[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:22] Hello and welcome to a new season of Intouch with Durham County. I'm your host, Deborah Craig Ray, Chief Communications
[0:28] Officer. I'll show a design to introduce you to our county leaders, department heads, and to share
[0:35] important information and critical issues of the day. Joining us is one of our frequent guests,
[0:42] Derek Bowens, Durham County's Director of Elections. He's here to walk us through a few important
[0:48] updates to elections law that everyone should know as we get ready for this false general elections
[0:56] set for number 3. Derek will also break down what voters can expect to see on the ballot,
[1:02] the issues, the races, the candidates, everything from top to bottom.
[1:08] Durham County continues its efforts to be a premier employer in our area. Thanks to the leadership
[1:14] of Kathy Everett Perry, Durham County's Chief Employment Officer. We're excited to have her
[1:21] on the show today to talk about the work she and her team are doing to attract great talent
[1:26] and support a motivated, high-performing local government workforce. Welcome, Derek. You ready to
[1:34] begin? I am. Thanks for having me, Deborah. It's been a while since we've had you on. It has,
[1:39] but always a pleasure when I can come back. And I'm always glad to have you because I know
[1:42] you always have exciting news to give it. Indeed. So let's start by telling our folk a little
[1:49] bit about your primary role and responsibility as our elections director.
[1:53] So I started as the elections director in Durham County in 2017. I was appointed then by
[1:59] three member board. Today we have five board members. There's five board members in every county
[2:04] in North Carolina that oversee elections in their respective county. Typically the party composition
[2:10] of the board is based on the party of the auditor, the party of the state board, primarily the primary
[2:15] party. So those five members oversee my role and they delegate responsibilities to me non-quies
[2:20] adjudicial or policy making. And so I handle all the administrative functions of the board,
[2:25] finding polling places, ensuring those polling places are ADA compliant, registering voters,
[2:31] handling campaign finance, a number of things. So very happy to be in the role and look for it
[2:37] the work ahead. And you have a really great team that support you.
[2:41] And you could not do it without them with them. I have everything without them. I am indeed nothing
[2:46] so glad to have a great team.
[2:48] Speaking of them, I know you are on a award winning team and I know you've won some awards
[2:53] recently. You won an achievement award from the National Association of Counties.
[2:58] Just this summer talk about that.
[3:00] Yeah, so we want a couple of awards from the National Association of Counties and also the
[3:04] a selection assistance commission. One for our UACOVA ballot distribution tool stream line in the
[3:11] process for sending ballots to military and overseas voters. And also our supplemental emergency
[3:16] response plan that works in conjunction with our continuity of operations plan. And so they found
[3:21] it worthy of an achievement. So we were pleased to receive that and also attend the annual conference
[3:27] and exposition in New Orleans. Well, it was just so proud of you always standing up there and
[3:32] even though the great awards. Now the job assembly has worked on several elections bills
[3:37] decision. Can you provide us a quick summary of the changes in that legislation?
[3:42] Sure, so there are two primary bills, one that's been in circulation for quite a while since
[3:47] 2025 and that's HB958 and it required several changes to the election law, including giving
[3:54] the auditor more auditing power over county boards of elections. That bill is effectively
[4:00] solved. There's been many iterations since it was first introduced in 2025. We suspect
[4:07] that that bill will not pass based on things we've heard in the current track. It was passed by the
[4:13] general assembly, but it currently, of course, sits with the governor. Another bill that did pass
[4:19] actually recently, House Bill 834, session law now, 2026-60, was passed to basically make several
[4:28] administrative changes as requested by the State Board of Elections and the North Carolina
[4:32] Association of Directors of Elections. So it effectively allows us more time to count
[4:39] provisional and absentee ballots. It goes from three days post-election to five days for supplemental
[4:46] absentees and allows us to count ballots earlier on election day so we can now count between
[4:51] nine a.m. and five p.m. and eight. Yep so long as we pass a resolution two weeks prior to the
[4:58] in general circulate.
[5:00] In the county, it codifies administrative policy of the State Board of Elections, requiring us to enter challenges for voters that die prior to election day and vote abstain.
[5:11] And I think that's based on what happened in White County.
[5:13] I think so. There's been longstanding policy. It has been a bit murky statutory, but it certainly clears it up.
[5:20] It establishes new security protocols with early voting equipment. There's a number of things, but those are probably the big rocks associated with eight,
[5:28] over all, very good for election administrators and I think good for voters because it gives an extended
[5:34] cured deadline post election for supplemental absentee ballots and provisional.
[5:39] Well, we certainly appreciate you all keeping up with all these changes and sharing them with us.
