09/24/2001 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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S AGENDA ITEM 3A • STAFF ORIGINATOR: Al Rolek DATE: 9/24/01 TOPIC: Consideration of the Purchase of Special Assessment Tracking System VOTE REQUIRED: 3/5 BACKGROUND: The system for tracking special assessments for the City has been primarily a manual system. Although the tracking has been done using Excel spreadsheets, the information needs to be updated manually each year. This includes such tasks as maintaining existing assessment records, tracking annual payments and prepayments, administering land subdivisions and redistribution of assessment, and reconciling city and Anoka County assessment records. In addition, the City Engineer spends much time in preparing and updating new assessment rolls and performing special assessment searches. This has been an arduous task at best, consuming many staff hours to perform these functions. An automated special assessment tracking system would alleviate many of the problems now being encountered in maintaining the manual system, would lessen the demand on staff time, and would improve the accuracy and availability of special assessment data. In their last management report, the City's auditors recommended that the City consider automating special assessment records for these reasons. For some time staff has been researching its options for an alternative to the present system. Several automated systems were explored by staff, including systems used by the Cities of Blaine and Fridley. It was the consensus of staff that the system developed by the City of Fridley would meet the needs of Lino Lakes the best at the most reasonable cost. The City of Fridley has offered to license its system to other cities at a cost of $3,000. Implementation of the system, including installation, data entry, etc., is estimated at $2,000, for a total cost of $5,000. The City of Anoka recently purchased and is in the process of implementing the system. Other cities are considering the system as well. • For the various reasons listed above, it is the recommendation of staff that the City of Lino Lakes purchase the Special Assessment tracking software from the