Administrator Kelli Scott Participates in Annual 'State of the Community' Report

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I'm Richard Viat.
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Welcome back inside Calhoun County.
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This is the podcast from Calhoun County Governments, Calhoun County, Michigan.
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Click the subscribe button, follow whatever that button happens to be, and you'll get alerted when these new episodes come available.
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Kelly Scott, administrator-controller for Calhoun County, participated in the state of the community event.
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It was a recorded event in which a number of municipal leaders reported on the progress and goals and such from 2025 and looked ahead to 2026.
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City managers and community leaders from Albion, Battle Creek, Marshall, Springfield, and Calhoun County all participated.
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You're able to watch that.
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In fact, we'll link it in the show notes for this particular episode so you can watch it.
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But we thought we'd bring you in podcast form.
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Administrator controller Kelly Scott's remarks from the State of the Community 2026.
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The mission of our county government is building a better county through responsive leadership.
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And that starts at the top with our governing board.
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County Board of Commissioners is in their second year of a four-year term.
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Derek King from District 5 is their elected board chair for the rest of this year.
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Vice Chair, District 6, Matt Saxton, for the rest of this year.
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Even though the county commissioners are elected on a partisan basis, they work very well together.
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They work across the aisle.
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We do not have any political gridlock.
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And also, it's always of note that unlike most counties in Michigan, our county commissioners also serve as our road commissioners because we eliminated the road commission back in 2012 to eliminate that one layer of government.
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So it does add another element to our county commissioners' responsiveness.
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They are responsive directly to the public related to potholes and other road issues.
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And I'll just say this group of seven commissioners, in my opinion, does an excellent job protecting taxpayer dollars and supporting residents' needs.
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And some of the ways that they demonstrate this effective and transparent government is with, of course, the one of the biggest jobs of county commissioners is to adopt a budget.
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We have a bipartisan budget committee.
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The board adopted our 2026 budget on time without recommending any rainy day fund reserves.
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In fact, we're increasing our fund balance.
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This is due to the board's support of living within our means and continuing to deliver essential services in most of the county services.
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More than 80% of what we do is mandated by the state because we are a political subdivision of the state.
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The board also, again, in 2025, authorized lower millage rates than what were originally approved by voters.
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So we have chosen not to ask voters to approve a pop-up to the Headley rollback.
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And we are still committed to affordability for taxpayers.
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Another example of trying to eliminate hurdles for the public is continuous policy review.
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And in 2025, the board made 13 updates to county policies.
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One example that I think is helpful to note is that our road department has a mailbox policy.
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If your mailbox gets hit by snow or by plows during the winter season, we updated that policy to make it easier to submit those claims.
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You don't have to fight with us about whether it was the truck or the snow that actually caused the damage.
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The board also maintains strong fiscal and staffing oversight.
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And through their appropriation language, they are able to hold department heads accountable.
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The board approves all new positions, any pay scale increases, significant purchases, budget transfers, and grant applications.
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So partly because of that, our county financial status is strong.
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We, from a countywide perspective, property values are continuing to increase steadily.
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And you heard from all of our city managers that there are significant growth and development in the works, particularly with housing, but also some commercial and industrial expansion.
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And partly because of that, when the county uh asks our independent evaluators for a bond credit rating, we once again in 2025 received a double A credit rating, which is second only to the highest AAA.
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And also they assign a stable outlook to Calhoun County.
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And the reason that's important is because when we finance capital projects, the higher the credit rating, the lower the interest cost, saving our taxpayers.
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It also gives us the capacity to help finance on behalf of our townships that maybe don't wouldn't otherwise have the capacity to issue bonds and also wouldn't be able to get the lower interest rate.
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We also go above and beyond at the county level in our financial reporting.
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So instead of the basic audit report, we have a very large audit report that includes all kinds of statistical information and analysis and history.
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And because of that, we have for almost 30 years now received the International Finance Association Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting.
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So, next into some of our departments and our other strategies, maintaining public safety and justice is probably at the top of our strategic list.
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Last year, we finally completed a significant expansion of our youth center, and that allowed us to almost double the space.
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We added 10 beds, and it really not just helps out our own county and our detention needs, but there is a significant shortage of youth detention centers across the state of Michigan.
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And so by completing this, we are now back in business.
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We accept other youth that need to be detained from counties.
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I think it's over 20 counties across the state of Michigan.
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And they really like not just that we have a detention center, but that we have evidence-based behavioral management programs that should leave the youth in a better position when they leave to not have to come back.
