Orange County NC Website
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building inspections and permits, trade inspections, life safety inspections and permits, well <br />construction inspections and permits, septic inspections and permits, erosion control permits, <br />stormwater inspections and permits, and recyclable materials permits. These services also <br />interface with services provided by the municipalities. <br />Orange County currently provides land development professionals and residents cross - <br />departmental services through the use of Accela PermitsPlus, which is an automated permitting <br />system developed approximately 12 years ago, and implemented on a server that has reached <br />its end -of -life. The system no longer meets the emerging online needs of customers, and has <br />become increasingly more difficult for staff to support. These challenges have become more <br />pronounced as processes have changed, system integration points have been added, and <br />technology expectations have expanded. <br />This recommendation is based on an evaluation of software and implementation services for <br />migrating and enhancing the existing system, including processes and data, to a robust <br />software platform that takes advantage of current technologies to support storage, workflow, <br />access and integration. It seeks to leverage the functionality of newer technology in meeting <br />the following project objectives: <br />• Improve customer relations, <br />• Efficiently support new and changing State statutes and local government regulations in <br />a timely manner, <br />• Reduce manual processes and increase productivity with clearly- defined business rules, <br />• Improve inter - departmental workflow integration as well as inter - departmental application <br />integration, and <br />• Improve resident's /customer's ability to interact and do business on -line with Orange <br />County. <br />Upon full evaluation of the scope of the processes to migrate and add functionality to the <br />system, the review team from three departments led by stakeholders Craig Benedict (Director of <br />Planning & Inspections), Colleen Bridger (Health Director), and Jim Northrup (Chief Information <br />Officer) defined a due - diligence process for requirements definition and product selection. This <br />is in line with the "Shared Accountability and Authority Model" described in the Board of County <br />Commissioners' approved Orange County Information Technologies 2012 Strategic Plan and is <br />supported by the County Manager as the Project Sponsor. <br />A Core Team was established, which included primary stakeholders from Planning, Building & <br />Inspections, Engineering /Stormwater /Erosion Control, Environmental Health, and Information <br />Technologies, as well as secondary stakeholders from Tax Land Records /Geographic <br />Information Systems, Emergency Services /Fire Marshal and Solid Waste. Input was also <br />gathered from the County's municipal partners - the Towns of Hillsborough, Carrboro and <br />Chapel Hill — as well as local builders and private land developers. <br />Since initiating this project in February 2013, the process yielded: <br />• An approved multi - department Support Model for pre- and post - implementation of the <br />system. <br />• An evaluation of the next generation of product offerings by the parent company of the <br />current system (Permits Plus) as well as the implementations of similar systems in other <br />North Carolina counties. <br />• Contracted with an independent vendor for software selection consulting services in June <br />2014. The vendor provided experienced support with similar systems in identifying and <br />