Minnesota Counties Computer Cooperative 100 Empire Drive, Suite 201 Phone (651) 917-6969 St Paul MN 55103-1845 Fax (651) 917 6989 Website: mnccc.org Thomson Reuters (GRM) Aumentum Tax User Group Meeting Minutes Thursday November 6 th, 2014 Attendee County or Organization In Person/Phone Tiffany Ahearn Blue Earth County Phone Brian Frederick Blue Earth County Phone Lisa Malinski Blue Earth County Phone Stacy Thorson Blue Earth County Phone Crystal Campos Carver County Phone Angie Johnson Carver County Phone Kim Keiser CarverCounty Phone Sharon Mitchell Carver County Phone Dennis Freed Chisago County Phone Michael Nelson ChisagoCounty Phone Cheryl Grover Clearwater County Phone Charlene Olson Clearwater County Phone Bill Sparks Department of Revenue Phone Deb Volkert Department of Revenue Phone Kelsey Lakeberg Isanti County Phone Stacy Novak Lake of the Woods County Phone Lisa Meredith MCCC Phone Joe Heying Morrison County Phone Amanda Lee Mower County Phone Michelle Shoop Mower County Phone Michelle Snyder Polk County Phone Jill Gontarek RamseyCounty Phone Dick Sivanich Ramsey County Phone Michael Johnson Rice County Phone Kathy Jenson Roseau County Phone Martie Monsrud Roseau County Phone Kris Lage Scott County Phone Vikki Dullinger Stearns County Phone Janet Kaschmitter Stearns County Phone Sharon Robinson Stearns County Phone Andrew Berg Thomson Reuters Phone Elaine Carter Thomson Reuters Phone John Ritchie ThomsonReuters Phone Latonia Vance ThomsonReuters Phone Joyce Larson Washington County Phone Jody Moran WashingtonCounty Phone Call to Order: Chairperson Jill Gontarek called the meeting to order at 9:30 am. Introductions/Roll Call: All attendees introduced themselves as shown above. Approve Agenda: Martie Monsrud, Roseau County, made a motion to approve the agenda, seconded by Jody Moran, Washington County. Motion carried. Approval of Minutes: Martie Monsrud, Roseau County made a motion to approve the minutes from October 2nd, 2014, seconded by Michael Johnson, Rice County. Motion carried.
DOR Update Bill Sparks, MDOR, said that the Department of Revenue is still in the process of wrapping up all of the lingering issues with the Supplemental Agricultural Credit. Most counties have been finalized at this point. The Property Tax levy Report will go out in two weeks and will be due at the end of the week. Deb Volkert, MDOR, informed the group that both Amanda and Drew Eines are leaving MDOR. The ECRV project is done and someone from MDOR will fill in for Drew. He did mention that the office would be closed next Tuesday for Veteran s Day. Deb mentioned that next week a newsletter would be going out to the counties regarding the PRISM project and clarifications on vendor testing. She mentioned that no questions have come in writing via the Prism website. Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County, informed the group that the new descriptions for the state assessed properties will include some new class codes. This will require some working with Thomson Reuters to update the change order for PRISM. Martie Monsrud, Roseau County, inquired of MDOR about questions received by taxpayers for the Supplemental Agricultural Credit. This was specific to when taxpayers return checks to MDOR if they were written in the wrong name (i.e. deceased spouse, life estate, etc ), and inquired as to whose responsibility it would be to send an updated check (County or MDOR). Bill said that at this point, the counties would be remitting any corrections and requesting reimbursement from MDOR via the Abstract of Tax Lists in April 2015. Thomson Reuters Update Andrew Berg, Thomson Reuters, introduced the new customer coordinator position that has been implemented by Thomson Reuters to help guide both new customers facing major implementations, and existing customers dealing with significant changes to their current version. Jon Ritchie, Thomson Reuters, will fill this revised role for our consortium of counties. John gave an overview of the release schedule for our 10.03 release. He talked about the configuration of internal dates that involves Thomson Reuters upgrading several links for them to work on internally. They have a design plan completed (in review stage) for the 08.6.12 special assessments in order to move them to version 10. He mentioned there are a lot of hardware and software implications that MN counties need to be aware of before converting to version 10. He also mentioned that there will be some training documents available for special assessment testing in version 10. He assured the group that there will be extensive internal regression testing happening through the end of December at Thomson Reuters regarding the aforementioned changes. When that internal testing is complete, any engineering maintenance that is required will be completed at that time. Kris Lage, Scott County, voiced her concerns over the implementation timeframe (March 2015) since we will be in the middle of calculating taxes and value notices. Several members on the call shared her sentiments. She also asked if we would have dedicated engineers throughout this process that would be available to field questions and concerns that may arise from results found in testing. Jon said that there has been a block of hours dedicated to this task, however, he didn t specify if engineering would work with us directly. Martie Monsrud, Roseau County, asked a question about #27 (on the requirements document) and wanted clarification on the hardware implications to counties prior to conversion. Andrew said he was waiting for a more detailed list from Gary Paldan, Thomson Reuters, and would follow up with him and share that with the group when the information became available to him. These hardware changes would need to be in place by January 2015.
