City Eyes New Software

OFFICIALS LOOKING AT INSPECTION, CODE VIOLATION TECHNOLOGY

Posted: November 13, 2009 at 6:27 a.m.

Sarah Bentham
Rick Bramall, chief plans examiner for Springdale, inspects a new home Thursday on Rosemary Avenue in Springdale. The builder could request inspections online, if the city’s Building Department switches software.

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SPRINGDALE — Filing a complaint, when the weeds in a neighbor’s yard start covering the Chevrolet up on blocks, could soon be as easy as clicking on the city’s Web site.

Springdale city officials are considering replacement software to allow complaints to be filed with code enforcement or requests for inspections to the building inspection department. The software also would allow residents and builders to check the status of their online filings, according to Mayor Doug Sprouse.

“This is what we are looking for on our city Web site,” Sprouse said. “We want to give residents better, up-to-date information.”

The city’s assessment included looking at about a half-dozen software packages, said Mike Chamlee, head of the building department. Ease of use, integration with other systems, Web accessibility and usability with mobile technology were all considered.

The cost of the fi ve packages that looked to be useable ranged from $147,600 with an $11,500 support fee to $600 per month with no support cost.

The CRW software, at the upper end, was definitely the Cadillac of the systems, Chamlee said, but was better suited to much larger cities. MyGov, at $600 per month, was the favorite of City Council members, at a Technology Committee meeting Tuesday.

MyGov is a hosted solution, where city workers and residents connect to a Web site to enter information.

The software and data remain on the MyGov company computers, with no installation needed locally, according to Mark Gutte, head of the city’s information technology division.

Going with MyGov would reduce the demand on the IT staff, Gutte said. His major concern is to check for any additional charges, such as for multiple users, he said.

MyGov claims it could be up and running in two hours, Chamlee said.

The city’s software, Chamlee said, has limped through the year. The programmer has made a few trips to work on the software, at a cost of about $4,000 to $5,000 per trip. A new support fee would be about $10,000 per year, Chamlee said.

“We want to make sure if we switch programs that the data generated would be ours,” Chamlee said. “If we changed again in the future, we would need access to it.”

The major labor savings, Chamlee said, would be fielding fewer calls on the status of cases or projects.

The council asked Gutte to tie down the cost and report Monday during its final budget hearing. The council could add the software to the budget, said Alderman Jesse Core, at the last budget hearing.

The cost is not the biggest concern, Sprouse said.

“Giving our residents better response and keeping them better informed about the progress of services, is beyond monetary savings,” Sprouse said.

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