Minnesota Counties Computer Cooperative

Region 1 Meeting

C’Mon Inn Thief River Falls, MN

Monday May 9th, 2016

Lana Johnson, Xerox Rick Kelsven, Otter Tail Lisa Meredith, MnCCC

Kathy Jensen, Roseau Ron Pula, Beltrami Lori Johnson, Clay

Michelle Snyder, Polk Tanya Hockett, Becker Jamie Freeman, Clearwater

Martie Monsrud, Roseau Ginger Woodrum, Hubbard Allen Paulson, Clearwater

Marian Paulson, Kittson Abbie Lindegard, Kittson Steve Carlson, Becker

Robert Wagner, Polk Jennifer Herzberg, Pennington Judy Taves, Wadena

Kenneth Olson, Pennington Stuart Lien, Clearwater Bob Schmitz, Red Lake

Farley Grunig, Farley R. Grunig Consulting

Kenneth Olson, Region 1 Director, called the Region 1 meeting to order at 10:00 AM.

Introductions were made and Jennifer Herzberg volunteered to take minutes.

Rob Wagner, Polk County made a motion to approve the agenda as presented, seconded by Martie Monsrud, Roseau County. Motion carried.

Allen Paulson, Clearwater County, made a motion to approve the minutes from the April 30th, 2015, Region 1 meeting as written, seconded by Lori Johnson, Clay County. Motion carried.

Lisa Meredith gave an update of the MCCC Annual Conference scheduled from June 6th thru June 9th, 2016 at the Arrowwood Resort in Alexandria MN. There are proposed Bylaw changes and Joint Power agreements that will be discussed at the membership meeting. The theme this year is Lego and many events are scheduled with the awards dinner on Wednesday night. Ken Olson discussed the positions of Treasurer and IT Rep that are open on the MnCCC Board and will be filled by election at the annual meeting. Lisa stated that someone has expressed interest in the IT Rep position.

Ken Olson called for nominations for Region 1 Finance General Government Advisory Representative and an alternate.

Al Paulson, Clearwater County nominated Sandy Rittgers, Hubbard County as Region 1 Representative to Finance General Government Advisory Committee. Rob Wagner, Polk County made a motion that nominations cease and a unanimous ballot be cast for Sandy Rittgers, seconded by Ginger Woodrum, Hubbard County. Motion carried.

Lori Johnson, Clay County nominated Al Paulson, Clearwater County as Region 1 Alternate to the Finance General Government Advisory Committee. Martie Monsrud, Roseau County made a motion that nominations cease and a unanimous ballot be cast for Al Paulson, seconded by Rob Wagner, Polk County. Motion carried.

Ken Olson called for nominations for MnCCC Board Representative for a 2 year term. Al Paulson, Clearwater County nominated Ken Olson, Pennington County for MnCCC Board Representative. Bob Schmitz, Red Lake County made a motion that nominations cease and a unanimous ballot be cast for Ken Olson, seconded by Rob Wagner, Polk County.

Lisa Meredith reviewed the MnCCC Financial Report for 2015 and the proposed 2017 Budget. Action on the proposed 2017 Budget will be taken at the Annual Board Meeting in June. There is a proposal to raise the user group fees from $1400 to $1500 with the cap per county going from $7000 to $7500.

Lisa discussed the current Bylaws and Joint Powers’ Agreement. Changes to the Bylaws discussed included an amendment to change MCCC to MnCCC, remove email balloting and a change to allow the Past Chair upon vacancy to serve an additional term as Past Chair if willing.

