Sacramento, Calif., December 19, 2001 — Hansen Information Technologies announced today that the City of Louisville, Jefferson County and the Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) have jointly selected the company's Permitting, Licensing, Code Enforcement and eCitizen Relationship Management (eCRM) solutions for managing and coordinating the operations and activities within and between these separate jurisdictions.
The new system will be used to enhance response to customer requests, improve the management of development review and permit applications, promote departmental and inter-agency integration, and provide easier data access for customers and staff.
The City, County and MSD are all part of the Louisville/Jefferson County Information Consortium (LOJIC), one of the most successful consortiums in the country, developed for the purpose of creating and coordinating a multi-jurisdictional Geographic Information System (GIS).
"We were looking for a powerful system solution that met all of our combined requirements and integrated smoothly with our existing GIS and document management systems," said Bruce Seigle, Chief Information Officer for MSD/LOJIC.
"Hansen provided these capabilities, enabled us to extend use of the system through Web-based and mobile solutions, and really allowed us to approach this project from an enterprise point of view."
The system will add the Permitting, Licensing and Code Enforcement module to the existing Hansen asset-based work management system already in place at MSD, and extend use of the Hansen Customer Service module into a unified call center solution handling citizen calls to city and county agencies and MSD.
The system will serve approximately 450 users in over 35 different agencies or departments throughout Louisville, Jefferson County and MSD. The new system will be implemented in three phases over the next year. The entire project cost is $3.2 million including hardware, software, and Hansen's professional services, data conversion, system integration and training.
The city and county offices together issue over 40,000 building-related permits per year, perform over 100,000 associated inspections, handle 75,000 code enforcement cases, and issue approximately 7,500 right-of-way or encroachment permits. Over 2,500 projects per year go through various aspects of the development review process.
Most of these projects are reviewed by 15 different agencies before the final approval process at the Planning Commission. The Hansen system will create a shared database which will house all development review, permit and code enforcement data with the ability to track the full life cycle of a project from initial planning through issuing individual certificates of occupancy.
CityCALL, a citizen service line for Louisville residents, responds to an average of 165,000 citizen requests per year. Approximately 40% are problem-related and result in a field inspection; 60% are for information only. The project will utilize Hansen's knowledge-base capability in the Customer Service module to house existing standard response information used by the call takers.
Similar to the Permitting, Licensing and Code Enforcement portion of the project, the Customer Service module will provide a common database in which all agencies can enter calls, improving ongoing operations and communication across all government services. New City and County use will merge with existing MSD use of the Hansen Customer Service module to provide a truly integrated solution.
This is of paramount importance as the City and County merge into a unified government in January 2003.
About the City of Louisville
Louisville is located on the banks of the scenic Ohio River, between St. Louis and Cincinnati. The metropolitan area of Louisville is comprised of seven counties: Jefferson, Oldham and Bullitt counties in Kentucky, and Clark, Floyd, Harrison and Scott counties in Indiana.
The southernmost northern city and the northernmost southern city, Louisville, Kentucky is a unique blend of old and new, charm and sophistication, urban and antique. The population in the area is approximately one million.
Each spring, Louisville hosts the world's largest civic celebration, The Kentucky Derby Festival. More than 80 events are planned during the fourteen days preceding the Kentucky Derby including "Thunder Over Louisville," the nation's largest fireworks extravaganza.
About Jefferson County
Jefferson County was formed in 1780 and named for Thomas Jefferson, who was governor of Virginia at that time. It is located in the western end of the Bluegrass region of the state along the Ohio River.
The county seat is Louisville. Jefferson was one of the original counties in the Kentucky territory of Virginia. It is the most populous county and the most densely populated county in the state with 394,000 inhabitants covering an area of about 390 sq. miles. About MSD MSD was formed in 1946 as a special district by state statue to take over the operation and maintenance of Louisville's combined sanitary and storm sewer system and sanitary-only system.
Today, MSD maintains 3,500 miles of sewer infrastructure and has responsibility for the stormwater drainage system throughout Jefferson County, the operation and maintenance of the community's Ohio River flood protection system, and several other programs including stream monitoring and hazardous materials control designed to protect and enhance the environment. Its revenue comes from wastewater and stormwater service fees, plus charges for extending wastewater lines and connecting new customers.
MSD does not receive supplementary income from taxes or from other local government agencies. All of the agency's revenue is used for operation, maintenance and extension and improvement of services. MSD is governed by an eight-member board.
About Hansen Information Technologies
Hansen Information Technologies is the provider of application solutions that help manage the operations of e-government. In addition to providing the nation's Citizen Call Center solution for the state and local government market, the Company is the provider of Asset Management, Building Permit, Code Enforcement, Public Works, Transportation, and Utility Billing solutions.
Designed as corporate-styled solutions geared specifically for government, the Company offers a frictionless architecture that manages the Internet, back office and field communications between citizens, business and government. The combination of Hansen's public sector business process models, implementation methodologies and technical expertise enables Hansen to deliver tangible economic benefits to state and local governments.
Hansen has a GSA contract and is listed on GSA Advantage. For more information, please visit Hansen's Web site at www.hansen.com.
