kinerja Pegawai Negeri Sipil di Kota Bitung

This research was conducted at the Girian District Office, Bitung City with the aim of analyzing the productivity of civil servant performance from the aspects of Attitude, Ability and Work Spirit as well as analyzing what obstacles are faced in preparing or creating employee performance targets. The method used is a qualitative research method. The results of this study show that 1) in terms of attitude, the performance of district staff is good and they are able to communicate well with the community; 2) In terms of efficiency, the performance of district staff remains low; 3) The performance of district employees remains the worst in terms of work ethics. The factors hindering the performance of the staff of Gillian District Office in Bitung City are: 1) lack of motivation to work, which may affect community participation in community activities; 2) County employees do not receive training or development so that they do not know what type of work they will be required to do when appointed as county employees; 3) The average age of district employees is 50 years old; 4) Existing regulations change very quickly; 5) Technical bodies still provide minimal information on the latest regulations.

Impact of Ethical Practices on Performance of Murang’a County Government in Kenya

This study determined the impact of ethical practices on performance of Murang’a County Government. Some studies have found that embezzlement, lack of accountability and unethical behaviours are among many factors that affect organizational performance. These are ethical practices of employees, hence this study sought to determine how ethical practices impact on organizational performance. Ethical practices were measured using time management, integrity, dedication and accountability. The study employed mixed research design. The quantitative data was collected with the use of a questionnaire and was analysed using STATA 14 statistical package. Qualitative data however was collected using interview guide and thematic analysis was used in data analysis. The study targeted Murang’a county employees and the sample size was 353 respondents. The study used descriptive statistics for descriptive analysis and presented the result using graphs, tables, figures and charts to enhance clarity and impact. The findings of the study were further presented using figures, tables and graphs. The study found out that ethical practices have a huge impact on how well organization operates. It is recommended that on ethical practices County Government employees are trained on public officers’ integrity and ethics and that employees should be enlightened on public officers’ code of conduct.

Accountability and Quality of Service Delivery in Marsabit County Government

Any organization's continued viability rests in large part on the quality of the services it provides. According to the theoretical literature, the level of professionalism shown by workers is a major factor in the quality of service clients get. However, there has been a lack of empirical research on the relationship between accountability and service quality. The main purpose of this study was to assess the effects of accountability on quality of service delivery in Marsabit county government. The study was anchored under The Service Quality Theory. The target population for this study was 303 Marsabit County employees working at various ministries within the County headquarters and with an adoption of sample size of 45% the study established a sample size of 137 respondents. Stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents. A questionnaire was used as the primary instrument for data collection. The study employed both descriptive statistics such as percentages, means and standard deviations and inferential statistics such as Pearson’s correlation and Multiple Regression to present and analyze the data. The statistical package for social science (SPSS) aided the data analysis. The study established that accountability has a strong positive effect on quality of service delivery and accounted for 72.2% (R square = 0.722) of the variation in quality of service delivery. This study suggests that there is need for counties top leadership to ensure that accountability practices are formulated, enforced and adhered to. It is also important that counties to adopt code of conduct/ethics to improve on quality of service delivery. It is recommended that a more comprehensive survey covering different counties to be done to shed more light on this subject.

California university receives multimillion dollar grant to develop BH workforce

Palo Alto University (PAU) has been awarded two workforce development grants from the state of California totaling $6.7 million, according to an April 4 university news release. The grants address the significant behavioral health workforce shortage. The first grant is a “Social Work Education Capacity Expansion Grant” in the amount of $1.5 million from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. The grant aims to increase the supply of staff trained to provide behavioral health care through the development of new social work programs, especially programs aimed at training students to serve children and youth. The funds will support the expansion of PAU's degree offerings to include a prospective master's degree in social work. Grant funds will support the hiring of qualified faculty and staff to start developing the program. The second award is a $5.2 million five‐year contract from the California Mental Health Services Authority to prepare and educate 50 current [Palo Alto] county employees to earn a mental health counseling degree from PAU. There will be two cohorts of county employees who will be selected from rural counties with exceptionally inadequate mental health services and from underrepresented communities to support the goals of diversifying the mental health profession.

