Clearing Paths and Moving Forward: Performance Report Highlights 3 Years of Accomplishments and Challenges

angled view of the top of CMGC

Mecklenburg County has released its Fiscal Year 2020-2022 Corporate Performance Report, providing a comprehensive look at the activity associated with the Corporate Strategic Business Plan for that period.

The strategic business planning cycle began on July 1, 2019. But, as occurred around the world in March 2020, many plans and initiatives were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the challenges, Mecklenburg County continued to work toward and achieve its goals. The Performance Report provides an overview of Mecklenburg County's accomplishments and areas for improvement across the County's five goal areas:

  • Accountable Government

  • Connected Community

  • Economic Opportunities

  • Healthy Community

  • Safe Community

"As Mecklenburg County works to recover and renew, I am proud to look back on all that the Mecklenburg County staff achieved, while keeping each other and the community safe," said Mecklenburg County Manager Dena R. Diorio.

The full results of the FY2020-2022 Performance Report are available online. The Director of Strategic Planning & Evaluation, Dr. Monica Allen, shared highlights of these results with the Board of County Commissioners in a presentation on Jan. 10. View that presentation.

Mecklenburg County's achievements during that three-year period include:

  • Personal and real property tax collection rate was over 99% for all three fiscal years.

  • 95% of full-time Mecklenburg County employees were trained on Advancing Racial Equity.

  • More than 860 acres of land were acquired for greenway expansion, parks, and/or nature preserves.

  • More than 11 miles of greenway were completed, bringing the total of greenway trail in the County to more than 63 miles.

  • More than 3,600 students were served by MECK Pre-K, which aims to provide affordable early childhood care and education to County residents. After operating at 50% capacity in FY2021 due to COVID-19, MECK Pre-K fully reopened in FY2022.

  • 534 individuals were stably housed through supportive housing programs.

  • 92% of individuals enrolled in the United Workforce Development program gained employment.

  • 370 households were supported by more than $3.6 million in affordable housing rental subsidies.

  • By 2022, Mecklenburg County's Air Quality was 5.7% better than the national standard for clean air.

  • Public Health opened its internal pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) clinic to service uninsured, high-risk residents with funding from the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) grant.

  • New processes in Criminal Justice Services led to an 87% Recovery Court appearance rate in FY2022.

The report also reveals the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Mecklenburg County, for example:

  • Customer satisfaction surveys went from 216,285 unique responses in FY2020 to 120,324 unique responses in FY2021 due to closures and have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels.

  • The days to fill County staff positions increased from 62.2 to 78.2.

  • Active library cardholders as a percent of County households decreased from 36% to 25%.

  • Many programs aimed at helping Mecklenburg County jail residents were severely reduced or shut down due to COVID-19 disruptions.