Earlier this month Dutchess County Executive William R. Steinhaus announced enhancements to ParcelAccess, an Internet application which provides residents, property owners, perspective buyers and professionals with on-line access to map-based parcel and assessment information from any computer. ParcelAccess is just one of the e-Government applications available on the county’s Web site, www.co.dutchess.ny.us.
The most recent enhancements were the biggest change since the program went public nearly three years ago.
“One enhancement is that a number of the towns took photos of the properties. For instance, Beekman, Pine Plains, the City of Poughkeepsie – they actually put photos online, and we’ve worked to integrate that with ParcelAccess,” says Tim Mahler, commissioner of the Office of Computer Information Systems (OCIS). Mahler and his staff developed the application, working closely with Director of Real Property Tax Kathleen Myers, as well as individual municipalities.
“The other thing? Integrating it with historical filed maps. If there’s a filed map associated with a parcel or subdivision, you can actually bring up the image of that map,” said Mahler.
More than 12,000 paper maps were cleaned and scanned, and are now available as high-quality downloads through ParcelAccess. Some of the maps date back to the 1800s.
Another enhancement includes the Property Tax Estimator – a tool which allows users to estimate property tax based on county, town or village, and school tax rates, by inputting the estimated market value, along with the municipality and school district. The estimator is intended to provide a ballpark figure for those looking to build or buy a home, and does not take into account special districts.
Mahler says the Property Tax Estimator has gotten as many as 900,000 hits in one month.
Dealing with complexity
ParcelAccess is a joint project between the OCIS and the county’s Real Property Tax department (RPT). The most recent enhancements were paid for with a $105,000 grant from the New York State Office of Real Property Services (ORPS), which was secured by OCIS and RPT, with the help of 22 local municipalities.
According to ORPS, New York State has one of the most complex property tax systems in the country. While most states have fewer than 100 assessing jurisdictions, statutory reassessment cycles and a statewide standard of assessment, New York has 1,128 assessing units, and each one determines its own standard of assessment and reassessment. Special districts, and class and homestead tax rates further complicate the statewide tax system which ORPS refers to as, “ … inefficient, irreparably inequitable and confusing for taxpayers.”
Dutchess County’s e-Government initiative aims to make the county government more efficient and effective by providing residents with 24-hour-a-day on-line services.
“ParcelAccess is one of our most popular e-Government applications. The new enhancements integrate information and tools suggested by business and community users to improve search capabilities of residential and commercial properties,” said Steinhaus.
“We have definitely reduced our foot traffic considerably. Since the implementation of ParcelAccess It’s been steadily decreasing,” said Myers.
Mahler hopes to continue enhancements on an ongoing basis, but future enhancements depend partly on funding. The grant paid for development time -- for the staff to work on the development, a new server and some other hardware. “It really paid the bill,” he said.
“The OCIS and RPT staff who are involved with this project are to be commended, I think users will truly be impressed by the improvements. It is really amazing to see how much information is available through this online resource,” said Steinhaus. “ParcelAccess is a great example of our continued efforts to work smarter and think greener.”