Effect of Human Resource Planning and Leadership Styles on Performance Contracting in Public Organizations in Kenya

Performance contracting is a term which is gaining a lot of popularity among government departments as it helps its employees to account for their input in the organization. This study investigated the effect of human resource planning and leadership styles on performance contracting in public organizations in Kenya with a focus on Tharaka Nithi executive county government. It was guided by the following specific objectives; to investigate the degree to which human resource planning affect performance contracting in Kenyan public organizations and to evaluate how leadership styles relate to performance contracting in Kenyan public organizations. The study was anchored on expectancy theory and the agency theory. The target population was 300 Tharaka Nithi county employees. Using stratified random sampling method, the study employed a descriptive research design with a sample size of 172 respondents, according to the administrative county government of Tharaka Nithi. The study used a self-administered drop-and-pick questionnaire as its main instrument to gather primary data from the sampled respondents. Data was analyzed using SPSS software where both descriptive and inferential statistics were produced. Tables and figures were used to display the quantitative results, while thematic presentations were used to display the qualitative data. The results of the study showed that both human resource planning and leadership style had major effect on performance contracting in the county government. Specifically, the effectiveness of performance contracting was found to have a positive and substantial association with these characteristics. This suggests that better performance contracting in county government results from an increase in the efficacy of these variables, and vice versa. The study recommends that best practices be outsourced from excelling county governments in Kenya as reported by council of governors’ report of 2022 on both human resource planning and leadership styles and implement the results consistently while cascading them down to the lowest levels of staff. If properly followed, these suggestions would result to the county governments’ ability to function successfully.

Practical Applications of Debunking 7½ Myths of Investing

In <b><i>Debunking 7½ Myths of Investing</i></b> from the June 2022, 30th anniversary special issue of <b><i>The Journal of Investing</i></b>, authors <b>Laurence Siegel</b> (of the <b>CFA Research Foundation</b>) and <b>Stephen Sexauer</b> (of the <b>San Diego County Employees Retirement Association</b>) explain that seven popularly held beliefs about investing are myths, while an eighth is part myth and part truth. The authors’ takeaway is that people will almost always seek to make a better life for themselves through innovation and building wealth, so investors should seek out and invest in innovative companies worldwide. Uncertainty about the future is a key driver that causes individuals to embrace false myths about investing. Some of the myths prey on individuals’ desire to find simple solutions to complex problems by offering a false sense of control over uncertainty.

Addressing hygiene needs of housing insecure populations: A qualitative analysis of Seattle and King County's mobile hygiene station intervention

ObjectiveTo evaluate the Seattle Public Utility mobile hygiene station program, a program deployed using public funds in response to the large-scale closures of public hygiene facilities due to COVID-19. Study designWe conduct a qualitative analysis using semi-structured interviews. MethodsWe interviewed four Seattle Public Utility (SPU) and Public Health Seattle & King County (PHSKC) employees involved in the design, deployment, and management of the hygiene station intervention. Data were also collected from communications and reports released through SPU/PHSKC web sources. ResultsOur analysis revealed factors affecting the implementation of the hygiene program included the rental of hygiene trailers, community partnership to mediate between housed and housing insecure populations, funding source and cost-effectiveness, geographic location of the units, and maintenance of the units to continue population hygiene support. ConclusionThe SPU/PHSKC hygiene station was designed to support the housing insecure and homeless by compensating for the large-scale closures of public restrooms and showers. Several logistical and financing challenges need to be addressed to ensure the continuity of the program.

Rates of Asymptomatic COVID-19 Infection and Associated Factors in Olmsted County, Minnesota, in the Prevaccination Era.

ObjectiveTo estimate rates and identify factors associated with asymptomatic COVID-19 in the population of Olmsted County during the pre-vaccination era.Patients and MethodsWe screened first responders (N=191) and Olmsted County employees (N=564) for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 from November 2020 to February 2021 to estimate seroprevalence and asymptomatic infection. Second, we retrieved all PCR confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses in Olmsted County from March 2020 through January 2021, abstracted symptom information, estimated rates of asymptomatic infection and examined related factors.ResultsTwenty (10.5%; 95%CI: 6.9%-15.6%) first responders and thirty-eight (6.7%; 95% CI: 5.0%-9.1%) county employees had positive antibodies; an additional 5 (2.6%) and 10 (1.8%) had prior positive PCR tests per self-report or medical record, but no antibodies detected. Of persons with symptom information, 4/20, (20%, 95% CI: 3.0%-37.0%) of first responders and 10/39 (26%, 95% CI: 12.6%-40.0%) county employees, were asymptomatic. Of 6,020 positive PCR tests in Olmsted County with symptom information between March 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021, 6% (n=385; 95% CI: 5.8%-7.1%) were asymptomatic. Factors associated with asymptomatic disease included age [0-18 years (OR=2.3, 95% CI: 1.7-3.1) and 65+ years (OR=1.40, 95% CI: 1.0-2.0) compared to ages 19-44 years], body-mass-index [overweight OR=0.58, 95% CI: 0.44-0.77) or obese (OR=0.48, 95% CI: 0.57-0.62) compared to normal or underweight] and tests after November 20, 2020 [(OR=1.35; 95% CI: 1.13-1.71) compared to prior dates].ConclusionAsymptomatic rates in Olmsted County prior to vaccine rollout ranged from 6-25%, and younger age, normal weight, and later tests dates were associated with asymptomatic infection.

