Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the It Modernization topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Sampson County approves $441,000 Tyler systems modernization project to unify permits, utilities and finance
Summary
Commissioners approved a one‑time $441,000 implementation for a countywide Tyler Technologies enterprise ecosystem to unify permitting, utility billing, tax and finance systems; staff estimated $140,000 annual net savings and a multi‑year payback and said work would begin after contracting and implementation scheduling.
Sampson County commissioners voted to proceed with a countywide effort to modernize core government software and payments by adopting an implementation plan to integrate Tyler Technologies products across permitting, utilities, tax and finance.
Brandon Wiggins, the county’s special projects manager, said the project will complete the county’s existing Tyler ecosystem and reduce manual reconciliation across departments. "We are fundamentally transforming the way we transfer departments that touch a lot of people," Wiggins said, framing the work as an infrastructure investment rather than a routine IT purchase. Finance Director Melissa Burton told commissioners the current patchwork of systems forces extensive manual data entry and reconciliation and that unification would improve reporting speed and accuracy.
Staff presented a financial outline showing a $441,000 one‑time implementation cost, with approximately $160,000 charged to the Water Fund and $281,000 drawn from fund balance. They estimated new annual operating costs of roughly $90,000 but projected net annual savings of about $140,000 compared with current arrangements, leading staff to conclude the investment could pay for itself within about three years.
Key components described included consolidating two existing Munis ERP instances into one, deploying Tyler’s utility module to automate water customer billing, implementing Tyler Enterprise Permitting and Licensing (EPL) to replace disparate permitting systems, and centralizing payment processing so residents can pay multiple county fees in one place. Wiggins said the county already uses several Tyler products and that the remaining pieces represent roughly "the last 25% to go full circle."
Commissioners asked about vendor stability, hardware and training. Wiggins said Tyler is a large publicly traded vendor with long experience in government software and that most data would be hosted by Tyler in the cloud; hardware costs for point‑of‑sale terminals were estimated at roughly $60,000 as a one‑time purchase. The board emphasized cross‑departmental training and succession planning; Commissioner [name on record] asked that training not be compartmentalized and that multiple staff from each department receive instruction.
County Manager Vann confirmed the modernization is his recommendation. After questions about timeline and implementation risk, a motion to proceed and appropriate the money passed. Officials estimated a realistic go‑live timeframe in spring 2027, subject to scheduling with Tyler and staged implementation. The board asked staff to return with contracting details, phased implementation milestones and baseline performance metrics to measure the expected efficiency gains.
Next steps: enter contracting with Tyler, finalize implementation schedule and present a detailed training and performance‑measurement plan to the board.
