Tarrant County Earns 4 Texas Association of Counties' Best Practices Awards
October 12, 2022
Association honors initiatives by Commissioner Gary Fickes, Precinct 3, the County Clerk and Criminal District Attorney.
FORT WORTH – The Texas Association of Counties (TAC) presented Tarrant County with four 2022 County Best Practices Awards at Tuesday’s Commissioners Court meeting in Fort Worth.
TAC County Relations Officer Rhita Koches gave out the awards honoring four programs.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the elected officials here in Tarrant County, of the employees and the jobs they do at trying to figure out better ways that we can serve our citizens and do things which maybe make dealing with the government a little bit simpler or a little bit easier,” Tarrant County Judge B. Glen Whitley said during Tuesday’s presentation.
“Dedication to serving the public runs through Tarrant County’s four Best Practices recipients,” TAC Executive Director Susan M. Redford said. “We hope these awards inspire other counties to consider similarly innovative ways to address the variety of issues counties deal with day in and day out.”
Tarrant County is one of seven Texas counties selected to receive a TAC 2022 County Best Practices Award. The other recipients are Bell, Burleson, Harris, Hidalgo, Montgomery, and Williamson counties.
The four Tarrant County programs receiving the 2022 Best Practices Awards are:
- Northeast Tarrant County Seniors Rock.This initiative by Pct. 3 Commissioner Gary Fickes and his staff bring together seniors to paint rocks for homebound individuals and others to brighten their day with fun, positive messages. The rocks are a keepsake for recipients, and the activity gives the seniors who paint them much-needed social interaction.
- Customer Service Survey – QR Codes. County Clerk Mary Louise Nicholson and her team used readily available technology to create quick response (QR) codes that enable customers to easily use their phone cameras to submit a customer service questionnaire.
- Prosecution of Adult Sexual Assaults. Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson tasked her office’s adult sexual assault prosecution team with understanding how the criminal justice system frequently fails sexual assault victims. The result was a new, collaborative approach to handling adult sexual assault cases that saw the number of no-bill cases by grand juries drop from 31% to 16% in 2020 and to 9.2% in 2021.
- Prosecutors in High School. Wilson’s office partnered with the Fort Worth school district during the 2020-21 school year to teach high school students how the criminal justice system works. Wilson’s office expanded the program into the Crowley school district in the spring of 2022.
“Dedication to serving the public runs through Tarrant County’s four Best Practices recipients,” TAC Executive Director Susan M. Redford said. “We hope these awards inspire other counties to consider similarly innovative ways to address the variety of issues counties deal with day in and day out.”
Tarrant County is one of seven Texas counties selected to receive a TAC 2022 County Best Practices Award. The other recipients are Bell, Burleson, Harris, Hidalgo, Montgomery and Williamson counties.
Every even-numbered year, TAC’s County Best Practices Awards Program recognizes noteworthy innovations and solutions that increase efficiency, improve operations or overcome obstacles facing county governments. These innovations and solutions help Texas counties better serve their residents. They also serve as models that other counties can replicate to serve their own communities.
Learn more about TAC’s County Best Practices Awards program at www.county.org/bestpractices.