Village board reviews phased permit and complaints software; trustees signal consensus to pursue vendor contract

The village Board discussed a phased upgrade to its permitting and community-portal software that staff said would allow citizens to apply online, let staff track inspections from mobile devices, and produce monthly complaint and permitting reports.

The discussion centered on Phase 1, which the tech committee recommended as a field-inspection module with a one-time implementation cost the presenter described as about $6,200 and an annual fee of about $3,000. The presenter said staff would return to the vendor for a contract that the village attorney should review.

Board members and residents said the software could improve traceability from an incoming complaint through follow-up and enforcement, reduce staff office trips by enabling mobile field work, and centralize historical records. "We would own all of this data, but we still can be able to own all of this data and everybody here at the village hall can log in and actually see what's happening on their single property," the presenter said. Janice, a meeting participant, summarized the cost picture as "It's a $100,000 approximately spent over time," and pressed staff to distinguish one-time (NRC) and recurring costs.

Staff described features seen in demos: online permit payment and submission, complaint intake with configurable required fields, role-based visibility for citizen views, and reportable lifecycles that show processing status. The presenter said the vendor demonstrated the ability to configure whether complainant names are visible and to require specific fields when a complaint is to be accepted into the work queue: "We have the ability to set those in the software," he said, adding that training and configuration would be required to match village policy.

Trustees and residents raised several policy and implementation issues: whether anonymous complaints would be accepted, how many office tasks would be eliminated, whether invoices and Accounts Payable entries would be stored with scanned backup documents, and server-connection limits tied to unlimited-user licensing. On the latter, staff said the vendor advertises "unlimited users" but warned that SQL Server connection limits may require an additional server upgrade if usage grows.

On enforcement and recordkeeping, a participant noted an apparent gap between line-item charges visible in the current finance screens and scanned invoice backups. "You should not be able to add an invoice to accounts payable [without] a scan of that invoice," a participant said, and the presenter agreed the software has the capability but emphasized policies and staff practice determine whether the scan is required.

Board members asked staff to follow up with the vendor for: (1) a vendor cost breakdown separating one-time and recurring fees; (2) documentation or calculators that estimate productivity or personnel savings from wider rollout; (3) a proposed contract for attorney review; and (4) a scope/cost estimate for Phase 2 (workflow modules and mobile-app rollout) if Phase 1 performs as expected. After discussion, the chair asked for a show of hands on moving forward with drafting a contract; several hands were raised and the presenter said the group had consensus to proceed to the next step.

The discussion closed with staff saying they would return with a contract draft and additional cost and implementation detail for the board to review.

Implementation details and next steps: the board did not adopt any ordinance or formal resolution tonight; it provided direction for staff follow-up and asked for attorney review of the vendor contract before final approval.