Snohomish County is located in northwest Washington State, nestled between the sparkling blue waters of Puget Sound and the rugged, snow-capped peaks of the Cascade Mountains. Just fifteen miles north of Seattle, 100 miles south of Vancouver and a short ferry ride away from the San Juan Islands or Olympic Peninsula, Snohomish County is ideally situated for exploring the entire Pacific Northwest.
The County is home to several fascinating features including: Glacier Peak – a 10,000-plus foot dormant volcano; Naval Station Everett – an 117-acre base providing facilities and services for a nuclear-powered Nimitz Class aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln; and the Boeing Manufacturing Facility – the largest building in the world at 472 million cubic feet and 98 acres. Snohomish County boasts a diverse number of property types including industrial, agricultural, high density urban, mountains and waterfront.
With a population of 671,800, the County has 275,000 real and personal property accounts that represent over $90 billion in assessed value. Because of the importance of this vital revenue source, it is imperative that the County’s Assessor and Treasurer are able to completely, accurately and fairly apply the property tax burden to the taxpayers of Snohomish County.
In the late 1990’s, both the Treasurer’s and Assessor’s offices knew they both had a need to replace non-Y2K compliant, in-house systems. An RFP was issued and numerous responses were received and evaluated. Manatron and ASIX partnered to offer an integrated solution featuring Manatron CAMA (ProVal®) – Manatron’s property appraisal solution – and Ascend™ - ASIX’s assessment administration and property tax collection solution.
Bob Dantini, Snohomish County Treasurer, chose ASIX and Ascend because of the system’s reputation in the State of Washington. He and his staff were confident the solution had all the features necessary to bill and collect taxes for the County. “ASIX had a good footprint established in the State of Washington, having developed the initial Ascend solution in collaboration with Yakima County,” said Debi Putnam, Chief Deputy Treasurer. “We knew that the system would work for what we needed it to do without much custom work and hassle. We were implemented and live in less than a year and are very pleased with the service we have received from ASIX over the years.”
Gail Rauch, then Snohomish County Assessor, and Cindy Portmann – the Chief Deputy Assessor at the time and current County Assessor, were secure in the Manatron CAMA solution, with its national presence and success in over 300 jurisdictions. The key to the decision was both the integration with Ascend and the Treasurer’s office and improved data entry processing. Data entry on the previous system was via one line commands on a 3767 terminal.
Both offices were up and running on their respective solutions by November of 1999. Transition through Y2K went smoothly and the staffs were able to adapt to the new systems in a short period of time. With its acquisition of ASIX in early 2006, Manatron now supports both the appraisal and tax collection solutions for Snohomish County.
Utilizing Manatron CAMA, Assessor Cindy Portmann and the her staff have been able to take advantage of the ability to check parcels out remotely on tablet computers and check them back in on the live system – increasing inspection productivity. The implementation of this feature earned the office the Outstanding User Jurisdiction of the year in 2002 at the ProVal User’s Conference. Additionally, moving to a non in-house system has allowed the Assessor staff more control over the assessment process and their technology – shifting this away from the Information Services Department.
“We recently moved from a four-year cycle to an annual revaluation cycle,” said Chief Deputy Assessor Linda Hjelle. “Without the updated technology from Manatron we would not have been able to do this without increasing our staff size significantly. The Manatron CAMA solution has allowed us to be more effective and efficient with this process and we are able to consistently meet our deadlines.”
The use of Ascend in the Treasurer’s office has also allowed for greater efficiency in day-to-day operations. “The user-controlled system is easy to operate and we are able to complete transactions faster than ever before,” said Putnam. “The implementation of Ascend is probably the best move we have ever made. We have established a great relationship, it is a superb product and we are extremely pleased with our situation.”
“It is important to us to keep up with changes in technology in order to serve our constituents well,” added Hjelle. “We are confident that Manatron will stay ahead of this technology curve and afford us every opportunity to accomplish our goals.”