Impact of Security Risks Mitigation on the Adoption of E-Government in Kenya

Inadequate security risks mitigation is one of the major concerns that is related with the adoption of e-Government in Kenya. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to determine the impact of security risk and how it influences behaviour and intention for using e- government services. The study targeted a population consisting of 612 Bungoma County employees. Specifically, ICT Officers, procurement officers, revenue officers, Chief Officers, finance officers and suppliers. A survey research design that provided a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population was used. Purposive and random sampling were used and data was collected through content analysis, questionnaires, questioning protocol, and interview and think-aloud protocol. Face validity and content validity was done to ascertain the validity of the research instruments. Data were analysed using both statistical and narrative analysis, validity and reliability and the generalizability and transferability of data collected. The study found that the county government was committed to ensuring quality performance metrics through software development and safe business metrics. The study assessed the effect of security risk mitigation on adoption of E-government in Bungoma County through Availability, Disclosure of information and Confidentiality of the E-government users. The study concluded that County governments trusted their employees when disclosing information to the public. The study found that there was a significant contribution of security risk mitigation measures to the adoption of E-government. The study will benefit the following organizations, County Governments, National governments and also researchers for their further research in the areas of security risks in E-government system.

Wage Study for Alabama’s Section 5311 Drivers

Driving a transit bus for a Federal Transit Administration Section 5311 agency is a difficult job that requires training and commitment. As such, it is important to hire qualified and competent individuals into these positions. Within the hiring process, starting pay is a major factor in hiring both for drivers and the agency. This paper documents the results from a survey which collected wage data for transit bus drivers in Alabama. The results show that average starting full-time pay for transit bus drivers is lower than that of school bus drivers, other county employees and even fast food workers in the area where the transit service is provided. The paper concludes that starting pay for Alabama’s Section 5311 drivers is below the poverty level for a family of four and this low pay has the potential to make future hiring of qualified and competent bus drivers an issue in the future.

The 2020 Joseph W. St Geme, Jr. Leadership Award Address: On Leadership and the Joy of Pediatrics

The 2020 Joseph W. St Geme, Jr. Leadership Award Address: On Leadership and the Joy of Pediatrics

Assessment of County Internal Control System on Financial Accountability in Tana River County, Kenya

The public management of funds in Tana River County has been ineffectual and the report of the auditor general has reported massive squandering of the public resources. The poor financial accountability formed the rationale of conducting the study to assess how the county's internal control system influences financial accountability in Tana River County. The study was based on four theories, namely agency cost theory, classical management theory, stewardship theory and information systems success theory. The study employed a mixed methodology and specifically a convergent parallel mixed-methods perspective. The study adopted the descriptive research design. The targeted population for the study was 324 employees in Tana River County. A stratified sampling technique was used to get the sample size of 200 respondents. The data collection instruments comprised of questionnaires and interview guides. The results of the study indicated that monitoring systems, information and communication systems, risk management systems and internal audits explain 67.4% of the variations in financial accountability. The regression results showed that risk management system is positively and significantly related to financial accountability (β=.287 p=0.000). Moreover, it was found that internal audits and financial accountability are positively and significantly related (β=.406 p=0.000). Likewise, the study found that information and communication systems and financial accountability is positively and significantly related (β=.25 p=0.000). The study also found a positive and significant relationship between monitoring and financial accountability in Tana River County. (β=.144 p=0.000). Moreover, it was revealed there is a moderating effect of government policy and regulations on the relationship between internal control systems and financial accountability in Tana River County since the coefficient of determination (R squared) increased to 73.9%. The study recommended that counties need to develop a risk management system to spur efficiency and transparency. There should be an effective management system that could evaluate risks in advance to enables counties to maintain those risks within controlled levels. The internal auditor need to be monitored regularly to minimize the chances of presenting reports with mistakes and exaggerations. There is the need to have internal reviews of revenue targets during the financial year. Moreover, it is recommended stringent measures should be taken against the county employees found with corruption cases. Keywords: Risk management system, internal audit, information and communication systems, monitoring systems, government policy and regulations, financial accountability, Tana River County, Kenya

