County Administrator Carpenter reported to Fairfield County Council on Oct. 13 about infrastructure projects, technology upgrades and operational changes the county completed or initiated over the past 12 months.

Carpenter said the $19,000,000 Winnsboro connector is "undergoing significant progress" with some parts nearly 50% complete; design work for the Broad River Wastewater Plant has begun and preliminary geotechnical work has been performed. He also told council the county completed a $6,000,000 courthouse renovation and built a new solicitor and public defender building as part of that effort.

Carpenter described work to position the county for economic development and development review: East Peach Road Industrial Park design is underway (consultant Thomas and Hutton), building-permit submissions moved to digital intake and record storage, and the major-subdivision process now includes pre-submittal meetings with public works and fire marshals. He said the county established communication with the Department of Revenue on hospitality-tax compliance and instituted code-enforcement patrols.

Public-safety and technology upgrades cited by Carpenter included giving every ambulance a live 12-lead cardiac monitor (he said Fairfield County EMS is the first in South Carolina to equip every ambulance with that capability), new vehicle-tracking systems for EMS, a security study of county buildings, and significant IT moves to the cloud (document management, camera systems, GIS, and the beginning of finance/HR/community-development cloud migrations). The county also upgraded its VoIP phone system and began a website redesign to improve usability and ADA compliance.

Carpenter said county staff supported community programs such as Fairfield Forward’s delivery of more than 4,500 food boxes. He said the county is starting a strategic-plan process, will begin publishing project dashboards on the county website so residents and council members can monitor project stages, and has reviewed county properties to identify potential surplus parcels.

Council members praised the employee-recognition event and thanked county staff for the reported progress. Carpenter provided handouts to council with more detailed information and said the strategic-plan kickoff and dashboard work would proceed in the coming weeks.