Iowa County Recorders Association

Iowa County Recorders Association Electronic Services Project Team

Meeting Summary

November 6, 2003

Participants

Sue Vande Kamp, Story County Recorder Dave Erickson, Iowa State Bar Association Joan McCalmant, Linn County Recorder Dave Dettmann, Iowa State Bar Association Karen Benschoter, Kossuth County Recorder Matt Stanzel, R&D Industries, Inc. Marty Minnick, Calhoun County Recorder Don Van Oort, R&D Industries, Inc. Mary Miller, Adams County Recorder Alison Herman, Solutions Inc. Colleen Pearce, Cerro Gordo County Recorder Greg Davis, Solutions Inc. Dwight Reiland, Wright County Recorder Jeff Rodda, Polk County ICIT Joyce Jensen, Cass County Recorder Sandy Burke, Community Vitality Center Judy Lathrop, Warren County Recorder Scot Beery, ImageTek Deb Roberts, Floyd County Recorder Gary Mullen, ImageTek Linda Jacobsen, Shelby County Recorder Lisa Sinclair, Enterprise MidAmerica/Public Scott Williams, Marshall County Strategies Group Jim Rice, Cerro Gordo MIS Phil Dunshee, Enterprise MidAmerica/Public Kim Axtell, Title Guaranty Strategies Group

Welcome and Introductions Participants were welcomed and the meeting was called to order. It was noted that primary input gathering from the stakeholders has been completed and informational meetings with vendors is almost finished. At today’s meeting, we will be reviewing summaries from the Task Force Meetings of October 14th and 28th, the Project Team Meeting of October 7th and the Meeting with the Abstractors on October 31st. We will also review the revised project plan and hear from the Indexing Standards Committee.

Review Project Status  Stakeholder Discussions We intend to offer additional opportunities to hear from the Abstractors because most participants at the October 31st meeting were from Polk County. These individuals did not want to be responsible for all input from the group and noted differences in the abstractors’ roles in large and small counties. We will be able to communicate with them through the Land Title Association.

The general conclusions after meeting with various stakeholder groups are that they appreciate our outreach and believe we are generally on the right track with the project. The different groups may want to give us specific comments on details as they are specified, but they currently do not have major issues or concerns with the project.

In addition to the outreach efforts with stakeholders, communications will also be initiated with the Department of Administrative Services and the Department of Revenue as they may need to be involved in our project planning. No formal meetings have yet been scheduled with the surveyors, but they will be contacted and provided with an opportunity to meet if they so choose.

 Customer Requirements The substance of the stakeholder input will be put into Customer Requirement Tables which will essentially be the first rough draft of the project specifications.

1 It was noted that two areas of the project would be designed but not be fully implemented when the system is completed. 1. All counties will not be operating at the same level of technology due to differences in current platforms and systems. 2. Electronic recording will be designed and enabled, but not implemented pending revisions in policies and business processes.

Policy decisions concerning fees for the service have been deferred to a later date. However, the system will be designed to include a payment engine and other features required to generate fees. The participants agreed that the statements regarding fees from the October 28th summary were appropriate for presentation and discussion at the Fall Schoo. They are as follows:

 If fees are implemented, revenue should be directly associated with the cost of operating and maintaining the system, or for helping counties continue participation in the system.  If fees are implemented, the policy should apply to all jurisdictions (for all participating counties).  If fees are implemented, the policy should be integrated with security policies.  If fees are implemented, the primary financial burden should be placed on commercial or volume users.

A topic of discussion concerned mapping and the integration of information between the Auditors, Assessors and Recorders. One vendor has integrated their systems, and participants wanted to know how this project will attempt to do the same. They were also very interested in the county and state costs associated with such an undertaking. It was noted that this project has just begun to discuss such specifications and we will communicate with the affiliate organizations to discuss coordination and integration opportunities. Those in the mortgage industry are very interested in having the system provide access for information under jurisdictions other than the Recorder’s Office. This is a complexity that the Task Force will have to deal with.

Discussion of costs is premature at this time. Vendors are urged to understand the differences between start-up and future capabilities. The Project staff will be meeting with Bob Mulqueen, Iowa State Association of Counties, to discuss resource accessibility and budget mechanisms for managing the project.