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So we're really proud of that expansion and we'll move on.
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And then public safety and justice also, of course, the Sheriff's Office does a wonderful job continuing to demonstrate his commitment to meeting and exceeding professional standards relating to their policies, their operations, and safety.
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So during 2025, our sheriff's office became the only, the fifth one in the state to earn accreditation through the Michigan Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission.
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In addition, the Sheriff's Office earned a gold status through the Lexapol Connect program, which recognizes the highest level for policy compliance and training.
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Numerous townships and villages and schools also contract with the Sheriff's Office for what I'll call extra law enforcement services beyond what we're mandated to provide.
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Starting in 2025, we added Lee Township, who wanted some extra law enforcement and traffic control.
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In 2026, the Sheriff's Office will complete a full implementation of implementing cameras in schools, thanks to a congressionally directed spending grant at the federal level, covered the entire$1.7 million of that cost.
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So that investment in infrastructure will keep the schools safer, but also if the students and the staff have to worry less about safety, we think that that will really help with teaching and learning, making education more effective, which is really needed in our county and across the state.
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The county's court systems continue to innovate when it comes to helping our residents.
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We have treatment courts in mental health, drug and alcohol and veterans.
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So we had 62 graduates in 2025 from those that divert them from just being locked up in the jail.
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Also in 2025, the district court created a new driver's license restoration court.
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And also in Calhoun County, there's uh implementation now of a new court-appointed special advocates or CASA program that's located in Battle Creek.
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And they work with our court system to advocate on behalf of youth who are in the system for neglect and abuse cases.
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We're happy to say that we have consistent leadership over the courts going into 2026 and 27.
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Our chief judges were reappointed, Judge Sarah Lincoln with 37th Circuit Court, Judge Jason Bomia with the 10th District Court, and Judge Michael Jackinett as the probate court.
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So I really appreciate the relationship that our courts maintain with county administration and with our other countywide leaders.
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Our prosecutor's office, uh Chief Prosecutor Dave Gilbert, was elected this past year as the vice president of the statewide prosecuting association, prosecuting attorneys association.
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So we appreciate his leadership at the state level.
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One new initiative, also in the prosecutor's office that started in 2025, is that we received a$65,000 safe storage grant to educate the public on new safe storage laws in Michigan.
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And this is happening already through billboards, social media ads, and more.
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Our county also, along with eight others, received grant funds for awareness and outreach efforts for that initiative.
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And it's important because the prosecutor reports that most of the gun-related crimes, all of those handguns appear to be stolen.
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None of them are typically legally possessed.
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Our public defender's office, uh Dave MACLED, continues also to innovate with helping to provide programs as a pipeline for recruiting, but also he employs a holistic approach to defense, which integrates attorneys and social work.
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Switching now to another strategy we have, which is promoting health and well-being, another huge priority for county government.
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Our public health department last year, unfortunately, faced a significant loss of funding.
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And so that resulted in staffing cuts.
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Despite that downsizing, we still provided vital services to women, infants, and children.
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Our school nurses, which again is a program that's pretty unique to our county.
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Most counties in Michigan do not have school nurses provided by the health department.
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So they continue, because they're there, to reduce out-of-class time for students.
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We have a visiting nurse program that supported nearly 100 first-time mothers.
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And our women and infants and children, which is the largest public health department program, offered breastfeeding and nutrition education to hundreds of women.
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The county is also addressing mental health and substance use challenges by deploying private opioid settlement funds and then also continuing with promoting health and well-being.
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Our senior services office, our veterans affairs office also use millage funds approved by voters to serve our residents.
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Our county treasurer, Melinda Weaver, uh recently just launched a new home buyer assistance program in 2026 in partnership with one of the local banks, where homeowners can get up to$6,000 from the county and another$2,000 from the bank to help with uh down payment assistance.
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Our land bank also is playing a role in helping with housing in 2026 and 2025.
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They just recently completed a first complete home rehabilitation and a new build.
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Our community development department continues to work uh with the cities, with the townships on improving safety and supporting local governments.
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So we have a geographic information systems services department that did some address updates countywide and helped out the townships with some zoning maps.
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We continue during 2026 to help with planning and support for pretty significant solar projects, largest of which is in Lee Township.
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We also just created a new countywide Brownfield Redevelopment Authority that, thanks to some legislative changes, can now also use to support housing development.
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One of the biggest projects we're looking forward to over the next few years is the expansion of internet, our broadband throughout the county.
