Major Upgrade to Tax Collection Processing

Serving a constituency of more than 430,000, the Santa Barbara County Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller’s offices are responsible for the billing, collection, and apportionment of property tax revenues exceeding $614 million annually. The offices were looking to consolidate as many of their existing systems as possible and replace them with a single integrated, state-of-the-art solution. The current systems used by the offices are more than 30 years old. The county was concerned about staff’s ability to support these aging programs as well as the inefficiencies caused by the old system. Technical and legislative updates were difficult to implement, multiple data entry points increased time spent on transactions. and the creation of reports had become quite cumbersome.

Santa Barbara County joins Santa Cruz County as the second California county to contract with Manatron for implementation of its government revenue management (GRM) solution. Santa Cruz County is expected to roll out the first components of its installation fall 2010.

Bernice James, Santa Barbara county treasurer-tax collector, stated: “It was critical for Santa Barbara County to move our important tax functions off the current mainframe platform. Considering Manatron’s long-term commitment to the State of California, and their success thus far with Santa Cruz County, we are confident in our selection of Manatron and their GRM product suite to help Santa Barbara County achieve our goals.”

Manatron Inc., a global leader in providing integrated property tax and records management software for state and local governments, was awarded the contract from the Santa Barbara County, Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller offices for its GRM integrated property tax software and related professional services.

“We are thrilled to welcome the Santa Barbara County Treasurer-Tax Collector and Auditor-Controller’s offices to the family of Manatron customers in California and across the country. Our team looks forward to servicing their needs for many years to come.” said Bill McKinzie, Manatron president and CEO. “Manatron has made significant investments into the California market during the last 10-plus years and we remain focused on our efforts. With this contract, our plan for GRM entry into the state continues to take shape.”

Manatron, a privately held company and an investment of private equity firm Thoma Bravo, LLC, provides software and services for state and local governments to completely, fairly, and efficiently assess real and personal property, and to bill and collect the related property taxes in their jurisdictions. Manatron is headquartered in Portage, Michigan, and has offices throughout the United States and currently serves more than 1,400 customers and manages approximately 40 million parcels. Most importantly, over the last 40 years, its software has helped government jurisdictions collect more than one trillion dollars in revenue.