Special Bd. of Aldermen — 04/30/2019 Page 6
So what we have asked is if there is a large amount of data that you require, that you simply write down the
addresses on a form and we made it easier than that, there’s a form on the web site, you can fill it out there and
e-mail it into the Department and the Department will get back to you as soon as the information is ready. They
will definitely get back to you within five business days to let you know that it is available for pick up and how
much the copies will cost. We are using and tracking that information.
The third item in the Management Audit Report talked about AssessPro Software. And we know that there was
some items that needed to be addressed between the old Admin System and the current AssessPro. So we met
with AssessPro, with Patriot on March 19; the entire Assessing Staff, IT, Mr. Griffin and myself. We figured out
that there is a way to process the abatements and the applications within our current version of AssessPro. Now
there are strengths in why you would do that before you would upgrade a version. It'll be easier for us to handle
the switchover of abatements and things from our current version of AssessPro from Admins. We will be able to
validate that information easily on a system that our staff already knows. So we are looking and planning for
August of 2019 to start that process. Why August versus now? | think the staff just let you know of all the things
that we are doing, it just doesn’t make sense to do it now.
We also know that we’d like to update to the newest version of AssessPro; there are really some really strong
attributes to the new version that we don’t currently have. Multi-tax year data base which allows us to work in
multi-tax years, we don’t have that availability now; increased functionality, a new operating system, improved
integration with MUNIS which is used down in our Treasury & Tax. And an even improved process for
processing abatements. We hope to also have more internal licenses for other departments so we can share our
live data with our departments within the City. So what does that look like? Well the initial cost to probably
upgrade the software is somewhere around $35,000.00 and annually it will cost us about $17,700.00 in annual
fees and maintenance.
Number four was to create and update internal policies and procedures to reflect the current state of operations.
We've held a number of meetings, on March 15" CFO Griffin and | had the pleasure of meeting with Chuck
Reese who has been our monitor from the State DRA. We let him know about the operations of the Assessing
Department; how we intended to move forward. We tried to answer as many questions as we could and we tried
to obtain some knowledge from him on where he felt maybe we should look at some improvements within the
Department. Again he is one of the experts that you reach out to and we talked a lot about State Guidelines and
monitoring going forward.
Within the Department we talked about a policy that had been place; there hadn’t been a dollar amount on it, it
had been left up to the assessors on sending a letter to a property owner when a change had been made that
reflected in an increase in value to their property. This came up in a staff meeting and we talked about it; we did
set a dollar amount so if there is an increased assessment over $20,000.00 a letter will now be sent to that
property. So that is one policy that was clarified more than changed. On March 19" we had a meeting with Rob
Tozier from KRT and the residential resource and a discussion consulting took place. So if any of you saw there
is a residential resource that has been posted to our web site, that resource was created by KRT. It has a wealth
of information within it that is designed to help the general property owner understand their property card:
understand their assessment. We thought it was a good start, KRT had done that for some other towns and
cities so we were very grateful that they stepped right up and completed Nashua’s.
On April 3° Mayor Donchess, CFO Griffin and | met with Commissioner Stepp, Attorney Reefe and Charles
Reese regarding the plans moving forward. We had some discussion about the equalization ration; conformance
with State Rules and Laws and | believe that Mayor Donchess had updated the board after that meeting to let
you know that we had been told that Nashua was in full compliance.