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There was a federal, what we call BEAD grant that awarded about one and a half billion dollars to Michigan.
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We were awarded the most out of all counties in Michigan, and that construction will happen over the next several years, and it will allow for more than 12,000 locations in our county to receive internet that don't have that uh right now.
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So that's exciting.
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Okay, on to the road department and infrastructure and protecting our natural resources.
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We had some leadership changes.
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We appointed a permanent director and deputy in 2025.
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We also continue to outpace most other counties in Michigan with the amount of road improvements.
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We improved 90 roads during 2025 and also a bridge replacement that is unique because it was a partnership with our local tribe who gets separate funding.
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In 2026, thanks to our state representative uh Frisbee and others at the state, we are looking forward to utilizing the new state road funding package, which increased the county's revenues by about$6 million, a 36% increase.
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So that will allow us to improve about 100 miles of local and primary road projects just this year.
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Our parks and recreation department also is supported by about a million dollar and a voted voter-approved millage.
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And we split that 50% for county parks and then 50% to the cities, townships, and villages.
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In 2025, we made improvements to our Ot Preserve, the Menwabick Meadows in Albion, and the Kimball Pines Park in 2026.
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We are planning to create a new boat launch on Custer Drive.
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And then also Bridge Park is going to get some significant accessibility improvements and boardwalk replacement.
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The design will happen in 2026 and probably the construction in 2027.
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We also have a recycling change in the works.
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So it partly in response to state laws that now require us to expand recycling.
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We are looking to relocate our current recycling center from the road department to another location in Marshall Township.
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So that design work is going to happen.
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We have an RFP out right now to select the design firm.
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We're securing grants to actually pay for the new recycling center.
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And we have until the end of 2027 to implement the new laws.
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So over the next couple of years, that will allow for more hours, expanded recycling, and just a better experience for our residents.
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Our Water Resources Commissioner, who was newly elected this last term, is reporting that he is experiencing a record number of new permits, mostly due to the solar and broadband expansion.
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So, in conjunction with that, he's doing a lot of work, working closely with the contractors to make sure that these efforts are happening in a way that does not damage our county drains.
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And then also in 2026, he will be implementing measures to meet newly established lake levels for Emerald and Laird Lakes, which are in Battle Creek, and then assisting the new Lion Lake Board and planning for a drain improvement in Athens.
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I think you've heard from most of our city managers.
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We're all working on technology projects because technology changes.
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Our clerk's office has already automated a voting inspector scheduling program.
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Our county IT department increased significantly our cybersecurity training, which reduces our risk level.
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We have a new purchasing and manage bid management system that should be easier for vendors to do business with the county.
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We are also looking to make sure we're compliance with the new website accessibility rules.
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We do have a chat bot, Ask Cal, that is on our website.
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Feel free to try that out.
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We're almost done.
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So I always talk about supporting our workforce.
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Calhoun County is a large employer.
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We have about 700 employees in a wide variety of career options.
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Some recent HR initiatives are that we have a new applicant tracking system, again, to make it easier to do business with the county.
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We've been able to contain our benefits costs that increase this year by only 3.7%.
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And part of that is we have an on-site employee health and wellness center in Battle Creek that saves our employees, but also saves the county.
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And then we do a lot to engage our employees, give them an opportunity to get together with those from other departments that maybe they don't work with.
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We only have nine current job openings, which is amazing.
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That's down considerably.
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So it's a sign that I think the market is improving.
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And then finally, last but not least, intergovernmental cooperation is one of our major strategies.
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And really intergovernmental coordination is what this state of community event is all about, right?
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It's what makes our local government successful in meeting our residents and our visitors.
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So I'm so thankful for our city managers, um, Doug, Derek, Aaron, and Amanda, all of whom are relatively new in their roles.
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And I look forward to welcoming Cheryl back to Albion.
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I'm also very grateful for our state and federal legislators who fight for funding and fight for policies that help our local governments and our communities thrive.
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The state of Calhoun County remains strong because of all of this collective leadership and because of our commitment to working together to do what's best for the people we serve.
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That's Calhoun County Administrator Kelly Scott with her remarks from the State of the Community 2026 event.
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Once again, you're able to watch that in full with all participants by way of Access Vision, and we'll link that in the show notes for this episode.
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Inside Calhoun County, subscribe where you get podcasts, and we'll let you know when these episodes come available.
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I'm Richard Pyatt.
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Take care.