[5:45] So are you concerned about the potential implementation of these bills?
[5:49] You know, give it how closely we are to the upcoming elections?
[5:52] Yeah, I think, you know, I have a shorter version of the nationally known
[5:56] Priscilla doctrine.
[5:57] I, you know, the more you add as we get closer to the election.
[6:01] Obviously, it becomes harder to administer it even if there are things that are, you know,
[6:05] voter centric and voter friendly.
[6:08] I think these bills are, this bill, eight, 34 is administrative in nature to the
[6:12] extent that it won't have significant impact.
[6:15] We do have some administrative rules that are now before the rules review
[6:18] commission as recommended by the State Board of Elections.
[6:21] that could make quite a few changes will learn about the final state of those rules by September 1st
[6:28] assuming there are no additional appeals. But I would say, you know, no major concerns. I think if
[6:33] HB958 and I'm not speaking to the legitimacy of the bill or whether it's good or bad, I think that would be incredibly
[6:39] more impactful in terms of the upcoming election and elections moving forward.
[6:45] So as it is today, I would say not not significant impact based on what we know about 834.
[6:51] Yes, so I guess the important thing is to just stay on top of these things and we can continue to let our electorate know.
[7:00] Absolutely.
[7:01] So let's talk about the balance.
[7:04] So we've got constitutional amendments.
[7:08] Is that right?
[7:09] We do. We have the retotal constitutional amendments. If you live on the city of Raleigh side of Durham County,
[7:16] there's also two bond referendum, but those are not as likely, but yes, there are three constitutional amendments in several
[7:22] contests. We've got a 14-inch ballot. It's going to be two-sided. I'm again. So yeah, a lot of activity, a lot of
[7:29] contests on the ballot, including those constitutional amendments. So I know one is about the property tax
[7:35] level of amendment, one is reduce income tax rate cap from 7% to 3.5 and the other one
[7:42] is the required voter identification amendment.
[7:45] Yes, and that last one is just to make it clear that the photo ID requirement applies
[7:50] to in-person voters and absentee voters, and essentially covers everyone under that constitutional
[7:58] amendment although we already have rules that essentially affect you eight previously past
[8:02] statute requiring everyone to provide photo ID if you're voting, but it confirms or
[8:08] affirms what we what we already do in practice when voters present to vote.
[8:13] So, of course, you know, we've got statewide votes, you know, we've got a Senate seat out.
[8:18] Yes. Yes. And, you know, the normal congressional seats and the Supreme Court.
[8:24] I think. That's the Supreme Court. Yeah, we've got associate justice. We've got appeals court.
[8:29] We've got district court judge.
[8:30] We've got superior court judge.
[8:31] We have district attorney.
[8:33] We have clerk, Regis, not Regis,
[8:35] D. Sheriff's Department.
[8:37] So we've got a number of offices, local,
[8:40] solo, and water conservation district in C. House,
[8:43] and C. Senate.
[8:44] So yes, several, several contests
[8:46] from the top to bottom.
[8:48] Yeah, yeah.
[8:49] So when does early voting begin?
[8:52] So early voting for the November,
[8:54] there are 20, 26 general election begins.
[8:56] October 15th, and it will go through October 31.
[8:58] Our board adopted unanimous plan for 17 days across 10 locations, so I'm excited to offer that to our residents.
[9:07] And certainly as we get closer to that, we'll be publicizing that with them.
[9:11] So what about registering to vote? How does one registered to vote in our state?
[9:15] So you got a few options. The registration deadline, not including early voting same day registration,
[9:21] is October 9th, and if what we like to recommend, which is the vast majority of the registration
[9:27] forms we receive in Durham County, if you're a DMV customer, you can register online
[9:32] and you can also make certain updates online through the DMV portal.
[9:35] It's very easy and very quick, as authorized by the State Board of Elections in Article
[9:39] 7A of Chapter 163 of Nancy General Statutes.
[9:43] So to register to vote, you provide your name, obviously, your residential address, the
[9:48] last four of your social security number or your driver's license number or if you don't
[9:51] have either, you check a box indicating that you do not have either one of those numbers.
[9:56] Your signature, if you have a previous address, you would provide that, your date.
[10:00] Debarth, you would affirm your citizenship, that submitted to us, we process it if it's to form, consistent with law.
[10:07] Once we process that form, you'll get a card in the mail. If that card does not come back to us as only deliverable, you'll be a verified registered voter, and you'll present to vote and you'll go through the standard check-in process.
[10:17] And any other registered voter account.
[10:18] And I know one of the things that I know you guys continue to do you do have these regular voter ID places you go to libraries.
