First Row: L to R, Hayley Lynch, Christopher Keffer, Sarah Kelly, Emily Moses, Joyce Deaeth, First Lady Jane Beshear, Governor Steven L Beshear, Jennifer Lee, Crystal Casey, Deborah Stamper, Charlotte Robinson, Robert Bickett.
2nd Row: L to R, Adrienne Yancy, Susan Walker, Quindle Hodge, Neal Lanham, Walt Gaffield, John Love, Sandra McClard, Keith Cox, Tim Anderson, Jeremiah Littleton.
2008 Employee Suggestion System Award Recipients
CABINET FOR HEALTH & FAMILY SERVICES
Diana Baker and Susan Walker
Award: $500 ($,250 each)
Savings: $5,000
Ms. Baker and Ms. Walker suggested decreasing the KY Medicaid reimbursement amount for evaluation of hearing aids to reflect that of surrounding states.
Susan Brown
Award: $160
Savings: $1,621
Ms. Brown found a method of distributing files to field offices that saved
paper, storage space, time and money.
John Carrico
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Mr. Carrico made a complicated computer process easier and more efficient.
The process used to determine food stamp allotments sometimes is based on
payments from the Low Income Home Energy Assistance program if clients
receive both services. Mr. Carrico found an easier way to search and use
a database, which allows staff to access the report in a timely manner
and reduces user error.
Angela Cecil
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Cecil suggested adding a question to a form for people who apply for
family support to give workers a way to know if someone applying for benefits
received a shift differential that actually increased their pay.
Linda Clements
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Clements suggested adding a form to the KAMES system so that any employee who accessed the form could see what action, if any, had been taken regarding the client who had applied for assistance.
Joyce Deaeth
Award: $107
Savings: $1,070
Ms. Deaeth found a way to store reports electronically as a backup to those
printed in the field, saving money and time.
Sandra Heck
Award: $212
Savings: $2,121
Ms. Heck suggested a two-page form be combined into one page, saving on
printing costs and paper waste.
Ingrid Jordan
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Jordan suggested that cabinet-wide emails be sent after office hours,
unless urgent, to prevent tying up email and TWIST systems for hours.
Christopher Keffer
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Mr. Keffer built a device to test laboratory showers, eliminating the mess
and need for two people to perform the test.
Sarah Kelly
Award: $100
Savings: $100
Ms. Kelly suggested making a change to a work form that would save
employees time processing the form.
Sandra McClard
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. McClard suggested adding lines to a commonly used form giving employees the capabilities of checking off all the types of services received.
Emily Moses
Award: $100
Savings: $1,000
Ms. Moses suggested creating fact sheets rather than tri-fold brochures. Fact sheets were less expensive to produce in printing costs and could be posted to the Web for easy access and home printing.
Sherry Newton
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Newton suggested that a notice be put in files in question to alert employees of a case file under investigation or has been investigated, reducing the possibility of
benefits fraud.
Holly Peach
Award: $100
Savings: $100
Ms. Peach suggested adding a field to an online system process that would give
employees the option to print a form. Previously, the forms were required to be
printed but were not always necessary.
Rona Stapleton
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Stapleton suggested eliminating a category of information entered into a
state database because it was often unusable, partially complete or inaccurate,
especially when obtained from states that were not required to collect the data.
Aimee Timmons
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Timmons suggested a policy change that would allow for weekly or monthly
records that would free up space in case files and save the cabinet printing costs.
Robert Underhill
Award: $2,500
Savings: $297,155
Mr. Underhill suggested combining 160 individual janitorial contracts into fewer
contracts that grouped buildings within a 30-mile radius into one contract.
Rita Yates Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Yates suggested adding a check into the computerized benefits system that
allowed workers all over the state to review previous benefits a client has
received. By adding the check, employees could avoid giving clients expedited
services they did not quality for.
EDUCATION & WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT CABINET
Charlotte Robinson
Award: $100
Savings: $690
Ms. Robinson created an electronic storage file system to retain requests for
adding, changing and deleting user account access. This suggestion eliminated
the printing and storage of all user requests.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT CABINET
Quindle Hodge
Award: $438
Savings: $4,380
Ms. Hodge suggested that the agency stop mailing paper copies of bonds to
regional offices. Bonds are now scanned into an electronic document tree
that regional offices can access to.
GENERAL GOVERNMENT
BOARD OF NURSING
Michael Bloyd
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Mr. Bloyd suggested that communication with nurses on limitation and/or probation be sent via email utilizing the messaging tracking and notification tools in Microsoft Outlook. This suggestion revitalized the process.
