[Carla Hass]
(PLACERVILLE, CA) – The El Dorado County Assessor today announced it will implement a new on-line property tax system July 1st which will save the County approximately $1 million per year over its current system. The new system, Megabyte Property Tax Systems of Rocklin, CA, is part of the County’s transition away from an old, costly mainframe system to more current, cost-effective, server-based system for many of its internal processes.
“Megabyte will provide a fully-integrated functionality the County has been missing among the Assessor, Auditor-Controller and Treasurer-Tax Collector, which all have a hand in the administration of property taxes,” said County Assessor Karl Weiland. “This unified system will lead to much greater internal efficiencies and a significant savings to the County’s bottom line,” he said.
Some of the improvements that come with Megabyte include:
• The elimination of a costly, old mainframe system
• Streamlining property tax administration processes between departments
• Increasing the consistency among departments which reduces public confusion
• Improved efficiencies through electronic processing, documentation and reporting.
• Better integration with other County system upgrades including a new Recorder system, new planning and permitting system TRAKIT and the new financial system FENIX.
The cost of the new system, including the software, hardware and staff costs is approximately $2.5 million. The Assessor’s website will post updates and notices about future changes as the implementation proceeds, and the Auditor-Controller’s and Treasurer-Tax Collector’s websites will also contain prominently displayed notices about the change from the old system to Megabyte.
Some of the specific changes include:
• All parcels, accounts and other assessments will be assigned new parcel numbers
• Each event, including regular assessed values, will be identified by a unique “assessment number”
• Some online reports and information may have different formats and contain different information
• All information, assessment history, parcel number change history and all associated links to recorded documents will be preserved in a database specifically designed for that purpose “Our current system was developed more than 30 years ago and has served the public well,” said Weiland.
“Thirty one other counties across California use the Megabyte system, most of them similar in size and demographics to El Dorado County. While the switch may take a little getting used to at first, we’re confident the public will appreciate not only the savings, but its overall usefulness,” he added.