“I Want to Know How to Protect Myself without Scaring Our Patients”

AbstractDrawing on union convention proceedings, reports, newspapers, speeches, and internal memoranda, this article uses the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) as a case study to explore organized labor’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. One the one hand, it shows that AFSCME eventually embraced an ambitious, two-pronged program that fought both for strong workplace safety measures for its members and against discrimination toward those most affected by HIV/AIDS. On the other, it highlights the ways in which the union’s campaign was constrained by a narrow focus on workplace hazards. Prioritizing workers’ protections over patients’ demands for privacy in diagnosis and treatment, AFSCME ultimately subsumed its rhetorical commitment to working-class solidarity beneath what many members saw as a practical need for somatic surveillance and segregation—marginalizing the very communities that the union claimed to protect.

Age‐friendly initiative needs assessment survey: Los Angeles City and County employees

AbstractBackgroundThe City and County of Los Angeles Age‐Friendly Cities initiative, Purposeful Aging Los Angeles (PALA), 2017 needs assessment included an online survey of the workforce expected to implement age friendly policies and programs. The aim of this study was to describe the rate and characteristics of family caregivers within in the City and County workforce (employees). The overall response rate was 6.5% (City 4.5%, County 7.5%) for a final sample size 9,330. The category of family caregiver was derived from the following survey questions: 1) Are you or someone else in your home caring for a family member or friends who are experiencing problems/thinking that is affecting their ability to work or live a normal life? and 2) Are you a family caregiver? The analysis revealed that 34% of all respondents were family caregivers with an almost even number of male to female ratio. Among all caregivers, the mean age for caregiving for someone with cognitive impairment not diagnosed dementia was 47 and diagnosed AD/Dementia was 49. The majority of caregivers (all types) were caring for either a child/children under the age of 18 (42.1%) followed by a parent(s) (23.1%). Nearly 15% of caregivers of adults with cognitive impairment reported caring for a child/children under the age of 18. When caregivers of adults with cognitive impairment were asked “what type of help might be most useful?”, a higher preference for services was indicated by those aged 45‐64 who selected all the help types as most useful (information, symptom management, someone to talk to, ID lost person, diagnosis and help with care, legal, support group, caregiving financial support, chores/respite, day care, out‐of‐home placement). The current family caregiving research literature suggests that family caregivers experience higher rates of depression, anxiety, and social isolation due to the caregiving demands. Caregiving demands have the potential to create work‐family conflicts that are important for employers to consider when designing wellness programs, and other supportive employment programs. It is critical to identify ways to address caregiving implications on social services, healthcare, and the environment.

Misaligned incentives and the scale of incarceration in the United States

The incarceration rate has increased substantially in the United States between the 1980s and the 2000s. In this paper, I explore an institutional explanation for this growth: the fact that costs of incarceration are not fully internalized. Typically, prison is paid for at the state level, but county employees (such as judges, prosecutors or probation officers) determine time spent in custody. I exploit a natural experiment that shifted the cost burden of juvenile incarceration from state to counties, keeping overall costs and responsibilities unchanged. This resulted in a stark drop in incarceration, and no increase in arrests, suggesting an over-use of prison when costs are not internalized. The large magnitude of the change suggests that misaligned incentives in criminal justice may be a significant contributor to the current levels of incarceration in the United States.

