"Our professional association goes back many years to a chance meeting in the hallway of the Presque Isle County Courthouse to use of your company’s software for many years now. I must say that it has been a very pleasurable experience. When Presque Isle County moved from rural-style addresses to city-style addresses for their 911 emergency system, your company assisted with a strong address application which allowed address verification. It was necessary to have a high success rate to allow the Enhanced 911 system to go live. Strong address verification also allows Cass Certification whereby the Post Office allows discounts for automation mail rates thus saving money. Your Equalization System is second to none. Our Department has been able to do side-by-side compares which has enabled consistency in spelling and punctuation. A Top Ten Taxpayer report only works well if the same owner name is spelled consistently in the data base. The side-by-side compare allows data integrity. I spent some time analyzing the time it takes two departments to enter deed information – the Register of Deeds Office and the Equalization Department and felt it was redundant and lead to unnecessary errors. Your company built an application which allows the ability to download deeds from the Register of Deeds Office, so deeds don’t have to be re-keyed by the Equalization Department, preventing errors and allowing us to do the task of equalization with fewer in-house resources. Now, I understand that your company has partnered with Patriot Properties Inc. which will allow more improvement to tax management and the financial position of local units of government. A good property taxation system requires up-to-date information. Ideally, a GIS system developed in conjunction with a good appraisal software package. A good appraisal software package records all the properties and allows for analyzing size, location, availability of influencing property value. Assessors must continue to provide accurate and consistent real personal property valuations while facing challenges such as an increasing number of properties to value, complex tax laws and exemptions, and the need for public access to records. In most cases, this must be accomplished with the same or fewer in-house resources. I commend you on your association with Patriot Properties Inc. to help make this happen."