WAMPSVILLE — Though 2022 was a rough year for many, Madison County persevered and worked to make life better for its residents, said Madison County Administrator Mark Scimone as he presented his 2022 Departmental Review at Tuesday’s Madison County Board of Supervisors meeting.

“For 2022, we had a lot of accomplishments across our departments,” Scimone said. “From our Mental Health Department’s study on community mental health issues to our employee engagement survey that showed overall, employees were proud to work for Madison County.”

Scimone included interviews with department representatives, who spoke on their department’s efforts in 2022, including the following programs and areas:

Assigned Counsel Program

“2022 was an exciting and successful year for us,” said Administrator David DeSantis. “I joined the program full-time at the beginning of the year. We handled 1,800 criminal cases from start to finish.”

On top of this, the ACP hired two new attorneys — bringing the total to 23 — and was able to obtain $180,000 in grant funding for Family Court.

Facilities and maintenance

“The maintenance workers do a lot around the county,“ said Administrative Assistant Holly Fleming.

“They’ve performed over 2,000 maintenance requests consisting of preventive maintenance, repairs, furniture building, installation, moving, painting, wiring — you name it, they do it,” Fleming said.

One major project was the demobilization of the Cedar Street Highway Garage in Morrisville, preparing the site to be taken down before being given to the town.

In the future, facilities and maintenance will be working on the Reconnect Project, working to bring broadband internet to all of Madison County.

Central Services department

The Central Services Department saw Todd Russell take over as supervisor, handling more than 539 different print jobs and 178,000 mail deliveries across all the departments, according to Scimone’s annual review.

Highway Department

Superintendent Joseph Wisinski said his department completed 22.48 miles of road rehabilitation, consisting of tree trimming and removal, drainage improvements, culvert replacements, paving, line scraping, and sign improvements.

“We’ve also completed 43.15 miles of road surface treatments,” Wisinski said. “We want to keep our roads in good shape by extending the condition over a longer
period of time.”

Information technology

Robert Verdon, the IT department’s deputy director, said that over 100 virtual servers were successfully moved to three new physical host servers. “We’ve also started the first half of upgrading the network speed between the county campus buildings,” he said. “This will increase the network speed across the campus by a factor of 10.”

Mental Health department

“We’ve resumed doing a lot of services in person,” Director of Community Services Teisha Cook said. “We’re doing new person intakes for clients, and while there are still a good number of people who like to do phone or video, that’s always an option. We’re just happy to serve people in whatever way they feel comfortable.”

The Mental Health Department’s biggest news is the opening of four school satellite programs in the district and county, offering mental health services to children in schools in the Cazenovia and Hamilton school districts. “They’ve provided about 600 sessions to 120 kids in those districts,” she said. “We’re excited to see what the next school year brings as we work with the school district on this project.”

To 2023

“I want to thank the Board of Supervisors for providing the departments and myself with the support and resources we need to do our jobs and provide services to the residents of Madison County,” Scimone said. “And above all, I want to thank our county employees. They are the backbone of Madison County. They do the hard work.”

“I hope everyone has a safe, productive, and healthy 2023,” he added. “I look forward to working with everyone to continue making Madison County the best county in New York State.”

To watch meetings at Madison County from home, visit www.youtube.com/MadisonCountyNY.