After assorted glitches, delays, and plenty of finger-pointing, Porter County officials appear ready to ditch their problematic tax software from a Texas vendor in favor of a system from an Indiana company.

Porter County Council President Robert Poparad said Wednesday that he anticipates receiving a request from department heads for a special meeting so that the county council can appropriate the funds for the new software used to prepare tax bills.

Both Porter County Auditor Jim Kopp and Porter County Treasurer Jim Murphy said they would agree to replace the Hamer Enterprises Inc. software in favor of another vendor.

County officials have met with Low Associates of South Bend, which is the tax vendor in use by 21 other Indiana counties. Low’s affiliates or partners include X-Soft, the vendor already in use at the assessor’s office, and the Sidwell Company, which is the vendor for Porter County’s Geographic Information System.

Both Low and X-Soft are already certified by the state, while Hamer is not. The most recent delays with Porter County’s late 2008 propery tax bills have been attributed, at least in part, to glitches with the Hamer system.

The county purchased the Hamer system for the tax billing component of its property tax work in May of 2007 for $214,420. The Low software is estimated to cost about $355,000, Kopp said.

It remains to be seen if the county can recoup all or part of its costs to Hamer. The purchase agreement includes certain provisions in the event of a failed system, including one provision that states that if Hamer fails to get state certification, the county is entitled to reimbursement of certain licensing fees of up to $98,220.

The county purchased the Hamer system nearly two years ago upon the recommendation of a number of officials, including Kopp and Murphy. Porter County Assessor John Scott disagreed with using Hamer in his office but was initially overruled, when county officials wanted the same software in all three offices. But last summer, when delays threatened to stall the assessment work, the county agreed to replace Hamer and purchase the X-Soft software for Scott’s office.

Now, the Hamer system might be replaced in the other two offices as well.

Though Kopp and Murphy have both defended the Hamer system, both are now willing to give it up.

Both said that the system isn’t producing state-required reports as needed and that some issues with the software work one day but not the next.

“This is harder than it’s ever been,” said Murphy, who has served as both county treasurer and auditor. He said when a glitch with the software gets fixed, the same problem tends to show up again later. He also said that some data is left off on reports, and that it’s difficult to get the kinks worked out.

He also noted that it’s unknown whether Hamer can achieve state certification. Without that certification, the state will not finalize the 2009 budgets and tax rates.

“There’s no certainty to it,” he said.

Kopp said there is so much pressure on his office to get the tax bills out on time that there appears to be momentum building to replace the Hamer system.

He said he’s not actually recommending the switch, but at the same time, “I’m not going to fight it.”

Kopp said he’s not certain how the transition to a new system would affect the tax bills for 2009. He earlier projected that this year’s bills would be ready in July or August, but that Low officials are estimating that they will need two months to transfer all the data. He said possibly, the bills could be done in August.

Kopp said he expects that the issue will be addressed at either the next meeting of the county commissioners on March 17 or at the next council meeting on March 24, or both.

“I don’t think a final decision has been made yet,” he said.

In the meantime, Murphy’s office is collecting tax payments for the property tax bills that went out last week and which are due March 13.

Murphy clarified that his office is willing to work out payment plans for taxpayers unable to pay all of their tax by the deadline, but that he is statutorily bound to impose a penalty for late payments. He said, however, that a payment plan could minimize the penalty; taxpayers face a 5 percent penalty if the full payment is not made within 30 days after the due date and 10 percent if the payment is delayed beyond 30 days.

Murphy said that not including the internal software problems, the tax collections are going well. He said many taxpayers have questions about their bills, and that he’s been averaging about 150 emails a day. “We cannot keep the phones answered” he said.

But overall, he said the taxpayers have been patient. “Things are going fine,” he said.

Posted 3/5/2009