The system was developed in conjunction with 25 other counties, who are among approximately 50 counties in the Minnesota Counties Computer Cooperative.
It was estimated that if Washington County were to have purchased a system on its own, it would have cost $3 million; working hand-in-hand with the other counties, Washington County will pay just more than $500,000 for the system. In addition, it will cost a third less to keep the new system functioning and updated, in comparison with the older system, Corbid said.
The way Corbid describes the county's old system sounds like the description of a pair of old jeans. "We had patches on patches on patches," he said. That means that small bits of software were written to take care of one tax law change at a time. After awhile, that increased the time and cost to make the necessary changes. In order to increase staff productivity, and to assure a fully functioning system able to accurately calculate taxes, a new system was needed.
The county did look at going on its own to purchase and develop with a vendor a property tax software package, but that didn't make sense. The cost was prohibitive and the effort would have been nearly impossible on its own.
"As it was, working with 25 other counties and an experienced vendor, the project still was daunting to build a product for a Minnesota property tax system the vendor has called the most complex system of property tax laws they ever dealt with," Corbid said of Manatron, Inc., the corporation that wrote the new computer program for the counties.
Manatron works worldwide creating property software systems, with more than 1,400 customers, which affect more than 40 million parcels of land.
The new system is much easier to manage, Corbid said. It has the look and the feel of an Internet-based system. It will allow the county to train new employees on the system much more quickly and has tools to make county staff more productive. Functionality is built into the system to complete processes that were done using manual methods or separately developed and supported systems to complete.
And it will be more cost-efficient to make changes to the system, and to keep the software in working order, Corbid said.
More information about the Property Records and Taxpayer Services Department and about Washington County may be found at www.co.washington.mn.us.
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