MIS | Pitt County Wins 1st in Digital Counties Survey

PITT COUNTY, N.C. – The Center for Digital Government announced the Digital Counties Survey winners on Wednesday, July 15, 2026.  The 54 counties honored in this year’s awards demonstrated how a blend of traditional and emerging technologies can create meaningful benefits for residents and government staff. 

Pitt County Government earned first place in the 150,000-249,999-population category.

Adam Stone, contributing writer for GovTech, writes “In Pitt County, N.C., modernization of electronic permitting and licensing has had a big impact, beyond just the permit-and-license process itself. The move to a cloud-based system “really enabled us to start looking at cloud as more of a strategic platform,” said Deputy County Manager and CIO Michael Taylor.

It’s a timely transition. “The on-premise data center model, at least for organizations in our size, is becoming more complicated to maintain,” he said. Things are changing fast, and it’s hard to hang onto the needed skill sets. “So we are prioritizing our platforms to more of a cloud-first model.”

After having moved the Tax System to the cloud last fall, the county then initiated the move for the ERP system, aiming to have that done early this summer. In addition, “we just approved the contract for our E911 Computer-Aided Dispatch system. It’s also going to be moved to the cloud,” he said. “We’re finding it’s more strategic to invest in those platforms that allow us to scale quickly, and we can come alongside our business partners to be more value-added.”

Some of that is about accessibility, “being able to work from other locations, rather than having to be tethered to your desk,” he said. “That also translates into our ability to make that information and those processes more accessible to our community and constituents, so they can interact with us without having to come into physical locations.”

At the same time, he’s working to ensure the IT efforts are in sync with the county’s first organizational strategic plan, completed recently by county departments. 

Many of the departments’ strategic goals are technology based, and those are feeding directly into IT initiatives, including a recent move to Microsoft 365, as well as work around data governance in support of AI initiatives. The IT team also has established a new role, the business relations and projects administrator, to ensure ongoing alignment.”

The full article may be accessed at https://www.govtech.com/dc/digital-counties-survey-2026-applying-ai-for-practical-gains. ;

Stone, A. (2026, July 15). Digital Counties Survey 2026: Applying AI for practical gains. GovTech. https://www.govtech.com/dc/digital-counties-survey-2026-applying-ai-for-practical-gains

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Media Contact: Dawn C. Jones, Director, Public Information & Media Relations | dawn.jones@pittcountync.gov | (252) 902-2993