Eighty-five awards in a single year. That’s not a typo. Maricopa County, Arizona set a new record in 2025 by earning more NACo Achievement Awards than it ever had before, and the programs behind that number are the kind of innovative county government work that every county administrator should know about.
For county leaders trying to understand what excellent local government actually looks like in practice, this story is worth reading carefully. Three of the winning programs in particular offer replicable models that counties of any size can adapt.
What the NACo Achievement Awards Actually Measure
Before diving into the programs, it’s worth understanding what these awards represent.
Since 1970, the NACo Achievement Awards have recognized outstanding county government programs and services. The program spans 18 categories covering the full range of county responsibilities: children and youth, criminal justice and public safety, health, human services, information technology, and more. Counties aren’t competing against each other for a fixed number of slots. Through a non-competitive application process, any program that demonstrates genuine innovation and measurable results earns recognition.
The criteria are specific: programs must show measurable outcomes such as cost savings, improved resident access, or enhanced productivity. NACo requires applicants to document replication costs as part of the submission, giving other counties a foundation for evaluating whether to adopt a similar approach.
85 Awards Across Nearly 20 Departments
The National Association of Counties honored Maricopa County with 85 Achievement Awards, more than in any prior year, recognizing programs ranging from community workforce development to extreme heat initiatives to water conservation measures.
Leading the nearly 20 different departments recognized this year were Human Services with 23 awards and Public Health with 22 awards. The offices of the County Attorney, Assessor, Sheriff, and the Superior Court of Maricopa County also earned nearly a dozen NACo awards among them.
For perspective: Maricopa County earned 75 awards in 2024, which was itself a record at the time. The county surpassed that total by ten awards in a single year.
County Manager Jen Pokorski captured the organizational mindset behind the results. “Whether they serve our residents directly or work behind the scenes, our team strives for innovation, constant improvement, and providing the best and most efficient service.”
Three Programs Worth Replicating
Of the 85 winning programs, three stand out for their replicability and their relevance to challenges most counties face.
Remote Jury Prescreening
Jury administration is a county function that receives very little innovation attention, despite the significant burden it places on residents. Maricopa County’s Jury Service Department changed that.
The department earned a NACo Achievement Award for its remote case-specific questionnaire, a system that allows the court to prescreen potential jurors before they’re ever asked to report. The numbers from the program’s first full year tell the story clearly: in 2024, 22,000 people participated in the jury selection process for nearly 300 jury trials. Of the 7,000 jurors who completed case-specific questionnaires at home, 54% were excused without ever setting foot in the courthouse.
That means roughly 3,800 people avoided an unnecessary trip to the courthouse in a single year. The program also saved the court over $100,000 in juror mileage reimbursements.
“Receiving this award is an honor and a meaningful recognition of our team’s work to modernize jury selection,” said Jury Administrator Tiana Burdick.
Other counties can pick this up without a major investment. The technology is straightforward: a digital questionnaire sent via text or email that jurors complete from home. The real work is process redesign, not capital expenditure. Any county operating a superior or district court could build a similar system.
Youth Guitar Club: A Community Partnership in Juvenile Detention
This one started with a few detention officers and a creative idea. It has since grown into an award-winning model for what community partnerships can accomplish inside a juvenile facility.
The Juvenile Probation Department’s Guitar Club connects youth in detention with music education through a partnership with graduate students from Arizona State University’s School of Music, who visit the facility twice a week. Youth who demonstrate positive, sustained behaviors earn opportunities to perform at concerts, school graduations, and other community events. Free Guitars 4 Kids, a nonprofit organization, donates instruments that students can take home when they’re released, giving them a skill and an anchor activity to continue outside the facility.
Programming Officer Alex Lopez described the impact directly: “Music heals and seeing them perform and achieve their goals has been amazing.”
The program’s reach extends beyond the NACo award. In 2025, the Center for Improving Youth Justice named Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center Durango its Barbara Allen-Hagen Award winner in the detention facility category, a national recognition given each year to a single facility that best demonstrates continuous improvement in outcomes for youth, staff, and the community. Leadership’s focus on staff-youth relationships, which the Guitar Club is part of, drove a measurable reduction in the percentage of staff who feared for their safety.
