Fresno County Approves New Property Tax System, Reviews Midyear Budget

Fresno County's last remaining COBOL programmers are on their way out the door, and the Board of Supervisors moved Tuesday to make sure county property tax administration doesn't go with them.

At its March 17 meeting, the Board approved a package of agreements with Megabyte Systems, Inc. to purchase and install the Megabyte Property Tax System, a fully integrated enterprise solution that will replace the county's aging, legacy software. The installation and perpetual licensing agreement carries a price tag not to exceed $3,971,000 and takes effect upon execution by the Board Chairman.

The county's own filing made the stakes plain: "The County's last remaining COBOL programmers are set to retire soon, leaving a critical shortage of experts who understand this programming language, thus making it very difficult to continue operating the current system." COBOL, a programming language dating to the 1950s, underpins many legacy government financial systems but has become nearly impossible to staff as the generation of programmers who learned it approaches retirement age.

The agreements were submitted jointly by Oscar J. Garcia, CPA, who serves as Auditor-Controller/Treasurer-Tax Collector, and Paul Dictos, CPA, the county's Assessor-Recorder. Their offices will both rely on the new system once installed. The Board approved three related actions: the installation and perpetual licensing deal with Megabyte; a separate authorization for ongoing maintenance and support services from the same vendor; and a directive allowing Garcia's office to capitalize the cost of the Megabyte Property Tax System as an intangible capital asset on the county's books.

No dollar figure for the ongoing maintenance and support contract was included in the published agenda materials, and the county has not disclosed an implementation timeline or expected go-live date.

The property tax system vote was not the only significant action from Tuesday's session. The Board also adopted updates to the County's State Legislative Platform and received a briefing from state lobbyist Paul Yoder. Supervisors additionally reviewed the county's midyear budget, though specifics of that review were not available in materials released ahead of the meeting.