Board recognizes Stephenson and Agbunag

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of County Commissioners, Public Works Director Joe Stephenson and staff member Rocky Agbunag were recognized for receiving the Special Achievement in GIS Award from the Environmental Systems Research Institute.

St. Johns County was selected from more than 350,000 organizations worldwide to receive the award; given for the Department’s vision, leadership, hard work and innovative use of Geographic Information System technology at the Institute’s 30th Annual International User Conference in San Diego.

In 2005, the Public Works Department, led by Agbunag, began implementing a Computerized Maintenance Management System to increase productivity and better manage the County’s drainage and transportation assets.

The Department’s main goals were the ability to create and track service requests and work orders, effectively locate the assets associated with the activity and account for the costs by activity. The other goal was to use a single system for both financial management and asset management, which improves financial accountability and operational efficiency.

The new system currently lists the condition, age, exact location and real financial cost of close to 30,000 culverts and 40,000 signs throughout St. Johns County, information that was previously scattered and incomplete.

The unprecedented ability to use a single system to coordinate all these components sets St. Johns County apart from other agencies and resulted in the special achievement award.

In the first full year of implementation (2006-07), the system helped increase productivity by more than 13.3 percent, saving St. Johns County over $650,000. Savings in subsequent years are on track to reduce costs by more the $1 million each year through improved efficiency.

Stephenson says, “The system St. Johns County now has in place is a tremendous tool that allows us to locate, track and manage our assets within a performance based budgeting process. Our efficient system, created by Rocky Agbunag and the Public Works team, is now being modeled by other local governments in the United States and potentially throughout the world.”

St. Johns County was one of only three organizations recognized in the State of Florida and the only Public Works related recipient worldwide during the awards ceremony.