Over the past year, News Media Relations has become just a part of the division’s functions. A more appropriate name would probably be the "communication division," but the agency already has a "Communications Center."

The division added internal communication and web site content to its functions and moved the mail room and reception desk functions from the Tax and Accounting Divisions.

The internal communication component of the division orchestrated the rebirth of The Caddo Star as an employee newsletter published three times a year. The Annual Report remains as much an internal communication medium as external.

The web site <www.caddosheriff.org> is a popular Internet destination, with a daily average of more than 16 visitors. The vast majority of the web site content comprises news and feature releases, as well as other information produced by the division. An increasing number of reporters and editors are using the web site to download current news releases and to find information from previous releases. Newspeople, students, attorneys and other citizens have sent e-mail messages praising the wealth of information available on the web site.

News releases as far back as mid-1994 are indexed and cross-referenced by calendar year and are listed chronologically in six-month segments. Background articles on a wide variety of topics are available, as is the text of Annual Reports and The Caddo Star. All of this information is available in the web site’s "Reading Room."

Incoming and outbound U.S. Mail, package deliveries and shipments and internal mail are processed daily and the agency’s reception desk in the Caddo Parish Courthouse is staffed from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The division head (the Public Information Advisor) is on call "24-7" and generated a record 267 news releases -- 23 more than the previous year and 17 more than the previous high of 250. Those news releases, along with story ideas originating with reporters and editors, generated 641 newspaper articles, nearly doubling the 346 published in the 1996-97 fiscal year. Of that total, more than 90 percent of them were positive articles.

Most of the division’s accomplishments would not have been possible without the creative use of available technology. Portable computers, an intra-division computer network and modem-based fax and data communications combine to produce an effective, efficient and around-the-clock service to employees and the citizens of Caddo Parish.