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01/11/2017 07:23 AMMundane tasks like reporting a pothole, applying for a permit, or tracking the progress of an inspection used to require a phone call and often a trip or two to Town Hall. With a new software program, residents and town officials will now have immediate access to updated information that should make life easier for those on all sides of the process.
After evaluating several cloud-based systems, at a Jan. 3 Board of Selectmen meeting, Town Building Official David Maiden said that town staff had chosen Municity
as the preferred town permitting program. With this decision now made, the new system’s public portal for online access to permitting status information should be open by July 1.
The initial cost to the town to buy the program and transfer into it the town assessor’s map data and town permitting records from 2012 to today is $28,268. Maiden said the town’s agreement with the provider sets the annual maintenance and licensing cost for the program at $2,901 through the end of the 2021 year.
“In December we had a [two-hour] presentation of Municity software. It was the unanimous opinion that this is the one we should go for,” said Maiden.
Maiden, in response to a question from the selectmen, confirmed that the costs to purchase and the first year of program maintenance are within the department’s budget for this fiscal year. Moving forward, however, Maiden said that Finance Director Donna Castracane said that since multiple departments will benefit and use the program, a single Municity maintenance cost line item will appear in the budget, but not be associated with any one department.
Maiden said the Municity
permittingprogram, with both the Public Works and mobile modules, will support the needs of the Public Works Department, the Land Use Department, the fire marshal, and perhaps even the Fire Department.
The Public Works module, for example, will allow residents to go online to enter a complaint about a pothole that needs filling, along with similar issues. From that complaint, the Municity
program would generate an email to a town staffer who in turn, would log the complaint as a DPW work task to be tracked and addressed, also within the system.
Maiden explained that the program’s mobile module will allow him to enter data to the system while out on a job, using a mobile tablet. At the conclusion of an inspection, he could speak or type the results into the tablet. Then, with the click of a send button, the information will be uploaded to the Municity permitting tracking program. So within minutes, a project contractor could go online, using the public portal, and learn the outcome of the building official’s site inspection.
“We will start the conversion process within the next six weeks,” said Maiden.
Once the parcel information is loaded, historical permit and work order information can be loaded.
Giving one example of the capabilities of the new system, once it is online, Maiden described how it will help the fire marshals to track and schedule mandated inspections.
“[The system] will be able to send reminders to the fire marshals when an inspection is due,” said Maiden.
Old Saybrook’s Choice, Too
At a Jan. 3 Town Meeting, Old Saybrook electors approved $24,525 to buy and install the Municity
permitting software package, too. The software system is a product of Software Consulting Associates.
The town plans to upload to the new system historical permit information from 1992 to the present for public access.
For Old Saybrook, the annual cost to maintain the software is $4,200. To offset the cost, town leaders plan to propose increasing the permit fee by $5.
Town staff are already working with the software provider to begin conversion to the new system and migration of historical data.