[10:31] You go to other areas across the community.
[10:33] You're announced that you're coming.
[10:35] People need a voter ID.
[10:37] They can come in and get that.
[10:38] How does that work?
[10:39] Yeah, so once a month we go to a Durham County Library.
[10:42] We also may do special pop-up events.
[10:45] But we'll go to these libraries and voters, if they have the required information to receive an ID, so they have to complete a photo ID request form,
[10:54] where they provide their name, their signature, the data birth last for their social.
[10:57] If we're able to confirm that information, we can actually print them a photo ID card on site, which would satisfy the photo identification requirement
[11:05] when presenting to vote totally free of charge.
[11:08] So we encourage voters to come to our office or to show up at those events if you know folks that need photo ID or want a photo ID and additional photo ID certainly were available to provide it for registered voters that complete that form and are otherwise eligible.
[11:22] Very good. Now where are you located?
[11:24] We're located at 3825 South Rock Spurl Street, Suite 101, off of MLK. Very nice building.
[11:32] Thankful to County Manager Hager and the County Commissioners for putting us in that new building.
[11:37] Plenty of parking, so please come see us. We're ready to host you and serve you.
[11:43] Well, as we wrap up what's been a great conversation, how do people get more information about election?
[11:52] I would say you can visit our website certainly at decoboats.com.
[11:57] You can call us at 9.595007007000 and we'll serve you there.
[12:02] You can also download our decoboats award-winning decoboats mobile application in the Google
[12:07] Play Store or on Apple Store to get notifications real-time on our website.
[12:12] You can also sign up for notifications.
[12:15] So there is a number of ways to communicate with us and certainly will be available via any
[12:19] those means also our email address at elections at dco and c.gov and certainly we'll put
[12:25] we'll put this key information on the screen so that when people are watching this show
[12:29] they can they can take notes yeah well again we just like to thank you so much for joining us and
[12:35] thank you and your incredible team for all you do to ensure that we have free and fair
[12:41] elections and everything goes well each time thank you so much appreciate the time talking to you always
[12:47] All right. Well, we're going to take a break and when we return, we will speak with Chief Employment Officer Kathy Everett Perry.
[12:56] Stay with us. We'll see you on the other side of this quick break.
[13:06] Hey everyone. My name is Dr. Jeffrey James, some of the medical director at the Durham County Department of Public Health.
[13:11] Let's talk for a minute about cyclists for Isis. It is ease caused by the parasite cyclist for a. This is a parasite that you can get from eating contaminated food, particularly fruits and vegetables.
[13:23] as well as drinking contaminated water with the parasite. So to protect yourself you want to make
[13:28] sure that you wash your fruits and vegetables really thoroughly and make sure that your drinking
[13:33] clean water especially when you're traveling internationally. So who is that particular risk for this
[13:39] disease? So people traveling internationally as I mentioned as well as younger people and older
[13:45] people and people with immunocompromising immune systems they can get especially from this infection.
[13:52] Why do you want to prevent yourself from getting this infection?
[13:55] It causes watery diarrhea that can last for days to week so it can really impact your life.
[14:01] So stay safe to carry yourself and have a good day.
[14:12] How do you know when you've made the right decision,
[14:16] it's the feeling you're getting your gut.
[14:18] The one that tells you what's right or wrong.
[14:20] It's the one that says, I can have a drink, what the feeling that says, okay, I've been drinking.
[14:26] Now what?
[14:29] It's the voice inside you that says, I'm fuzzed.
[14:32] Better leave the car when it's time to go.
[14:35] Plan ahead, catch us over ride.
[14:38] Buzz driving is drunk driving.
[14:42] Welcome back to Intu, just my pleasure to welcome to the show.
[14:47] I'm Durham County Chief Employment Officer, Cathy Everett, Pirate.
[14:51] Hi, Cathy. Hi. How are you?
[14:53] I am great. It's wonderful to see you and thank you so much for joining us today.
[14:57] Thank you for having me. We're gonna help
[15:00] The fund? Yes. All right. Now, tell our viewers a little bit about your experience with Durham County. I know you started in our county attorney's office and then you transitioned. I did.
[15:12] So I came as an associate county attorney representing the Department of Social Services.
[15:18] Handling cases pertain to child support, abuse neglect, dependency and adult guardianships.
[15:26] And after about two years I was promoted to assistant county attorney and I did most all-general
[15:33] government work, including training boards and commissions, legislative affairs, as you know
[15:40] I worked with your office, someone on that, and of course HR was my client.