Lisa Meredith presented the System Status Reports as follows:

CHS:  Transitioning into our 9 month contract year to place us back onto a calendar year cycle with M&S  User Group has decided to sunset the AS/400 platform as of 12/31/2018. All agencies still on the AS/400 platform need to convert to SQL Database before that date. This transition will save us costs of double programming, double release preparation and double testing, for programming changes impacting the database that we face now by supporting two platforms.  Continue to make progress on grant projects including: PCORI research and WRCC SIM Case Management (PCORI = Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute) (WRCC = Winona Regional Care Coordination) (SIM = Statewide Improvement Model)  Latest release in Beta testing with expected late May, Early June general release  Sandlot ceased operations and left the User Group with $26,776 in unpaid outstanding invoices for programming under contract. The Finance Committee and User Group are reviewing for next steps.

Corrections:  Juvenile Intrastate Transfer Capability - allows juveniles on probation to be transferred to another probation jurisdiction electronically.

 Rollout of Adult Intrastate Transfer Module Related Enhancements - refinements and enhancements to the electronic data transfer process as recommended by the CSTS Supervision Violation Committee.

 New Probation Violation Document Upload to MNCIS Feature - a joint project with the Minnesota Courts System, this feature allows agencies to submit Probation Violation documentation to the Courts directly from CSTS.

 Released a New "Smart Chronos" Feature - allows agencies to setup reportable data elements with an alternative case noting feature.

 CSTS/SharePoint Integration - completed a project integrating the CSTS document management system with Microsoft SharePoint.

 Court Information Summary Reporter (CISR) Updates - implemented recommended system enhancements and upgrades for Microsoft IE 11 and Edge.

 Received a Court Technology Grant - the Corrections User Group received a grant to implement the technology to receive MNCIS notifications. This will allow CSTS agencies to subscribe to automatic updates of selected MNCIS court data.

 JAIMS Enhancements - completed a project of all high priority system enhancements.

 JAIMS Accounts/Receivable Module - completed a project adding accounts receivable functionality into JAIMS to complement its billing system.

 JAIMS/CSTS Integration Study - working on a project to determine the functionality and impact of an integration of JAIMS into CSTS. Law Enforcement:

Meeting was held on March 29th with both CIS and BCA in attendance. BCA presented an update on the NIBRS project and CIS presented an update on the CIS products. Scott Kent moved to chair. Bryan Storms is now past chair; Kay Schultz moved to Vice Chair; and Shane Sheets was elected as the Recording Officer.

ISSG:  The Project Management group has been working on the lifecycle documents. The software project that accompanies it has been placed on hold while we reprioritize some of MnCCC's other needs.

 The Software Retention group has made good progress reviewing contracts and has established secure storage for source code or archived versions of software, depending on the specifics allowed by each contract.

 The Rules & Regulations Review Committee has been working on the ISSG "bylaws" with the aim of rewriting them. Special mention to Rich Meyer of Brown County for sorting through all of the minutes of old meetings to find rules changes that will be incorporated into the revised document.

 We continue to move the meetings around the state, as part of our outreach effort. Our hope is to get at least one meeting each year within reach of any county that wants to attend in person.

 As always, our liaisons have been active in the meetings of their respective user groups. Several of them go above and beyond that, and I thank them for making me look good.

County Attorneys:  Tech committee – we formed this group to handle technology issues that come up. This committee is a response to the forum we held last year to address concerns and improvements requested by users. The current vice-chair of the committee is the chair of the tech committee, and is a tech savvy person.

 Speed issue – the program sometimes bogs down and users have to shut down the program completely in order to bring it back up to normal speed. The tech committee has been trying to tackle this issue. They have contacted an outside source to see if that entity can make headway on this issue.  Liaison between MCAP’s, BCA and state courts. We have improved our relationships without outside agencies that have a direct impact on or by MCAP’s. If there are issues, they are dealt with directly and efficiently resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.

 Marketing. We have decided to implement some form of marketing to try to reach a wider audience. Also, if someone calls MnCCC, there are currently no written materials to provide them that describe how MCAP’s works. We want to have written materials to present to prospective users. Also, we are looking to reach out to other conferences (other than just the MCAA) to provide information regarding our software.

