When Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston – with help from other elected leaders from around the county – gave a speech on the current state of the county on Wednesday, Sept. 20, he did something that isn’t easy to do – he loaded the speech with stats, numbers and other hard data while keeping it interesting.

In fact, the speech provided a nice summary of specific statistical data and dollar figures that support Alston’s general claim – that Guilford County is doing very nicely, thank you very much.

Here are some of the items highlighted in the speech:

• Guilford County has seen more than $690 million in new capital investment in the past year.

• Over the past year, the county has also added 970 new jobs.

• The new investment follows in the footsteps of Toyota’s $5.9 billion investment at the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite in Randoph County – which itself is projected to create 3,500 jobs.

• Guilford County recently invested $104 million in federal relief money into projects in unincorporated Guilford County and in its cities and towns.  The money went to water and sewer and other infrastructure, community center construction and renovation, improving area parks, offering more recreation options, and supporting services provided by area non-profits.

• Guilford County Schools now has a cool $2 billion to draw from for school construction and repair thanks to county voters.

• Guilford County expects to see $39.2 million in funds over the next two decades from the settlement of the national lawsuit brought by state and local governments against opioid manufacturers and distributers. That money will be used to save lives of addicts and address the ongoing fallout of the opioid epidemic.

• Medicaid expansion and the creation of a new division inside the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services will support an estimated 33,000 more Guilford County citizens once the expansion is finalized and approved by state lawmakers.

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