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What is the Mission of the Clark County Treasurer's Office?

To be the locally trusted source for collecting and protecting tax payers' money.

auction of property

Accomplishments 2005 - 2006

In February of 2005, the Clark County Treasurer's Office was the first county in the state to implement a web site that provides daily financial information and monthly financial reports to taxing districts over the Internet.

In March 2005, a Request for Proposal for a new assessment - taxation system was published and distributed. The critical elements for a new system provided by the assessment and taxation software vendor must include excellent service and support, open source code for County development and enhancements, application flexibility and expandability, complete web functionality, seamless Geographical Information System integration, and complete process workflow capabilities.

After a comprehensive analysis, a vendor was selected to implement the new assessment - taxation system in October 2005.

In March 2006, County Commissioners signed a contract with True Automation, a software vendor to design and install the new assessment and taxation system. The Project implementation will take all of 2006 and most of 2007. The new system is scheduled to go live in 2008.

books

New Property Tax System Design Document Books

An Oracle financial system upgrade is scheduled for early spring of 2006. The upgrade will help streamline work flow and eliminate excess steps in preparing financial reports. It will also allow quicker and more detailed reporting, thereby reducing the costs in providing the financial reports.

The web payment system is a complex integrated system between the county property tax system, the Oracle financial system, the Geographical Information System (GIS), the host web payment system and the county's bank. Additional county offices and departments will be added in the near future. Electronic checks will be the next option offered in the near future.

The new cashiering system (Point of Sale) is scheduled to go live in October of 2006. This is the critical piece that will make a one stop center a true reality. The system will allow for one cashiering system to integrate all the various data bases in the different departments throughout the county. The cashiering system will help speed up the transaction time at the front counter and the cash drawer balancing time behind the counter, thereby providing a faster payment service for the customer.

The new cashiering system also provides the ability to make payments over the internet. Taxpayers now can pay their property taxes on the County web site. The web payment system is a complex integrated system that interfaces between the county property tax system, the Oracle financial system, the Geographical Information System (GIS), the host web payment system and the county's bank. Additional county offices and departments will be added in the near future. Electronic checks will be the next option offered in the near future.

ledgers

Paper Ledgers and Tax Rolls from the old Property Tax System

Accomplishments 2007 - 2010

After spending many months working with the vendor on developing an integrated cashiering system for county departments, it was decided to terminate the project. Rigorous testing of the cashiering system determined the vendor's cashiering product could not meet the standards required for the heavy volume of workload. As a result, the vendor refunded the money the County spent on the project. The project is still on the county's computer systems project list, but other priorities must be completed first before taking up the project again.

One project that was on my list of goals, the ability to process passport applications, was not pursued due to the US Post Office which is two blocks from our building started providing this service.

Due to the severe budget cuts in 2009 and 2010 to the Community Development Department staff (over 40%), the Assessor and Treasurer agreed in 2010 to help by having their counter staff in the joint lobby receipt building permits and animal licenses. This additional workload will be challenging when collecting property taxes twice a year. During this time the Treasurer's Office also had to cut three and a half positions plus some key senior personnel moved on to higher paying jobs. These personnel issues created challenges in administering the various duties of the office.

The first phase of the property tax assessment and collection system started smoothly in February 2009. This was the county's largest computer conversion ever done. The second (final) phase will be completed at the end of 2011 and will include delinquent tax collection, advance taxes, receipting and real estate excise tax modules. Even before phase two has been completed, this seven million dollar "state of the art" computer system has already attracted ten other counties in the State of Washington to acquire the system.

In 2009, we added appropriate enhancements on the Treasurer's Financial Web Portal that included a warrant authorization request screen for taxing districts.

The Treasurer's Office has partnered with Clark County Real Estate Title Companies to develop the first electronic data exchange in Washington to process Real Estate Excise Tax transactions and tax payments. In the past, the Real Estate Excise Tax transaction documents had to be hand-delivered and were processed manually requiring an enormous amount of time and expense for everyone involved. By the end of 2010, the entire process will be automated with a new Real Estate Excise Tax web portal resulting in significant savings for the public as well as for title companies.

