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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, June 7, 2005

For more information, contact:
Karen Moore or Nanette Schimpf, PR counsel
Florida Sterling Council
(850) 224-0174 or (850) 528-2639

GOVERNOR BUSH & THE FLOIDISA STERLING COUNCIL RECOGNIZE THE CITY OF CORAL SPRINGS

~Team Brings Speed & High Tech to Traffic Citation System~

CORAL SPRINGS, FL (June 7, 2005) - Governor Jeb Bush and the Florida Sterling Council announced today the City of Coral Spring's Citation System Improvement Team is the state winner of the Florida Sterling Council's Team Showcase. The Citation System Improvement Team received top state honors at the 13th Annual Sterling Conference at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes. The team earned the prestigious designation of State Team Showcase Champion and will compete at the Association for Quality and Participation National Conference.

The Sterling Quality Team Showcase provides a public forum for organizations to put the principles of performance excellence into practice through teamwork and employee participation. Team Showcase competitions are held annually throughout the state in six regions. Each region showcase winner is selected to compete at the annual Sterling Conference for the prestigious designation of "Team Showcase Champion."

"The Citation System Improvement Team is a great example of how a team with diverse backgrounds and expertise can go beyond problem solving to highly technical process design," said Coral Springs City Manager Mike Levinson. "Their work will make Coral Springs' streets safer for our residents and police officers. As their process design is adopted by other communities, the impact of the project will be nationwide."

Combining the expertise of three departments, the Citation System Improvement Team (CSI) designed a process that allows officers to issue & process traffic citations faster (from 15 minutes to 9 minutes), better (from a printer not handwritten), and higher (29% more tickets per month). Another benefit is that there is now no need for the Records Unit to enter these citations into the mainframe; the citation information is uploaded. The traffic unit's productivity increase is equivalent to hiring three new officers. Adding three officers has a first year cost of $350,000 and over five years cost $1.5 million. This new system potentially saves lives as well. All 13 motorcycle officers had their new equipment in January 2004; from 2003 to 2004, there was a 19% drop in accidents at major intersections.

Established in 1992, the Florida Sterling Council is a public/private not-for-profit organization supported by the Executive Office of the Governor. Sterling's Annual Conference is exclusively designed to teach participants how to achieve performance excellence and increase productivity. More than 1,000 executives and professionals gather at this event for a one-stop source for education, information, and inspiration. The Conference concludes with the recognition of best practices, the Team Showcase Champion, and presentation of the Governor's Sterling Awards. For more information on the Statewide Team Showcase, contact Shirley Combass at (850) 413-9626. For more information on the Florida Sterling Council, contact Dione Geiger at (850) 922-5316 or visit www.floridasterling.com.

For more information on the Florida Sterling Council, contact
Dione Geiger at (850) 922-5316.

For other information, visit the website at www.floridasterling.com.