Thursday, March 28, 2013

Davis Productivity Awards Announced!


Florida Tax Watch and Prudential-Davis Productivity Awards winners were announced at a news conference this morning at the Capitol, moments ago. This year's awards competition will confer 468 individual and team awards to thousands of state employees statewide for their innovations and productivity improvements worth $514 million in cost savings, cost avoidance, and increased revenue for state government.

This year, the Prudential-Davis Productivity Awards recognizes the Office of Judges of Compensation Claims again. In the past, the OJCC has been recognized for development and deployment of our electronic case management database, electronic filing, the electronic appellate record process, the OJCC "case search" function for trial orders, the OJCC videoteleconference system, and the pilot project for electronic service. I am very proud of our OJCC team for their many achievements. Many have been recognized by Florida Tax Watch, but all of the achievements, award-winning or not, have been of great benefit to our customers and the State. 

This year, the OJCC is recognized by Florida Tax Watch with two awards. I am very proud of both of our teams that are recognized this year. The OJCC is made up of an incredibly diverse and talented group of people. Their achievements are the result of a never-ending drive for this agency to be the best that it can be. I feel that the Florida OJCC is a model for any adjudicatory organization, and I am so privileged to serve with such a group of people. 

The first OJCC Florida Tax Watch award for 2013 is for the development of the Voluntary Mediation Program. The development of this process involved much brainstorming, organizing, and contributions from many in and outside of the OJCC, most notably in the form of feedback and ideas. However, the effort was led by OJCC Mediators Stuart Suskin (GNS) and Paul Harwood (PSL). These leaders were integral to the development of the process and the implementation of the Rules and forms that are critical to this program. Their efforts and this voluntary mediation process will save workers' compensation system participants money and time as they engage the services of our talented team of State Mediators throughout Florida. The two will receive a Certificate of Achievement.  

The second OJCC Florida Tax Watch award for 2013 recognizes some of our "behind the scenes" team members in Tallahassee. Jeff Russell, our web programmer and information technology expert teamed with our Information Technology Director, Susan Brown, to implement the process of having the Department of Revenue (DOR) share their child support data with the OJCC. In this process, Andrew Ellis of the DOR also played a critical role. These three are being recognized by Florida Tax Watch for this effort.

This project was the foundation upon which the OJCC developed your ability to obtain child support arrearage information from our Office rather than from DOR. With the support of the OJCC electronic filing program and e-service program, we have made it cheaper (free, e-filing) and easier to request this data, cheaper (free, e-service) for the State to provide this data, and we are delivering this service with more rapid turnaround times. A double benefit of this new paradigm is that whichever attorney requests the data, all attorneys of record receive the response. Our IT team that developed this process for sharing data and for facilitating our staff access to that data are receiving an Honorable Mention from the Florida Tax Watch recognizing their innovation. 

We will be presenting our 2013 award winners with certificates memorializing their efforts and the contribution they have made to the more efficient operation of the Office of Judges of Compensation Claims. I appreciate and applaud their efforts, and the efforts of all of our team around the State.