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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: December 11, 2007 <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. ~- - e <br />SUBJECT: Negotiations with Property Information Management System Software Vendors <br />DEPARTMENT: Information Technologies, Tax PUBLIC HEARING: (Y/N) No <br />Assessor, Revenue, Purchasing <br />ATTACHMENT(S): INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />Todd Jones, (919) 245-2285 <br />John Smith, (919) 245-2101 <br />Jo Roberson, (919) 245-2727 <br />Pam Jones, (919) 245-2652 <br />PURPOSE: To obtain approval to negotiate with Property Information Management System <br />software vendors and related consultants for project management and specialized legal counsel <br />in order to develop a contract proposal for implementation of a new land records and property <br />taxation system. <br />BACKGROUND: The County has relied on an internally developed software system for <br />tracking and managing land records, property valuation and payment data for 29 years. This <br />system has been modified and enhanced over the years to meet the County's needs and has <br />played an important role in ensuring the Assessor's office maintains accurate valuations while <br />helping the Revenue office maintain a high collection rate. <br />The legacy system, however, has been developed on what has become, over time, a <br />fundamentally antiquated computing platform. The underlying architecture makes it difficult to <br />integrate with more modern software, an increasingly important requirement as the County <br />moves toward enterprise systems for greater efficiencies. Further, the expertise for maintaining <br />the legacy system is increasingly difficult to find and develop. <br />The departments of the Tax Assessor, Revenue and Information Technology have been working <br />since 2005 to investigate replacing the legacy system with a modern and more supportable <br />system. In 2006, work began on identifying functional requirements for a new system. This was <br />done using consulting resources (Carolina Consulting Group) working closely with the Chief <br />Information Officer, IT's Business Analyst and staffs from the Tax Assessor's and Revenue <br />offices. <br />From this functional requirements work, the stakeholder departments and Purchasing developed <br />a Request for Proposal that was released on July 20, 2007. North Carolina General Statute 143- <br />129.8 authorizes local governments to use a "request for proposals" (RFP) process to purchase <br />information technology goods and services. This procedure provides flexibility in procuring these <br />