Columbus council asked to OK Dublin Road repairs, new computer system
Columbus City Council on Monday evening will consider approval of emergency funding intended to prevent a section of Dublin Road northwest of Downtown from collapsing into the Scioto River, potentially damaging a major water main in the process.
“Significant erosion along Dublin Road due to large flood events forced the closure of the right eastbound lane,” according to the ordinance. “The erosion continues to worsen and is encroaching on the pavement. The erosion could soon expose a 36 (inch) water main if not resolved before heavy spring rain, necessitating the need for an emergency repair.”
The work was estimated to cost $90,000.
Also on Monday, the city council will consider approving a $27 million expenditure for a new computer system for the City Auditor’s office, which wants to enter into a contract with FAST Enterprises, a government tax software company headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, and other vendors for the work.
The city auditor’s office currently uses “125 legacy tax applications and batch processes” maintained by the city Department of Technology to collect, audit, and enforce the city’s income, admissions, hotel/motel, excise, and short-term rental taxes.
“The city’s current tax systems have limited interfaces with each other or other systems of record,” which makes “back-end data processing and reporting necessary for audit and enforcement ineffective,” the ordinance states.
“The complicated network of applications and processes makes the safeguarding of taxpayer information and federal tax information a significant, costly undertaking,” and the “systems have not kept up with technical advances in providing a modern taxpayer interface, leaving Columbus taxpayers without a viable online option for filing (tax) returns, viewing account information, or making payments.”
Because city tax filing must be submitted on paper forms, it is “inconvenient for taxpayers, but also highly manual for the city,” the ordinance said.
The city Auditor’s Office conducted a request for proposals process in accordance with Columbus City Code for a new fully-integrated revenue management system and related professional services necessary to implement the proposed system.
FAST Enterprises, which has offices across the U.S. and in Canada, was selected through the FRP process, which was scored based on six categories, including cost and past performance.
@ReporterBush
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