[15:47] So, it was during a period when the HR position was vacant that one of our former county managers asked me to sit in, and I'm still sitting in.
[16:00] 11 years later, so I spent 10 years in the county attorney's office.
[16:04] And certainly doing an excellent, excellent job.
[16:08] Not certainly managing a local government workforce of 2000 employees is interesting work.
[16:13] work. Tell us a little bit about how your department is organized.
[16:19] Okay. So we have nine divisions and I have two assistant directors who oversee several
[16:29] of those divisions and our divisions include benefits, classification, compensation, recruitment,
[16:38] EEO or compliance, employee relations, workers compensation and safety in our general operations
[16:46] division, and training, of course, training and development, and the compliance and employee
[16:53] relations and workers compensation divisions are the manager of reporting directly to me.
[17:01] It's very good.
[17:03] Now, you know, when people hear HR, they think, you know, I need a job, oh, how can I get a job?
[17:09] And of course, assisting our departments with attracting and hiring the most appropriate
[17:15] talent for our critical positions is an art.
[17:19] I could imagine, can you talk about that work?
[17:22] Yes.
[17:23] And you're absolutely right when people hear HR or recruitment there, okay, so that's where we
[17:28] go to do that.
[17:29] but it's absolutely more than that.
[17:32] It is a strategy that our recruiters must have
[17:38] in order to bring the right talent
[17:40] to Durham County government.
[17:41] And I would say that it is both an art and a science.
[17:45] It's a science because we need to have the data
[17:49] and the discipline behind the process.
[17:52] And that includes looking at the labor market qualifications,
[18:00] time to feel the positions compensation if I didn't say that and we look at all of those
[18:07] pieces and decide whether those strategy, the strategy we need to put in place in order
[18:15] to locate or identify the right people for the job. And we have some unique jobs. Absolutely.
[18:22] And it is an art, of course, where the human element comes in, where our recruiters are charged
[18:28] with looking at the individuals and seeing what motivates them and how they can reach them and
[18:35] how they can convince them with all the job opportunities available to come and work for
[18:41] local government and do public service. And I think that our recruits do an excellent job
[18:46] of balancing that process in order to bring the best talent into Durham County government.
[18:53] And as you say, it's different, it's also art because there is a difference between how you want to recruit someone who may be applying for a pyramid position, versus someone who may be applying for an attorney position, an IT professional, or any of our other jobs.
[19:13] So it requires a unique ability to identify with those personalities and being an attorney, I can say, you know, sometimes attorneys have different personalities.
[19:24] So our recruiters are able to align their searches with what they think they need to reach that individual for the particular job.
[19:34] And they certainly do an excellent job.
[19:38] So I know we've got some positions in our organization that are, you know, a little more difficult
[19:43] to feel.
[19:44] How do you address that?
[19:46] So we try to market it a little bit differently.
[19:50] You know, most of our jobs will place on our recruitment board, you know, our county
[19:56] government site, however, for these positions.
[20:00] We try to market to the industry that is where we're the position sits. So if we're looking for lures, we may go to a lawyer group and post that job or different industries where we know the people are logging in every day or conversing with people who do the same work that they do, who could pass a long hey, I think there's an opportunity at Durham County.
[20:23] We also have sign-on bonuses for our hard-to-fill positions and employee bonuses per say if you recommend an individual for position and they're ultimately hired.
[20:36] That's a nice little bonus.
[20:39] Now, you know, Durham County is regarded as an innovative and high-performing organization.
[20:45] And our department's win awards, you know, time after time.
[20:49] How does your department provide skill building workshops leadership training?
[20:55] Why is that important for employees to grow?
[20:58] So we, of course, know that once we get them here, we want to keep them.
[21:02] So we want to invest in our employees.
[21:05] And we do that through offering skill building workshops leadership training.
[21:11] And, of course, you know we have a leadership academy that started in 2014
[21:16] and is still going there strong, and we've had some great success stories out of that program.
[21:23] I don't think one that I have in mind would mind this shout out, but for instance, our Veterans Services Director,
[21:32] who completed the program some years ago, and now has become the director of Veterans Services, where he was not before,
[21:39] and we have several of those success stories where people have finished the program and they have moved on to lead.
[21:45] But as our program says, you can leave from anywhere.
[21:48] So I believe that all of the individuals who've completed that program
[21:52] have demonstrated some leadership skills of the necessarily being promoted
[21:57] to a different position or higher position.
[22:00] And we also have engagement opportunities where we bring them
[22:08] plays in because we recognize that once you get here,
[22:11] we want to keep you here.