Prior to the end of April 2010, we will have the ability for taxpayers to pay their property taxes by phone. The Treasurer's Office has selected a new vendor to provide electronic checks, debit card, and credit card payment options on our web site or by phone. Taxpayers now have the option to mail their payments, use the internet, or pay their taxes by phone without needing to leave their home or business.

We also are implementing a new debt management system to track over $800 million in debt/bond issues for the County and junior taxing districts in 2010.

room of working people

"One Stop" Customer Service Lobby

Accomplishments 2011 - 2014

The Treasurer's Office met its goals for 2011-2014:

  • Installed the final phase of the Property Tax assessment Collection system in the Fall of 2013. Updates and enhancements will be added to the system twice a year as long as the system is operating.
  • Instituted electronic billing through a third-party provider for taxpayers who like to receive and pay their bills over the internnet. Electronic billing saves $$ on mailing and processing costs.
  • A new banking contract was signed with Bank of America to provide an array of banking services to the county and junior taxing districts.
  • The third update of the Treasury Web Portal provided additional internet control features and payroll calendar features.

Current Projects Include:

  • Upgrade the electronic billing and payment program.
  • Upgrade the remittance processing equipment in order to maintain banking and lock box services.
  • Continue to add taxing districts to the positive pay program.
  • Finish adding Real Estate Title Companies to the Electronic Real Estate Excise Tax and Electronic Recording Web Portal.

The activities described above are just a portion of the activities and projects performed during this period in the Treasurer's Office.

Accomplishments 2015 - 2018       Getting Better Every Year

Below are some of the highlights between 2015 and 2018:

  • Point of Sale Cashiering system for receipting of property taxes, recording fees, marriage licenses and other payments. Benefits of the new system included streaming business activities by working in a single receipting system, enhanced customer service, simplify staff training, and reduce banking costs and staff time.
  • Improved electronic billing and payment services through a new online provider where a taxpayer can obtain their property tax statement electronically and pay online.
  • Electronic Real Estate Excise Tax automation - The Treasurer's Office uses Simplifile, an e-filing processor that eliminates paper the need for paper Real Estate Excise Affidavits used in changing property ownership. The electronic processor has reduced the average transaction times from paper: 10 - 15 minutes to (Simplifile) 3 - 5 minutes.
  • A number of improvements were made to the Treasurer's Website including:
    • Functionality and appearance
    • User friendly quick buttons
    • Comprehensive menu layout
    • Six years of tax statements
    • Online payment options
    • Assessor and Geographical Information System (GIS) information.
  • After over twenty years of managing a Joint Remittance Processing Operation, the County Treasurers Office and the Clark Public Utilities decided to dissolve the partnership because of continual technology demands and costs to meet our customers' needs. Both governments pursued different remittance collection options. The Treasurer's Office decided the best option for the county was to contract with a remittance processing company called Retail Lockbox. Almost all of the Joint Remittance Processing customers have also contracted their remittance work to Retail Lockbox.
  • Since 2003, the Assessor, Auditor and Treasurer Offices has provided a unique and collaborative partnership by creating the Joint Lobby concept. Annually over 30,000 customers are served in the Joint Lobby in the Clark County Public Service Center. Employees are cross-trained in order to process transactions for any of the three offices. Citizens experience convenient service and shorter wait times. In order to avoid inequity in staff compensation, misalignment between offices, retention of trained employees, and maintaining customer service efficiencies the county in March 2018 approved the creation of a Joint Lobby Specialist job classification. I am excited that we have taken an important step in the advancement of customer service by creating a new job classification to support our skilled workforce. For over 15 years, we are still the only county in the Northwest that provides this unique customer service experience.

My commitment has been and will continue to be to provide the best in customer service and manage the public's money in a prudent, transparent and safe manner.

Working for the Future 2019 - 2023

Below are some of the activities planned for the next four years:

  • Banking service contract
  • Increase investment pool participants
  • Technology roadmap
  • Memorandum of Understanding/Inter-local Agreement updates
  • Continue LEAN Integration
  • Expand e-billing
  • Real Estate Excise Tax image automation
  • Increasing ACH payments
computer monitors

Tracking the Financial Markets