There are seven major IT projects Sacramento County’s Technology Department is currently focused on, county CIO Rami Zakaria said during this week's Techwire Industry Briefing. Here's a summary of each of them.
1. Budget System — Zakaria led the development of the current budgeting system, which many believe is “easy to use,” but the system is almost two decades old. It currently costs $20,000 a year to support it, and replacing it could cost $2 million to replace and $400,000 a year to run. The estimated timeline for this project has it completed within 18 months.
2. Property Tax System — The system was written in-house to reflect the county’s tax code. It was written almost 35 years ago in COBOL and has never missed a deadline, Zakaria said. Residents can now make online payments, and search by an address or tax ID. Started more than 10 years ago, the system now collects $200 million to $300 million online annually.
3. Criminal Justice Information System — The system is integrated between Sheriff’s computers, intake operators and courtrooms. The District Attorney, County Probation and the Public Defender all work on the same system. The county is waiting and looking for vendors while the state of California updates its own system.
4. Public Safety Radio Communication System — About $17 million has been budgeted over five years for this project. It includes 13,000 regional primary participants and 4,000 secondary participants, and CDCR and CHP interoperability. It's the first interoperable system in the state, Zakaria said. The new system must work with the suite of standards now required across North America, P25. Abiding by these standards will make the system interoperable with federal, state and local authorities besides just the county.
5. County Clerk Recording and Cashiering Replacement — All county records, including property purchases and birth certificates, are managed within this system.
6. Voting System Replacement — Officials have put replacing this system on an expedited time frame with Requests for Proposals being written within this fiscal year and modernization complete within one more year.
7. Voice over Internet Protocol Telephone System — The infrastructure will be upgraded within 2018. One million dollars has been budgeted to convert 26,000 blocks of county phone numbers to voice over Internet protocol telephone systems.
Most contracts for projects are five years long and require Request for Proposals.
“We have a very ambitious agenda for the next five, seven years or so. If you look at those systems, I think one of those systems is enough to keep an IT department busy for five years or so,” Zakaria said of the technology plan.
