The question of online tax portals for cities took up much of the discussion at the Kenton County Mayors Group meeting on Saturday.
The topic was broached by Park Hills Mayor Kathy Zembrodt, who expressed frustration that her city was going to lose its online tax portal, which is provided by a company called Pontem, in 2028 due to it being bought out. The company that’s slated to buy Pontem, Zembrodt said, is OpenGov, a commonly used platform in the region.
“They’re so expensive,” Zembrodt said. “I don’t even want to go that route. So, I’m looking for input and seeing what everybody else is doing.”
Mayors and other officials expressed similar concerns about either fee structures or accessibility. OpenGov, for instance, is a commonly used system that city residents can use to track government spending. Kenton County itself formerly used OpenGov, but it was plagued with technical problems; the fiscal court still posts monthly financial reports as PDF forms on its website. Crestview Hills, on the other hand, uses a platform called Edmund’s Gov Tech. Villa Hills Mayor Heather Jansen said her city administration was investigating possibly switching to that system or a different platform.
Kenton County Planning and Development Services Director Josh Wice said his department had experienced similar travails with building permitting software.
“I feel like we get one thing up and going, and then they merge with something else,” Wice said.
Kentucky Rep. Kim Moser, a Republican from Edgewood whose district includes much of Kenton County, pitched the idea of possibly finding a group rate from a single vendor that could provide services to multiple cities.
“Is there a way to collectively use the same vendor and get a better rate?” Moser asked.
“Generally speaking, I think the days of that stuff being all overly expensive are going to be ending,” said Kenton County Judge/Executive Kris Knochelmann, given recent advances in technology.
The infrastructure for the systems was also a point of discussion. Lakeside Park Mayor Paul Markgraf said his city’s clerk had been researching several systems, and one thing that came up was how the data was stored. Lakeside Park currently uses Pontem, as well.
“Part of the problem is we’re also having some electronic problems with our server,” said Markgraf. “Pontem needs that, but these other companies don’t actually need the server; everything is cloud-based.”
The question of data storage is relevant as it presents different challenges. Housing local tax data in a physical server at a city facility gives local governments more direct control over the data. Yet, it can also come with the risk of exposing that server to localized damage, such as a building flood or a pipe bursting. Edgewood’s city building, for instance, recently underwent a pipe burst that damaged some of its computer servers.
On the flip side, storing local tax data in a company’s server allows the data to be stored offsite, but that has a different set of risks, namely the city relinquishing its access to the company’s infrastructure, rather than its own.
Zembrodt said she may broach the topic again at a subsequent meeting.
“We got till ’28,” said Zembrodt. “But I’m never a last-minute person. I’m like, ‘let’s get this out of our hair.'”