 Current Vendor Research The Project staff has had discussions with Cott, R&D systems, ACS, Owens-King and Digital Business Solutions as well as Incode-CMS and Solutions. During theses meetings, it was clear that all vendors want to cooperate for the good of the system whether or not they are the chosen vendor. They are willing to align their systems so they will work with the new system. The RFP has not been the focus of the meetings nor have the meetings been very technical in nature. The meetings were held so that the Project staff could have a greater awareness of those vendors currently serving Recorders’ Offices and to understand their services better. Also, the Project staff wanted to know if there are technical issues ahead which could ultimately have an impact upon the vendors’ functions. These meetings have been very helpful and constructive and the Project staff appreciates the input from all the vendors. Further input is welcomed by the Project staff but all informal communications with vendors will cease on November 14, 2003.

Review Revised Project Plan The Project Team reviewed and discussed a revised project schedule as listed below.

November 19th Presentation to Association Members December 5th Complete and Issue RFP December 9th Task Force Meeting (tentative) This date is a fallback RFP issue date. December 12th Vendors Conference - Q & A (tentative) This will be a formal meeting with written and oral segments. January 9th RFP Response Deadline (tentative) This date will be finalized upon actual release of the RFP.

2 The RFP will contain following general sections:  Procedures and Schedule  Scope of Work  Legal Requirements, e.g. intellectual property, liability, etc.  Directions for Proposal Preparation and Submission  Technical Proposal  Cost Proposal  Request for Demonstrated Capabilities and References  Evaluation Criteria and Procedures

We will have a staged review which will require the vendors to demonstrate and/or prove their capabilities, financial stability and viability.

Our focus is on functionality of the system and not specific technical solutions. We do not yet know how technical the specifications will be however we do know that there will be certain technical standards with which the vendor(s) must comply.

Web Site Update

The web site for the project is http://iowalocalgov.org. Sue Vande Kamp will send notices to all Recorders. This web site will contain official statements such as meeting summaries but not drafts or works in progress. The RFP will be posted along with addendums and formal responses to vendor queries. The Notice of Intent to Award and the draft Customer Requirement Tables will also be posted.

Standards Update  Indexing Standards Committee Members from the committee were introduced; Joyce Jensen, Chairperson, Cass County Recorder, Judy Lathrop, Warren County Recorder, Deb Roberts, Floyd County Recorder and Linda Jacobsen, Shelby County Recorder. This committee had the task of standardizing the index by name, so that grantor and grantee names are entered in similar ways in order to make searching for documents easier for the user. Their new standards will be presented to the Association later this month and then posted on the project web site. The goal is to implement the new standards January 1, 2004. The committee is only setting standards for new records and it was noted that legacy documents would not be altered or changed in any way because they are public documents.

The Project staff suggested that the committee establish consistent standards for where and how names are indexed, and then the Resource Team will write specifications to that standard.

The committee is looking forward to having county and statewide web sites so that the new indexing standards can be reinforced. It was noted that many stakeholders will not search on a statewide level but some will search on a multi-county level. The idea of a “sounds like” search capability was mentioned and discussed. The Recorders agreed this would be very advantageous to the user, if feasible. It is anticipated that several levels of search criteria will be explored when the specifications are prepared.

 Disclaimers The committee strongly suggested placing a disclaimer on the web site alerting the user to the different ways to search for a name. It was noted that a caveat could be placed on the web site instructing the user of the search modes used before and after the new indexing standards were in place. This would go along with a disclaimer proclaiming the currency of information which may differ from county to county.

3 Generally, the committee discussed the possibility that features and search criteria may change over time, but the structure of existing data may need to be retained in previous formations. A framework for documenting and reporting versions of data elements and search capabilities may need to be established. One example of this in the discussion was referenced as normalization and meta data.

 SSN The Task Force wants the capability of redaction but the methodology for this has not yet been determined. Placing social security numbers on documents may not be a liability of the county, but it is for the person who prepares the document. Participants would like a common standard for redacted volumes.

 Table Driven Data Entry The committee suggested table driven data entry as a way to eliminate human error and to provide a convenience to the Recorder. This capability may be for non-human names only, but the participants viewed it as a very useful feature. It should be noted that the extent to which the proposed system can be used for data entry into indexes and graphic image databases has not yet been established.

Closing Working documents will be provided to Task Force Members for their review. Communications between members will occur via conference calls and instant messaging. The scheduled December 9th meeting will be confirmed later this month.

At this time, there is not another Project Team meeting scheduled. The next meeting will be determined at a later date.

Team members were thanked for their assistance and support, and the Project staff indicated that an update will be provided prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.