, which provides search access to records, maps, and photos. The public can access the portal, which is also used by 12 departments involved in property taxation, from the treasurer and tax collector to the public health department. For example, a property owner or potential buyer can view a property's assessment history and see how the assessments are distributed between land and improvements. An internal department could use it to determine whether property taxes have been paid.
, as “the most robust platform we could use," Assistant Assessor Steven Hernandez says."In addition to being the most responsive to our requests, the fact we'd have one company to work with was a significant draw."For the past four years, the assessor's office has been working with Oracle on its Assessor Modernization Project.
"When we got into this, we knew there were three prongs to the AMP initiative: the digitization of records, getting off the green screen, and data quality," Thornberry says. Data quality is essential since accurate assessments require accurate historical data. "We want to make it easy so all they have to do is turn it on and avail themselves of the process and workflow," Hernandez says."Originally, we thought our ability to share our product would be limited to the other California counties, but we've come in contact with other assessing agencies throughout the U.S., and they have similar needs."