Ashley Burke - Distinguished Administrative Professional Award
Over the past two years, Ashley Burke has shown exceptional leadership on projects that are critical to the county.
In addition to her regular responsibilities as Executive Assistant to the County Administrator, Ashley has single handedly managed an indigent cremation program for county residents with no means of providing for loved ones’ burials. Nearly 200 individuals are handled by this program every year and in 2020 those numbers increased by nearly 20% due to covid-19 in our community.
She must deal with distraught residents who have lost family members or humanely handle the remains of residents who do not have next of kin. This is a thankless job that must be done by the county, and Ashley handles that work with compassion and understanding that can make a difficult interaction with the county more acceptable.
In addition, to the indigent cremation responsibilities, Ashley also managed a nearly $3 million allocation of federal covid-19 relief funds to address food insecurity needs of Jackson County residents. This work, which began in 2020 and is only now wrapping up in 2022, involved developing a request for proposal and selecting more than 30 agencies that could distribute critical funds for food assistance to help thousands of Jackson County residents in need. As a result of her efforts, thousands of Jackson County residents did not go hungry during the pandemic.
Lastly, Ashley also took the lead on the relocation of 106 households from the Heart Village Mobile Home Park which will be the site of the new Jackson County detention center. Currently, it is the largest residential relocation project occurring in the United States. When the county acquired the property, none of the residents were on a lease over three months in duration and many were facing eviction for non-payment of rent.
Ashley led the effort on behalf of the county to ensure that all residents were relocated into better housing conditions. She spent countless hours on the phone with residents developing individual housing plans, answering hundreds of questions and trying to understand the individual needs of the residents. She is now spending as much as three days a week onsite at the trailer park personally directing the relocation efforts. As a result of her efforts, 17 residents are now living in their own single-family homes and most others are in much improved housing situations.
Ashley has shown exceptional leadership in her daily work and has willingly stepped up to handle projects that need special attention. She is the best representation of what it means to be a Jackson County associate.