Finance Committee - 02/17/2021 Page 7
Alderwoman Lu
Oh I’m sorry | was looking for my mute button.
Mayor Donchess
Oh sorry. That’s fine, Alderwoman Lu?
Alderwoman Lu
Thank you. The only question | have about this contract is when | saw Lawson on it | wondered are we using
that program, do we only use that for one application which is the abatement tracking or ....
Director Codagnone
No. Again Bruce Codagnone, IT Director. It’s not even used for anything dealing with abatements or
assessing or anything. Lawson is used for the financials, payroll, HR and Employee Self-Service. So all the
financials within the City are controlled within Lawson.
Alderwoman Lu
| had asked a question last week or last meeting about the presentation of the abatement disbursements. The
answer that | got to that over the interim, Mayor Donchess, was that those disbursements for the rebates are
processed via our Lawson program and we don’t know how to get Lawson to talk to what we use for our record
of expenditures. Now the other question was whether we would even want to do that. The discussion never
got that far. But | was under the impression that those abatement names are held in Lawson, that’s what | was
told?
Director Kleiner
Mayor, | may Mayor?
Mayor Donchess
Well | did, | was going to get to this when we did reach the Record of Expenditures but | thought the question
was were we legally required to state the name of the owner of the property when an abatement check was
written, if the abatement check was payable to a mortgage company or some third party which happens now
and again. And the answer | received from Legal was, no there is no legal requirement that the owner be
stated. There were some reasons why that’s not always so ... why it might be difficult to do that. Mortgage
companies are more interested in the account number than the name of the owner because a mortgage
company may have a number of properties with one owner and if all they get is the owner’s name as opposed
to the account number for the property, then they wouldn’t know which property to apply it to. But | was really
asking the Legal question, is that somehow required by the Ordinance and the answer to that was “no”. Now
the rest of it maybe Ms. Kleiner can address?
Director Kleiner
Yes, thank you Mayor. So | think there’s — just to clarify Lawson is the financial package. So when you talk
about the disbursements, the disbursements the actual check being cut is through Treasury, that’s the Lawson.
The abatement right, so when the abatement comes in, the abatement is processed through Assessing, goes
to the Board of Assessors and is approved by the Board of Assessors. We issue a report to Treasury on
behalf of the Board of Assessors to authorize the payment. So while | understand maybe the difference is a
little confusing, the actual check being cutis finance.