 Grants. We are looking into forming a subcommittee whose express function is to seek out and pursue grant opportunities.

 Networking. We are looking to improve communication between users, such that, they feel encouraged to join committees or be involved in testing. Several users have expressed an interest in allowing prospective users to come to their location and see MCAP’s in action. This may also be a part of our marketing strategy.

Xerox Tax:  The Xerox Tax Advisory Committee worked hard during the past year to tie up loose ends and assist in keeping the momentum of the new Tax system going.

 After several reviews by the committee members, we have finished what we believe to be a comprehensive and adequate revision of the rules and regulations. This version will be brought before the full user group meeting at the June conference for approval. As part of this revision, two new sub-committees were created; the Training Committee and the Beta Testing Committee. If the Rules and Regulations are approved, TAC will be looking for volunteers to participate in these committees.

 Members of TAC also participated in meetings to discuss challenges that leaders of the new tax system were facing. We were able to work through those challenges and the committee members continue to provide feedback on the development of the different modules of the new system.

 The Xerox Tax Advisory Committee continues to look for volunteers to participate in the committee. It is a great way to learn even more about the Xerox Tax system and meet great people.

Thomson Reuters Tax:  The Thomson Reuters Tax Advisory Committee (TAC) meets the first Thursday of the month. Attendance is in person or via conference call and all Aumentum system users are encouraged to attend, either in person or by phone.  At the June MCCC conference the user group will be voting in a new Vice Chair as well as a new Recording Officer due to the past Recording Officer accepting a position with Dakota County. Dana Anderson, the chair of the training committee, has some great training sessions lined up for the conference this year as well.  The test committee has been actively working through issues in version 10, which is slated to be rolled out to the counties this summer. Minnesota specific special assessment and fiscal disparity programming was recently released and is being tested. The committee meets via conference call every Monday morning to discuss progress and problems with each other and Thomson Reuter staff.  The contract committee is currently in negotiations for the new maintenance and support contract and hopes to have a final draft in place before the June conference for presentation to the entire user group. The current contract expires at the end of 2015.  In September 2014, the advisory board members attended the Thomson Reuter’s user conference in New Orleans. We met with VP of product development Brian Cunningham and discussed ways to more efficiently handle programming changes before they become issues. That led to increased involvement by Thomson Reuter staff to better understand complicated legislative programming changes. There were still bumps in the road but they weren’t as significant as the previous year.

CAMA:  Testing the ECRV enhancement.  Rita Treml retired this past year so Michelle Moen is acting Chair until the June conference. Jennifer Flicek is now the new Vice-Chair and Anne Grunert was elected to the vacant committee member position. Anne was asked to serve as thcording Officer beginning with the May 2016 meeting..  The committee was seeking someone to replace Rita on the Commercial/Industrial committee and Anne Grunert volunteered.  The PRISM project is still underway with Jackson and Winona counties beta testing.  PTM design team continues to work with Xerox on the new product LRMS 10X. It was noted that at the June conference, Xerox will have demos on the product so far. Farley had hoped that there would be terminals available for “hands-on” look to the product. There have been Webex demos performed by Xerox.  We will have a session on Monday at the June conference. Xerox will provide a demo and then we will have a discussion on Assessor’s Best Practices covering a couple topics.  The CAMA committee continues to have conversations regarding the Spatialist product and incorporating that product with the new LRMS 10X project. The thought is to use Spatialist in place of programing for Market Approach.  The Joint Powers agreement should be coming out and counties will need to get those approved by the County Boards.  MCAST continues to improve and is used as a tool for Assessors.

PIUG:  The meeting schedule was revised to allow for more meetings, but less travel. With the frequency of meetings improved, enhancement requests are not idle nearly as long.

 Approved multiple enhancements to the Beacon website o Appraiser contact information o Alternate parcel owner mailing list

 Working with Schneider for a GIS 101 course  Contract Amendments o MnCCC – Schneider o MnCCC – Pictometry

 Working to expand membership in the group as each member of the user group will receive a 10% discount from Schneider once we reach 30 members.

