Monday was awards night, as Orangeburg County Council and a county employee received notice of both national and state recognition.

For the 16th consecutive year, the county received the Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting from the Government Finance Officers Association of the United State and Canada, a non-profit association serving approximately 15,000 government finance professionals.

Thanking the county administration for the "continued level of excellence," Council Chairman John Rickenbacker noted that, in addition to the award, "last year we had a clean audit."

"This comes on the heels of an excellent audit," County Administrator Bill Clark said. "We grew out the fund balance and eliminated the long-standing deficit in roads and bridges (fund)."

In addition, Clark said the audit did not include any "management issues at all. There were no findings of any kind," he said, of items to be addressed or corrected. "It was as clean an audit as could be had."

Stressing that "it takes a team to make it happen," Clark introduced Deputy Administrator Tim Maybank, Budget Director Debbie Cherry and Finance Director Jannella Shuler.

Next up, on the state level, the county received the Bill Nix Award for Quality Fleet Management and the President's Award, presented during the S.C. Fleet Managers Conference.

The Bill Nix Award was received for the county's implementation of a field maintenance program for heavy equipment. Instead of having to transport heavy equipment into the county garage on Ellis Avenue, the new system uses mobile units to make most repairs in the field.

"This eliminates considerable amount of down time," Clark said.

Also, the association presented its President's Award to Glenn Ashe, the county's maintenance supervisor, for his efforts to improve the radio communication system.

In other business, council:

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