Other counties can build something similar without special technology. What’s needed is a community nonprofit willing to donate instruments, a university or volunteer group to provide instruction, and detention staff willing to champion the program. That combination exists in most jurisdictions already.
Bilingual Probation Officers in Juvenile Supervision
Language access in probation supervision is a persistent equity challenge. Maricopa County’s Juvenile Probation Department found a solution that cost nothing extra.
Launched in March 2024, the Spanish-Speaking Probation Officer Program assigns bilingual officers to specialized units, ensuring Spanish-speaking youth and families receive direct, culturally responsive supervision without additional costs. By eliminating reliance on translation services, the program built stronger officer-family relationships, improved compliance with supervision requirements, and reduced operational delays.
Juvenile Probation Chief Eric Meaux explained the philosophy behind the approach: “We understand that holding youth accountable must include connecting with the youth we supervise and meeting them and their families where they are. Accountability is not just about the offense and supervision; it also includes cultivating growth, creating opportunities to learn, and authentic connection.”
The “without additional costs” element is significant. The program didn’t require new hires or a budget line. It required rethinking how existing bilingual staff were deployed. That makes it highly transferable to counties with Spanish-speaking populations but limited budget flexibility.
What Makes a Program Award-Worthy?
Maricopa County’s track record offers clear patterns for counties thinking about what kinds of programs are worth developing and submitting for NACo consideration.
The strongest programs tend to:
- Solve a concrete problem with measurable outcomes. NACo wants specific results: cost savings, reduced burden on residents, improved access. Vague impact claims don’t hold up in the application.
- Use existing resources differently rather than requiring new funding. Programs built around reorganizing what’s already there are both easier to implement and easier for other counties to replicate.
- Build on community partnerships. Nonprofits, universities, and local organizations can extend what a county department delivers without adding to county payroll.
- Document replication costs from the start. NACo requires applicants to spell out what it would cost another county to copy the program. Programs designed with that question in mind tend to be stronger submissions.
What Drives a County to 85 Awards?
The jump from 75 awards in 2024 to 85 in 2025 reflects something deeper than any individual program. Maricopa County has built an environment where staff across nearly 20 different departments are encouraged to identify problems, design solutions, measure outcomes, and share results nationally. Innovation isn’t concentrated in one high-profile department. It’s distributed across the entire organization.
The NACo application process reinforces that culture. Submitting for an award requires documenting what a program does, what it costs, and what measurable results it produces. Applied across dozens of programs each year, that documentation discipline builds an institutional record of what works.
Counties don’t need to aim for 85 awards to benefit from that approach. The three programs profiled here demonstrate that impactful innovation often starts small: a few officers who thought music might help troubled youth, a jury administrator who decided there had to be a better way, a probation department that looked at its existing staff and asked how to use them more effectively.
A Note on County Executive Leadership and Innovation
Maricopa County operates under a Board of Supervisors model. Its award volume is a reminder that the structural form of county government matters less than the commitment of leadership to measuring outcomes and sharing results, whatever the governance model.
For counties that have adopted an executive form of government, the accountability structure can accelerate that process. But the actual work of building award-winning programs happens at the department level, through staff who are empowered to try new approaches and document what they find.
Sidebar: Arizona’s Broader County Innovation Ecosystem
Maricopa County is not a CEA member, but Arizona’s county innovation extends well beyond Maricopa. CEA member Pima County, which includes Tucson, has also earned national NACo recognition. In 2024, Pima County’s Housing First program received a best-in-category NACo Achievement Award in Criminal Justice and Public Safety for its work providing permanent supportive housing for justice-involved individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. County leaders interested in Arizona’s broader county innovation landscape can search the NACo awards database by state to find programs from Pima and other Arizona counties.
For county staff considering applying for NACo Achievement Awards, the application process is non-competitive and straightforward. As of 2026, counties with fewer than 50,000 residents can apply at no cost. Check the NACo Achievement Awards page for current fee information and deadlines.