Ruby King
Award: $175
Savings: $1,747
Ms. King suggested sending notifications by email of certification expiration for
all Advanced Register Nurse Practitioners. This process has simplified communication and shortened turnaround time for updating records and ensuring continued availability of Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioners to provide safe nurse practice.
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS’ AFFAIRS
Melissa Wibben
Award: $100
Savings: $900
Ms. Wibben suggested a safer and more productive method of moving beds within the Veterans’ center from one room to another. Her idea involved having the maintenance crew form a metal bar into a U shape fitted to the dimensions of the bed frame so employees do not have to bend over causing back strain. This suggestion has eliminated total lost workdays resulting from back injuries.
JUSTICE & PUBLIC SAFETY CABINET
Robert Bickett
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Mr. Bickett recognized that Department of Juvenile Justice currently had a system to download pictures of youth both committed and probated to the DJJ that could be utilized to track gangs by taking actual pictures of tattoos displaying gang affiliations.
Keith Cox & Mark Coyle
Award: $2,500 ($1,250 each)
Savings: $28,656
Mr. Cox and Mr. Coyle incorporated the training they received from the company where six new commercial motor vehicle platform scales were purchased, used the design from another stand they had built for smaller wheel axle scales, made modifications, and designed and built a compression test system stand. By building this stand, they saved the annual shipping cost and freight to send six platform scales out of state and saved the amount of purchasing a very expensive stand to perform the same functions as the one they built.
PERSONNEL CABINET
Timothy Anderson
Award: $2,000
Savings: $20,000
Mr. Anderson suggested utilizing Elluminate to provide educational, consulting and performance services across the state without the cost of travel. Elluminate is free, which allows cabinet to provide additional training without spending additional money or increasing the budget.
Dinah Bevington
Award: $2,500
Savings: $30,500
Ms. Bevington suggested that background checks only be conducted once an individual has been selected for a position by an employing agency. This change made additional staffing needs unnecessary and resulted in immediate and long-term financial savings by reducing the turnover and training costs for replacing employees found to have falsified their criminal records.
Walt Gaffield
Award: $2,500
Savings: $475,000
Mr. Gaffield suggested the Personnel Cabinet cease purchasing excess risk insurance for the Commonwealth’s self-insured workers compensation program. This ended the practice of paying for insurance with no likelihood that the Commonwealth would ever collect an insurance payment.
Neal Lanham Neal Lanham's suggestion was to convert the letterhead used by the KY Public Employees Deferred Compensation Authority from a word document into an image and create a macro from the image. This eliminated the need to purchase black letterhead from print services at a cost of $1,250 per month for a first year savings of $12,482. The savings will continue to grow with each coming year.
PUBLIC PROTECTION CABINET
John Love
Award: $2,500
Savings: $518,076
Mr. Love developed a process for auditing surplus lines that has generated additional state revenues. The surplus lines market picks up unusual or extremely costly risks that the regular insurance market is not willing to insure. This process revealed over 1,700 surplus lines transactions for which there was no corresponding report in their records.
Deborah Stamper
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Stamper suggested adding information to the department’s Website to inform the consumer viewing online Medicare supplement insurance rate information of what information was retrieved and to check for the accuracy of their selections. This change is providing the consumer with a more detailed service consumer in which can be a difficult purchasing process.
TOURISM, ARTS & HERITAGE CABINET
Adrienne Yancy & Hayley Lynch
Award: $100 ($50 each)
Savings: $600
Ms. Yancy and Ms. Lynch suggested that the Department of Fish & Wildlife compose an in-house layout of the fishing guides published annually. This eliminated staff reviewing print errors and allowed rapid posting of the guides on the Website for public use.
TRANSPORTATION CABINET
Crystal Casey
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Casey suggested the state’s website home page be updated to include links to military resource centers. Her suggestion has made it easier for military families to find the resources they need while their loved ones are serving our country.
Jennifer Lee
Award: $100
Savings: Intangible
Ms. Lee suggested a way to improve the process for employees to obtain an identification badge by instituting appointment scheduling. This has resulted in a much more efficient and customer friendly process.
Jeremiah Littleton
Award: $224
Savings: $2,235
Mr. Littleton’s suggestion was to purchase battery packs for the Transportation Cabinet’s nuclear density machines instead of sending the machines to a contractor to change them. The cabinets now purchase the batteries and install them, saving the state thousands of dollars each year.