County Health Rankings

A national report issued this week ranks all counties in the county for health issues. This is a joint project of the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. At www.countyhealthrankings.org you can find detailed information arranged state by state and county by county on a variety of heatlh related issues. By clicking on an individual county, you can then see how that community scored on a number of factors.

There are two primary categories: Health Factors and Health Outcomes. A number of different individual health factors shape a community’s health outcomes. The County Health Rankings model includes four types of health factors: health behaviors, clinical care, social and economic, and the physical environment. The site then compares two types of health outcomes to represent how healthy each county is: how long people live (mortality) and how healthy people feel (morbidity).

Tennessee 2010 Census Data

The US Census Bureau released Tennessee data this week. You can access the data through this link. A map showing the percentage of population change by county is available here.

Now that the data is available, counties will begin working through the redistricting process over the coming months.

Governor Haslam's Budget Available on the Internet

UPDATED

The entire budget document is available on the Internet as well as video of the speech, the text of the speech, a fact sheet and a 30 slide overview presentation which was used to present the budget to the Senate and House finance committees.

These can all be accessed through http://tn.gov/stateofthestate/media/

U.S. County Population Estimates

The Census Bureau today released a downloadable file with county population estimates from April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2010. These estimates are neither 2010 Census counts nor are they based on the 2010 Census. Once official 2010 Census counts have been released for counties in all states, the Census Bureau will release a comparison of April 1, 2010, census counts and April 1, 2010 population estimates.

The data can be accessed here.

Legislature Files Over 2000 Bills in Each Chamber

The general bill filling deadline for the Tennessee General Assembly passed last Thursday. After this point, private acts and certain budgetary acts may be filed, but otherwise, general legislation is not to be filed unless approved by a late bills committee. The Senate ended up with 2082 bills to date. The House with 2124. Those bills that do not have a companion bill filed in the other chamber will not be eligible for passage this year. The legislation deals with a wide variety of issues. Many of the bills impact services provided by county government or the general administration of county government. We are working through the process of analyzing all this legislation and will be reporting bills of interest to you.

Governor Haslam Announces Legislative Package

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam this week introduced his administration’s legislative package for the 2011 session, focusing on educating the workforce, identifying the best teachers and revising the state’s civil justice system.

Haslam’s legislative package is a single piece of his jobs agenda to make Tennessee the No. 1 location in the Southeast for high quality jobs.

The legislation seeks to:

• Make tenure tied to classroom performance; extend probationary time from three to five years
• Lift the cap on charter schools and allow open enrollment
• Allow the state’s Achievement School District (part of First to the Top) to authorize charter schools
• Extend use of the lottery scholarship for summer courses and cap the total number of hours based on required degree completion
• Limits non-economic damages for both healthcare liability action and other personal injury actions
• Limits and clarifies standards for assessing punitive damages
• Limits appeal bond amounts

“Our legislation being filed with the Tennessee General Assembly is tightly focused on opportunities to enhance job creation and is one piece of our agenda to make Tennessee more competitive in the Southeast,” Haslam said.

Other pieces of Haslam’s jobs agenda include streamlining state government and aggressively examining rules and regulations to assure this three-part test is met: will they make a difference, are they performance-based, and what the expected outcomes are.

Also, the Department of Economic and Community Development is focused on a top-to-bottom approach that aligns state efforts with returns on investment.

“These initial steps in transforming state government will lead to more efficiency and effectiveness and deliver excellent customer service,” Haslam said.

For more, see the full press release and statement here: http://news.tnanytime.org/node/6721

Amazing Turnout Expected for Education Workshops

So far, the four evening education workshops for county commissioners have a total of 168 people registered. It's a great problem to have, but the Knox County meeting has maxed out at 75 and can take no more registrations.

These classes will be very informative for county commissioners and relate to one of the most important and complicated aspects of county government services and budgeting. I'm very excited and encouraged that there has been such a strong response to the classes.