Andrew mentioned that he does not have an exact count on remaining hours for enhanced maintenance, however, any hours that are not utilized this year, would be rolled over to next year. Charlene Olson, Clearwater County, asked if Andrew was still looking into egov information so that she could get a webinar planned by the end of the year. Andrew was hoping to piggy back that webinar with a company s go live session, but that likely would not be possible by the end of the year. Charlene clarified that this would pertain to a couple of issues that Clearwater County worked through internally that she would like to share with the group. Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County, asked Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters, about moving TFS #129011 to the February patch per agreement from Isanti County. Latonia confirmed that it had been moved. Jill also asked Kris if TFS #129011 could move to February as well. Latonia said that as of now it is actually scheduled for December, and wanted to know if she could move it back to February. Jill asked Latonia if she could highlight what items are to be included in the patch release today. Per Latonia, items to be included in today s patch are: Fix to the Distribution Rule Allocation report submitted by Morrison County Error on no combinations of class code modifier on low income housing submitted my Morrison County Ag Credit Calculation for 2014 TNT Excessive tax roll processing time submitted by Ramsey County Charlene asked about the 2A and 2B homestead configuration and some due dates erroneously being listed as November 15 th opposed to October 15 th. She also mentioned that she submitted a case about trying to write off tax balance by revenue object and has not heard anything back on her case submittal from a couple of weeks ago. Latonia mentioned that they have one new customer in Iowa and in Colorado, so the Midwest group is currently stretched to the limit at the moment. She mentioned that the East Coast team is trying to shoulder some of the burdens taken on by the Midwest team. Joyce Larson, Washington County, asked Latonia about a case submitted on some duplicate homesteads from Washington County. Latonia did see that it was assigned at this point and asked for a due date. Joyce said that it needed to be done by the end of the year. There is currently no workaround for this process as there would be no way to find them other than the duplicate homestead list. Kris asked Latonia if Thomson Reuters would be hiring additional staff to compensate for the two additional customers. Andrew and Latonia said this was a temporary situation and the East Coast team s support would be adequate to get them through the implementation of the two customers. Andrew also reiterated that these are not new customers in terms of new sales, but existing contracts for customers that are just going live and moving to support. Stacy Thorson, Blue Earth County, asked Latonia about CASE #146797 for a data fix that they are waiting on. She also inquired of CASE #130106 for a legal party change in ACH error. Latonia was unsure of the current status, but will follow up.
Committee Reports Legislative Committee Dennis Freed said that all change orders are submitted other than for the 2015 tax statement. That particular change order should be in shortly after he follows up with Joanne Helm, Washington County. Training Committee Stacy Novak, Lake of the Woods County, was not able to join the call, but Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County, said that she has put together a process guide for delinquent letters and notices using only Aumentum that will be released through RSVP in the near future. Enhancement Committee Lisa Malinski, Blue Earth County, mentioned that there are currently four outstanding issues that the group has received projected hours on. She reiterated that the receipt issue (should the bid be accepted) has been put off to January 2015 for the earliest completion date per Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters. The lender report came in at a projection of 100 hours, and Morrison County decided that it was not worth pursuing in lieu of the recent custom report from Washington County. Joe Heying, Morrison County, mentioned that he only asked for 4 additional data fields to be added to the report and didn t understand how it could possibly take 100 hours to accommodate the request. The bid was rejected. The projection we received back to be able to create an unbalanced ACH file was 192 hours. Lisa said that this was concerning from her standpoint as the Blue Earth County IT team was able to get a working file in under 20 hours which included testing. Lisa Meredith, MCCC, asked Andrew Berg, Thomson Reuters, if he could work with us to help us understand where the 192 hours comes from. Andrew will attempt to get a more comprehensive breakdown of the cost. Lisa mentioned that the Property Tax Reminder Notice report came up a couple of months ago TFS #103009. Essentially, Mower County wants to be able to run this report and be able to certify it to the abstract company opposed to creating a custom document that contains most of the same information. The question was posed to Mike Nelson, Chisago County, if this could be accomplished via a custom report that could be completed. Mike will look into it. Lisa asked Andrew Berg if the consortium should be making changes to the current version or if he suggested we wait until version 10. Andrew mentioned that we could still make changes if we thought they were necessary, but it would be best not to waste our purchased hours on something that may already be implemented in version 10. Lisa mentioned that they would like to get an estimate of hours to make changes to the display length of legal descriptions in four different Assessment modules. After additional explanation, Martie Monsrud, Roseau County made a motion to get an estimate of hours from Thomson Reuters to complete this task. Jody Moran, Washington County, seconded. Motion Carried. Additionally, Lisa requested to get estimate of hours for having the effective date pulled into the revenue object maintenance screen. Martie Monsrud, Roseau County made a motion to get an estimate of hours from Thomson Reuters to complete this task. Michael Johnson, Rice County, seconded. Motion Carried. Mike Nelson asked for clarity as to whether these estimates would apply to version 8 or version 10. It was clarified by the committee that we could wait until version 10 to implement these changes in all cases.
