County Commission | The Magazine April 2020 | Page 33

COUNTY FAMILY FEATURE
ACCA Involvement: Take the Next Step,
Wherever You Are
C
herokee County Commission
Chairman and Probate Judge
Tim Burgess has been in the
County Family for 16 years, but
eye-opening experiences within the
past few years have brought him to
a much deeper appreciation of what
it means to be part of “67 Counties,
One Voice.”
It was 2004 when Burgess left
his accounting business to take the
administrator’s position in Cherokee
County. He was hired to oversee the
county’s budget, the part of the job
most familiar to him, and so he put
his focus there. He said he wasn’t
sure if or how ACCA fit in with his
responsibilities.
About a decade later, Burgess
set out to earn the Certified County
Administrator designation from the
County Government Education
Institute. “I started realizing what
ACCA was actually doing for
counties across the state, and I
began to get more active,” he said.
In 2017, he completed the
education program, earning the
right to add “CCA” after his name.
But a few months later, tragedy
struck Cherokee County with the
untimely death of Chairman and
Probate Judge Kirk Day. Gov. Kay
Ivey went on to appoint Burgess to
the vacancy, and the following year,
he won election to a six-year term
without opposition.
“Being administrator, you learn
a lot about local government, and
now I’ve gone from that role to
being the decisionmaker,” he said.
As his county responsibilities
have grown, so has his involvement with
ACCA. In fact, commission members
chose him to represent them on the
ACCA Legislative Committee. That was
how he found himself speaking at an
ACCA District Meeting earlier this year,
urging commission and affiliate members
to take the next step to increase their
Association involvement, especially when
the Alabama Legislature is in session.
“Wherever you are, whatever your
level of participation has been, you can
do better,” he said, noting that his
next step forward is getting active on
Twitter. “Just try to do a little more Burgess
each year than
you’ve done in
the past year.”
These days,
Burgess is
quick to praise
ACCA Executive
Director Sonny
Brasfield and the
staff. “They do
an excellent job
of providing us
with information
and letting us
know what’s
going on,” he
said. “They can
talk to legislators
all day long,
but unless the
grassroots back
home call and
verify what
they’re saying,
legislators may
not take it
seriously.” n
COUNTY COMMISSION | 33