F&GG:  Finance and General Government for the past year has started contact negotiations with Xerox for Paymate, Treasures Financial, Cash Register and Capital Assets. Representatives from Xerox met with the contact committee and are open to multiple year contacts, with hosting as options to each product.

 We have also started revising the Rules and Regulations for our user group.  Optimum Solutions: o Clay and Isanti County converted to Windows Suite o Watonwan County joined group o Windows version available o Optimum Time & Attendance & RT Vision import into Windows Suite o Comp time custom for MN counties o PERA, MCIT, work comp, IFSpi, JE interface for MN Counties

JIC:  Contract negotiations were finalized with Trimin. Went from having multiple contracts with individual counties to one contract between JIC member counties and Trimin. A new fee schedule was also developed and adopted.  The Training Committee put together 2 year end training sessions for counties. It was the first time that has been done in a few years. Plan is to go forward and keep holding them, as many counties think they are beneficial.  The Training Committee has also been working on providing other misc. training opportunities to the counties throughout the year. Some will be held as webinars and some will be face to face. As a part of these trainings, the committee is looking for "Super Users" - individuals that have knowledge to share regarding the training topic.  Golden Wiki - the hosting platform has been moved to Trimin. The next steps with Golden Wiki is to decide who and how it should be updated. Many counties still find it beneficial as a training tool for new staff and want to continue to use it.  Many items on the Enhancement list were discussed and prioritized. The Best Practices/Enhancement Committee is looking at many items to see if they should go forward or not.

Tax Court User Group:

1. Determine pricing with SCOMAR

2. Determine pricing with MCCC membership for counties

3. Tax Court User Group meeting at MCCC conference June 7th. 4. Demo of SCOMAR product.

5. Consider input from Counties.

6. Where do we go from here?

7. Gather experts for sharing of resources (Attorneys/Appraisers)

8. Work with larger counties to ensure that Tax Court case data is loaded to the new system.

9. Customize product if need be.

10. Roll out new product.

Discussion was held on if the region meetings are beneficial and whether they should be discontinued and user group elections moved to conference. A reason for discontinuing the region meetings is that there is less attendance at them. Michelle Snyder, Polk County stated she likes the region meetings as it is one of the only opportunities to see neighboring counties. Martie Monsrud, Roseau County said it should be reiterated to other counties how important attendance is.

No other business was discussed, a motion was made by Al Paulson, Clearwater County to adjourn, seconded by Michelle Snyder, Polk County. Motion carried.

Respectfully submitted,

Jennifer Herzberg

Region 1

Pennington County Deputy Auditor/Treasurer-Computer Supervisor

The following is a submission by Farley R. Grunig, MnCCC Project Manager for the MnCCC/Xerox PTM LRMS 10x Project prepared for the 2016 MnCCC Region Meetings.

MnCCC/Xerox PTM (LRMS 10s) Project

Written as of April 18, 2016

The past year has been very eventful for the PTM Project. A year ago the user group was contemplating if there was a future for the project. Today significant progress is being seen. I won’t dwell on what has happened during the past year. I try to keep everyone who is interested in the project informed. Instead this report is going to focus on where we are at and the future.

The development phase of the original Project Plan was built around what Xerox called 3 Iterations. Each Iteration included a certain portion of the entire project functionality. The programming of Iteration 1 has been completed and it has been released to Hennepin County for testing. I have been in contact with Hennepin and they are basically pleased with the testing results. Xerox is presently developing Iteration 2. The programming originally planned for Iteration 2 has changed. This is due to Xerox writing a new Project Plan. The new Plan has more Iterations and this allowed some of the functionality originally scheduled for Iteration 2 to be moved to later Iterations. The new plan includes the same amount of work as the old but the new plan has more Iterations to allow the work to be broken in to smaller segments. It also allows Xerox to focus on the functionality required by both Hennepin and MnCCC first and then in the final Iteration to finish up the functionality required by MnCCC but not required by Hennepin.