[22:13] And we know that individuals who are engaged and who are trained up and keeping up with the
[22:22] industries in which they've been assigned to work are inclined to stay with us and provide
[22:27] for our citizens in the community through the work.
[22:30] And things change, you know, what might have been successful 10 years ago as a hey, I do
[22:39] this way as things change, technologies taken over, mindsets differ, we want to make sure we're
[22:46] educating our employees so that they can change with the times. So we try to incorporate programs
[22:53] into our trainings that will allow them to grow with the times. That's very important. Now,
[23:00] the health and wellness of our workforce is emphasized. I will note that Signal Healthcare selected
[23:06] Durham County as the recipient of their 2025 gold level, healthy workforce designation
[23:12] for demonstrating a strong commitment to improving the health and vitality of its employees
[23:18] through a workforce well-being program. Can you talk about that award and why it was
[23:24] important? So this is a significant client recognition program and of course we
[23:29] are contracted with Signa for our health benefits and they have three levels.
[23:36] It's a bronze silver and gold and they have progressively increased qualification or criteria in each level.
[23:44] And so the gold level is a really great recognition and we're proud to have it.
[23:49] But in of course, the gold level is defined as an organization where they have very strong leadership input into their wellness programs.
[23:59] and they have helped equity integration and follow what would the data and offer programs to
[24:08] employees. So we do all of that. But I think what we do is much more than that recognition demonstrates
[24:17] because we have our wellness clinic, which is awesome. And it is available to not only all of our employees
[24:25] who do not have to make a copay when they seek services there.
[24:30] It's also open to their family members.
[24:34] So, anybody on your health plan, if they need a daughter
[24:38] for instance, hey, I missed my physical.
[24:42] I have to have it for school, my doctor can't see me.
[24:45] They can come to the wellness clinic and get that done.
[24:48] And that's a very big offering for our workforce
[24:52] and we're very proud of that.
[24:54] In addition to that, we have in sitting programs, so employees can get...
[25:00] Choose, well, hey, I'm going to do my preventive screenings, and I can get a reward, or, you know, and often
[25:10] in terms of a gift card, which is very, very helpful. So we really go the extra mile to make sure our employees
[25:19] are healthy, or have the opportunity to be as healthy as they can be throughout offerings. Yeah, yeah.
[25:26] So I know that there are some things that we had to change when we had COVID.
[25:35] We got through that, you know, we were able to offer remote work to some people, but
[25:40] of course certainly some of our workers couldn't do that.
[25:43] I mean, you know, general services, emergency services, sheriff's office, you know, there
[25:50] were folks that could not work remotely.
[25:52] So, what were you able to do, what changes were you able to make during that, you know,
[25:59] different time?
[26:00] And indeed, COVID was a challenging time for not only us, but of course the country.
[26:05] But what I think it showed us is that we are more agile than we probably knew that we were.
[26:12] We also found that we could perform work from a place other than physically being in the work building.
[26:24] And that was eye-opening for us.
[26:26] But the changes that we had to address, of course, as you say, we had some employees who could work remotely,
[26:33] and others who could not, because they needed to be in place to serve the citizens of our community.
[26:38] So, for those who were able to work remotely, we had to change policies.
[26:43] We had to look at, I leave policy, our benefit policy, our, how we're going to monitor
[26:50] the work and look at how we wanted to evaluate the work that was being done, having concluded
[26:57] that is not necessarily where the work is getting done, but is the work getting done.
[27:02] So it took a lot for us to make those changes, but indeed it was something that opened our eyes to how great we are and how we can still be productive without being in the workplace.
[27:17] Yeah. Well, looking ahead. What do you see moving forward in here with resources for Durham County?
[27:22] Well one thing we want to focus on is our engagement piece. The manager recognizes the importance of engaged employees in the fact that they are better producers when they feel like they are a family.
[27:39] So we are focusing on coming up with a more engagement opportunities.
[27:45] We had one last year at the Ball Park, which turned out to be great.
[27:50] Employees often brag about that opportunity to see some of their co-workers outside of a work setting.
[27:57] And we want to continue to build on that.
[27:59] And I think she said H of H are up perfectly so that we can incorporate some of that into all of the hard, hard work we did.
[28:08] Yeah. Well again, we just like to thank you so much for joining us today and thank you and your
[28:15] team for all you do to ensure that we are successfully serving our citizens. Absolutely, thank you. Yeah.
[28:23] We'd like to thank you for joining us today. Be sure to follow us on social media.
[28:29] Catch our videos on YouTube. Sign up for our weekly during this week online so that you can follow
[28:36] was important in Durham County. We'll see you next time on
[28:41] in touch with Durham County. Cheers!