Lisa mentioned that they are still looking for additional committee members for those that are willing. Typically, meetings are held the last Thursday in the month. The next meeting will be Tuesday, December 2 nd due to the thanksgiving holiday. Testing Committee No report was given. CollectMax Committee No report was given. ISSG Liaison Report Mike Nelson, Chisago County, said that he has been doing some work for Morrison County to get their interface to GIS corrected. This seems to be working well at this point. He also mentioned that at the group s committee meeting yesterday, they were testing out Microsoft Lync as a possible meeting option. The feedback from the people that were on the call was favorable. The ability to display the agenda on the screen as well as additional functionality may make this a valid option for future MCCC meetings. Custom Report Committee Mike Nelson, Chisago County, mentioned that the committee s first meeting should take place next week. Currently, the group has six members, and is still looking for willing participants. MCCC Liaison Committee Dennis Freed, Chisago County, said that the committee would be working on revising the mission statement for MCCC. There is also the potential of a new User Group Case Works which is a social services group. Contract Committee Lisa Meredith, MCCC, mentioned that the committee requested a rough drafted contract to review, but until it is received, there is not much else to disclose. A comprehensive review of the draft will take place once it is received to be sure it includes all pertinent talking points from our discussions with Thomson Reuters. Other Items of Concern TFS LISTING Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County, mentioned that all of the High Priority items are scheduled for a patch other than the Safe At Home item that she is waiting for feedback on from Becker County. Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters, mentioned that they are still not looking at Medium items at this point, and are focusing on High and Critical items. Kris Lage, Scott County, asked for clarification on when the TIF Excess fix would be coming. Latonia revealed that it was wrapped into the February 2015 patch with all of the other Abstract information. It was determined that February would be unacceptable to get this fix since it is the middle of tax calculation and there would not be adequate time for testing. Latonia will be setting up a conference call to make sure we are all on the same page on the content of the fix. Adjournment A motion to adjourn was made by Michael Johnson, Rice County and seconded by Jody Moran, Washington County. Motion carried.
Action Items Summary from 11/6/2014 The individuals and items listed below require follow up and status updates on 12/4/2014. Deb Volkert, MDOR, and Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County: Working with Thomson Reuters to update the Change Order for the PRISM project in order to accommodate new class codes for state assessed property. John Ritchie, Thomson Reuters: Extensive Internal Regression Testing and engineering maintenance update for Special Assessments in 10.03. Additional clarification on whether engineering would work with us directly through the testing and implementation. Andrew Berg, Thomson Reuters: Follow up with the group after receiving a more detailed listing from Gary Paldan for hardware implications that must be in place by January 1 st. Andrew Berg, Thomson Reuters: Count of remaining hours for enhanced maintenance, and planning an egov webinar that Charlene Olson, Clearwater County, is willing to host. Charlene Olson, Clearwater County, and Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters: Charlene is was waiting to hear back on a case submittal from mid October regarding 2A and 2B homestead configuration and due dates. Joyce Larson, Washington County, and Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters: Case submitted on duplicated homesteads by Washington County. Has it been assigned? Will it be completed by the end of the year? Stacy Thorson, Blue Earth County, and Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters: Blue Earth County is waiting on a datafix for Case # 130106. Latonia was unsure of status. Lisa Malinski, Blue Earth County: Status update on estimates for approved bids. Mike Nelson, Chisago County: Custom Report regarding TFS#103009 from Mower County. Jill Gontarek, Ramsey County: Feedback from Becker County on Safe at Home. Latonia Vance, Thomson Reuters: Updated timeline for implementing a fix to TIF Excess prior to Tax Calc. Respectfully Submitted by Michael Johnson, Rice County. mijohnson@co.rice.mn.us 507 332 6135