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Sumner County assessor: Patriot/Catalis data only readable with paid access; $6,000 one-time export proposed
Summary
Assessor John Hurt told the Legislative Committee that county Patriot property data sits in a SQL database that Catalis can make accessible only through a read-only cloud subscription at $37,500/year; he proposed a one-time $6,000 PDF export as a taxpayer-minded alternative and flagged potential legal follow-up if the county declines.
Assessor of Property John Hurt told the Sumner County Legislative Committee on March 6 that Patriot property records on a county server currently require Catalis software access and that Catalis offered read-only cloud access for $37,500 per year. Hurt said he had proposed a lower-cost alternative: Catalis could produce PDFs of all property record cards for a one-time charge of $6,000, which he planned to request from the county budget if the committee approved pursuing that route.
Hurt wrote in email correspondence included in the record that "I do not think this reoccurring cost is a good use of taxpayer dollars" and described past attempts to obtain the data in a usable format. Commissioner Tim Jones pressed the point at the meeting and in email, asking, "How is a SQL database that requires a software license 'reasonable,' as defined in the contract? In my opinion, it is not." Law Director Eric Sitler cited the vendor contract's return-of-data clause (section 8.5) noting the requirement that the service provider make client data available "in a reasonable format" within 30 days after request.
Hurt noted converting the database to Excel was "extremely cost prohibitive" per Catalis and that, if the $6,000 PDF export is not accepted, he had exhausted administrative options and would ask the Law Director for assistance to pursue legal remedies. The committee voted to keep the assessor's data-conversion item on Old Business while asking the IT Department to determine whether the Patriot data could be converted into a readable format.
The discussion and email thread establish two vendor options on the table (annual read-only access vs. one-time export) and flag a potential contractual dispute over the contractor's obligation to return client data in a reasonably usable format. The committee did not take a final funding vote on the $6,000 export during the March 6 meeting.
