LOS ANGELES — Assessor Jeff Prang and Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath, 3rd District, celebrated the launch of the assessor’s technology modernization project, a technological operating system that ushers the assessor’s office into the digital era.
This milestone signifies the official decommissioning of the legacy mainframe and the full activation of a cloud-based technology platform that is set to handle the 2025 assessment roll without reliance on outdated legacy technology.
The transition was planned to avoid the pitfalls of previous major public system rollouts. Unlike the “Big Bang” approach — where new systems are launched all at once, often resulting in catastrophic failures and cost overruns — the new assessor system employed a more measured, incremental and agile development methodology. Assessor Prang implemented a phased approach, one in which new legislation, changes in business practice, and innovations in technology could be accounted for as the system was developed.
The Assessor’s Modernization Project or AMP is a state-of-the-art assessment system. The legacy mainframe system it replaces constituted 40+ years of outdated green screen technology. Previously, the county’s 2.4 million real property assessments were maintained in paper files and microfiche, and were processed manually. Every information request had to be researched by hand; a slow and all-consuming process and often required an in-person visit to one of the assessor’s six district offices by a member of the public seeking answers.
Teaming up with Oracle, AMP created the software over five phases to replace and digitize 40 years of paper-based filing and move it to a cloud-based system.
AMP will benefit county residents by using this new technology for a public assessor portal, where users can easily search for property on their own on the assessor’s website. In contrast to the green-screen, the public portal provides a user-friendly search engine for a larger field of data for all property parcels. The user can access the data anywhere at any time on a desktop computer or a mobile device connected to the 2.4 million digital assessments.
Also, the integration of advanced mapping and visual digital systems allows for the user to see the property or parcel in question in more ways than the old legacy system. Also, staff can do the same thing, access information anywhere, all in one place, and can take electronic documents in the field.
Moreover, and perhaps most important, the public doesn’t have to travel for information anymore as it is now at their fingertips through a desktop or mobile device 24/7. There is significantly more data available than with the paper files. The public can conduct and complete transactions including required forms with electronic signatures from any desktop or mobile device. The system has an AI Assessor Chatbot ready to provide further assistance;; (type in a question and the answer is made available.)
Data can be accessed electronically, and staff can access information quicker and process more assessments thoroughly and accurately. There are redundancies built into the system ensuring accuracy. Each step requires a supervisor’s review and check before the system allows the user to move to the next level of completion for a more secure process.