AG 2003 01 06 07 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MEMORANDUM To: John Day From: Jean Kennedy/Dawn McHalc Date: January 2, 2003 Re: Property Tax Information System The purpose of this memo is to provide an update on the status of property taxation software. Since November, 1999, Cabarrus County has been running all modules of the Cott Systems property taxation software. The software runs on a proprietary system on Hewlett Packard hardware rather than utilizing client server technology. It is written in COBOL, an outdated programming language, and lacks a relational database for querying and reporting data. Further, the county has lost functionality that the legacy system contained. Although some programming changes have been made to restore the most basic needs, it still does not fully meet our requirements. Several issues need to be addressed in order to meet Cabarrus County's objectives as we move forward over the next few years. We need a commitment to move to an open platform with a relational database, and a sottware upgrade to address the issues of lost functionality. In the fall of 2001, the county chose to participate in an NCACC-sponsored project to create a comprehensive statewide taxation soft, yarc package. Wake County has contracted with IIS, a systems consultant, to provide a custom billing, collection, and assessment software package. The billing and collection modules are complete and billing is currently operational in Wake County, with a planned implementation date of February, 2003 for collections. NCACC formed a project team to determine the feasibility of modifying this package to meet the needs of counties across the state of NC. Cabarms County participated in the pilot project in which liS determined the adaptability of the software for use in Cabarms County. As a result of this project, Cabarms County received a fit/gap and cost/benefit analysis and the cost of modification and migration. The study revealed this sot~are would be an excellent fit for Cabarms County, and the costs were included in the 2002/2003 Capital Improvement Program. The County budgeted $115,000 annually for five years for soft'ware modification and migration. This installment option was the most cost-effective way for the county to migrate to the software. If the project is delayed, costs will increase. IIS has demonstrated various adaptations of the Wake system, which is now referred to as NCPTS, to counties participating in the pilot project. IIS continues to work with various staffmembers from IT and Tax Administration to address our needs, although the system requirements are incomplete at this time and work has just begun on the computer assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) package. On January 14, 2002, Cott Systems notified its customers that Hewlett Packard will discontinue marketing the HP3000 on October 31, 2003, and will discontinue support of the product on December 31, 2006. In November, 2002, Cott Systems announced that Novalis would acquire Cott Systems in the near future. That was finalized January 1, 2003. Their intent is to develop a complete Windows based tax system. Note this is not an update of the existing Cott product, but rather a complete development ora new, replacement package. Therefore, costs are not covered in our maintenance agreement with Cott Systems. Although projected costs for the new sof~vare and migration are only preliminary estimates at this time, the minimal projection is $289,000 for Cabarms County. All modules are scheduled to be complete in twenty- seven months.