I mentioned that Hennepin is testing. I am sure at least some of you are wondering why MnCCC is not. It was an MnCCC decision, not a Xerox decision, to delay MnCCC testing until additional functionality is available. Every MnCCC user is busy. You don’t have time to test in an inefficient manner. To maximize the impact of the time you spend testing the decision was made to delay testing until the system included enough components to test a sequence of functionalities. Plus very little reporting was available in Iteration 1. Testing without the ability to check results isn’t adequate testing. When Iteration 2 is available the Steering Committee will again visit the topic of testing and decide if the time is appropriate to begin.

Xerox has gotten back to providing the regularly scheduled demos. It appears that they will be occurring about every 6th week. Axiomatic has been given the responsibility to do the demos with Xerox providing technical assistance during the demo if needed. The demos will also be available for viewing at a later date if someone is so inclined. The first demo under this new format was held April18th and so far all comments I have received have been positive.

Xerox has also hired Axiomatic to do usability testing. This is scripted testing. What that means is that Axiomatic tells the user to perform a task. The user is given little or no instruction. Axiomatic observes to see what aspects of the system are intuitive and also where the users struggle. At the end of the test the users complete a feedback questionnaire. The results are discussed with Xerox to determine how the system should be refined to make it more user friendly. So far two test scripts have been utilized. A large number of users have had the opportunity to test Script 1. Script 2 has been tested by 4 Lead Testers and also 7 additional testers. I have spoken with upper management at Xerox and encouraged them to continue this process throughout the development of the system. They appear receptive.

The review of the draft revised BAA documents continues. It is a time consuming task. Xerox has given Axiomatic the job of trying to speed up the process. I have discussed several possible changes with Axiomatic and I expect that as we move in to Iteration 3 documents that some of these changes will be given a try. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review any of the documents and send comments. Your efforts are much appreciated.

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that the project will not be done by the date originally planned. The project was on a tight timeline from the start. When development was put on hold for a period of months while Xerox determined the best way forward, it was pretty obvious that it would be impossible to make up all of the lost time. As of this writing the Steering Committee has not reviewed Xerox’s new Project Plan. A meeting to discuss the Plan is scheduled for April 20th. Xerox has given the Steering Committee some high level indications of changes in delivery dates. The last dates shared indicated a delay of under a year. The Steering Committee has made it clear to Xerox that changing the dates will only occur once. The MnCCC wants firm dates that will be met. At the annual conference I expect Xerox will be presenting the new plan to the full user group and the new dates will be discussed in detail.

Denise McCalla has chaired the Tax Group portion of the project since the start. Denise is retiring. Tammi Vaith has served on the Tax Group from the start of the project. The Steering Committee elected Tammi as the new chair of the Tax Group. The Steering Committee thanks Denise for her years of hard work on the Committee and dedication to trying to get this project done and done right.

Denise’s resignation created a vacancy on the Tax Group portion of the Steering Committee. As of this writing the Steering Committee has not elected anyone to fill this position but anticipate doing so at their May 3, 2016, meeting.

Lisa Kramer has served on the Super Committee portion of the Steering Committee since the start of the project. As with all our members, their responsibilities to their county must come first. In Lisa’s case her county work load has grown to the point where she needed to resign from the Super Committee. The Steering Committee elected John Thompson to replace Lisa. The Steering Committee thanks Lisa for all her effort and hard work on the project and hopes that in the future Lisa will again have time to participate in other aspects of the project. If you have any questions or if you aren’t getting all the emails that you would like regarding the project, please contact me. My email address is [email protected]. My telephone number is 507-381-9947. My mailing address is 27976 County Road 45, Bingham Lake, MN, 56118.