Jeff Bergosh Blog: NACo Legislative Conference Washington DC 2017

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I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

NACo Legislative Conference Washington DC 2017

I was fortunate to be able to travel to Washington DC this past weekend to attend the NACo (National Association of Counties) Legislative Conference. Like my previous experience attending School Board conferences, I found the opportunity to meet peers from around the nation to be very interesting and informative. NACo advocates for counties on broad areas that primarily relate to financial considerations for counties. Although much of what NACo is advocating for makes great sense--I personally don't agree with all of their positions. Some of the interesting break out sessions I attended dealt with the Opioid epidemic, addressing unfunded federal mandates, protecting US Counties' ability to issue tax-exempt municipal bonds to fund infrastructure projects, dealing with homelessness, and criminal justice reform.

This organization, NACo, will hold a large conference in Ohio in July of this year, and many more subjects of interest will be discussed at this conference. NACo's brief policy positions can be found here.