Overview
Digital Process Cuts Manual Labor in Half
New Castle County’s Assessment Department is responsible for the valuation and taxation of approximately 212,000 properties registered in Delaware’s most populous county. Approximately 7,500 of those are commercial, income-producing parcels, which require income and expense information to be collected as part of the calculations.
“We needed to figure out a better way to collect parcel reassessment data. Of course, a SimpliGov form and workflow made sense to capture this critical property information. As usual, it was easy to get started and flexible to deploy.”— Chief of Technology, New Castle County
Impact
- Over 50% reduction in manual labor and data entry
- Zero-paper access
- Fully compliant data preservation for audits and appeals
- Accelerated process for property owners and managers
Challenge
- Previous assessments were collected on long paper forms and attachments
- Manual calculations resulted in high error rate
- Forms required wet signatures and lengthy, manual database entry
- Process prevented the county from getting an accurate picture of its tax base
Solution
- Form logic renders only appropriate fields to minimize errors and improve the user experience
- Easy access through the county portal or QR code scan
- Integration with property records database instantly validates the correct name and lot number
- SimpliGov calculator computes expenses to eliminate errors
- Electronic signatures replaced wet signatures
- PDF of signed form mailed to applicant upon submission
Results
- Form and workflow up and running in weeks
- Over 50% reduction in manual data entry
- Full transparency and centralized data for appeal reviews
- Plans to expand assessments to other properties
New Castle County
Population
575,494
Use Case
Parcel Reassessments
Department
Assessment
Municipality
County