Federal Forum Provisions and the Internal Affairs Doctrine

A key question at the intersection of state and federal law is whether corporations can use their charters or bylaws to restrict securities litigation to federal court. In December 2018, the Delaware Chancery Court answered this question in the negative in the landmark decision Sciabacucchi v. Salzberg. The court invalidated “federal forum provisions” (“FFPs”) that allow companies to select federal district courts as the exclusive venue for claims brought under the Securities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”). The decision held that the internal affairs doctrine, which is the bedrock of U.S. corporate law, does not permit charter and bylaw provisions that restrict rights under federal law. In March 2020, the Delaware Supreme Court overturned the Chancery’s decision in Salzberg v. Sciabacucchi, holding, among others, that in addition to “internal” affairs, charters and bylaws can regulate “intra-corporate” affairs, including choosing the forum for Securities Act claims. This Article presents the first empirical analysis of federal forum provisions. Using a hand-collected data set, we examine the patterns of adoption of such provisions and the characteristics of adopting firms. We show that adoption rates are higher for firms with characteristics, such as belonging to a particular industry, that make them more vulnerable to claims under the 1933 Act. We also show that adoption rates substantially increased after the Supreme Court case Cyan Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund, which validated concurrent jurisdiction for both federal and state courts for 1933 Act claims. We also find that the firms that adopt FFPs at the initial public offering (“IPO”) stage tend to share characteristics that have been associated with relatively good corporate governance. To assess the impact of the Sciabacucchi decision, we also conduct an event study. We find that the decision is associated with a large negative stock price effect for companies that had FFPs in their charters or bylaws. The effect is robust even for firms that had better governance features, that underpriced their stock at the IPOs, and whose stock price traded at or above the IPO price prior to the Sciabacucchi decision. In light of the empirical findings suggesting that federal forum provisions may serve shareholders’ interests by mitigating excessive 1933 Act litigation, we consider alternative legal theories for validating federal forum provisions in corporate charters and bylaws. We suggest two possible approaches: (1) allowing corporate charters and bylaws to address matters that are technically external but deal with the “affairs” of the corporation; and (2) adopting a more “flexible” internal affairs doctrine that could view 1933 Act claims as being “internal” to a corporation’s affairs. The Delaware Supreme Court’s decision can be viewed as being more consistent with the first, rather than the second, approach. We examine the possible implications of adopting either approach, particularly with respect to the existing Delaware statute on exclusive forum provisions and to mandatory arbitration provisions.

The Recent Evolution of Wisconsin Public Worker Unionism since Act 10

This paper examines the experience of four major public sector unions in Wisconsin since the passage of Wisconsin Act 10 in 2011. The four unions are the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT-Wisconsin), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), an affiliate of the National Education Association. Wisconsin’s prior legal framework for public sector collective bargaining is explained and compared to the new highly restrictive framework established by Act 10. That new framework, established by state legislation, is analyzed, as are its impacts on the membership, revenues, structures, and practices of the four unions. In general, we find the impacts to have been very dramatic, with a loss of active union membership averaging approximately 70 percent overall, and concomitant dramatic losses in union revenues and power. These shocks have engendered the restructuring of two of the unions examined, the downsizing of the third, and the de facto exiting from the state’s public sector in another. There have also been significant changes in representation practices in one union, but less so in the others. We conclude by discussing best union practices based on this experience, as well as considering what the recent public sector union history in Wisconsin may portend for public worker union membership nationwide, since the issuing of the Janus Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.

State Section 11 Litigation in the Post-Cyan Environment

In Cyan, Inc. v. Beaver County Employees Retirement Fund, the Supreme Court interpreted the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act of 1998 (SLUSA) to preserve state courts’ jurisdiction to hear cases brought under the Securities Act of 1933, a question on which courts had been split. The result has been a dramatic increase in the filing of Section 11 cases in state court, for which there is often a parallel case brought in federal court against the same defendants based on the same alleged misstatements. To understand the practical implications of Cyan, we analyze data on Section 11 cases filed since 2011, a point at which several federal courts had ruled that Section 11 cases could be brought in state court. Our key findings are the following: state courts have dismissed Section 11 cases less frequently than have federal courts; the relative size of settlements in state and federal cases is ambiguous; when parallel cases are filed in state and federal court against the same defendant, dismissal of both cases is rare and settlement is common.

How Knowledge Management Can Capture Untapped Alpha: A Case Study of Informed Rebalancing at the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association

Asset owners have to deal with the challenge of a potentially low-yielding investment environment for the foreseeable future and the likelihood of a market correction in the nearer term, with Q4 2018 providing a simple reminder of the downside risk of asset allocation. The traditional approach for many asset owners has been to use external managers to achieve their goals and hope that diversification will allow them to navigate difficult markets. A complementary strategy is to use knowledge management to improve returns and governance and capture a typically untapped alpha source in portfolios. Knowledge management in institutional asset management is defined as the explicit and systematic management of knowledge – and its associated processes of creation, organization, diffusion, use and exploitation – in pursuit of improving portfolio performance and managing risks. This paper highlights how the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association (SBCERA) used Knowledge Management and InvestTech to develop its own internal investment model to dynamically manage asset allocations and has added over $1billion (over 12 years) through its Informed Rebalancing program. In doing so, the portfolio and risks are better managed by the investment team and the program has survived many staff departures demonstrating that knowledge has been institutionalized. This approach is easily replicable by other asset owners, and each fund can develop its own bespoke approach based on their objectives and abilities.