LA County Assessor’s Office completes records modernization

The Los Angeles County Assessor’s Office completed a significant technological making property records more easily accessible, officials announced last week.

Assessor Jeff Prang and 3rd District Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath symbolically “flipped the switch” deactivating the county’s legacy system and marking the completion of the Assessor’s Modernization Project, or AMP.

The old legacy mainframe gives way to a cloud-based technology platform that is set to handle next year’s “assessment roll without reliance on outdated legacy technology,” according to a statement from the assessor’s office.

The AMP replaced a system of over 40 years of “outdated green screen technology,” officials said. The county’s 2.4 million real property assessments previously were maintained in paper files and microfiche and were processed by hand. Each information request the assessor’s office received had to be researched manually — a slow and all-consuming process that usually required an in-person visit by a member of the public seeking answers.

Oracle and AMP participants created the software in five phases to replace and digitize 40 years’ worth of paper records into a cloud-based filing system.

“AMP will benefit County residents by using this new cutting-edge technology for a public Assessor Portal, where users can easily search for property on their own on the Assessor’s website,” according to the assessor’s office. “In contrast to the green-screen, the public portal provides a superior user-friendly search engine for a larger field of data for all property parcels. The user can access the data anywhere at any time on a desktop computer or a mobile device connected to the 2.4 million digital assessments, which would be the equivalent of more than 40 million pieces of paper.”

New advanced mapping and visual digital systems allow website users to see the property or parcel in question in more ways than the old legacy system.

“Moreover, and perhaps most important, the public doesn’t have to travel for information anymore as it is now at their fingertips through a desktop or mobile device 24/7,” officials said. “There is significantly more data available than with the paper files. The public can conduct and complete transactions including required forms with electronic signatures from any desktop or mobile device.”

Data now can be accessed electronically, and staff members can access information more quickly to process more assessments, officials said. “There are redundancies built into the system ensuring accuracy,” and each step requires a supervisor’s approval before the system allows a user to move to the next level of completion. The new records system has the highest security level “afforded.”

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