BEAVERTON -- City officials say they plan to replace computer software that has tracked Beaverton's building permits and fees since mid-1999 because the software causes too many operating glitches and is getting old.

The glitches, the officials complain, include duplicating records of permit fees paid by builders. Or, the system mysteriously deletes fee records, causing extra work for city employees who must correct the problems as they occur.

Other complaints include error messages that pop up on computer screens without apparent cause and permits and receipts that print with incomplete dates.

The software was produced by CRW Associates of San Diego at an installation cost of $89,500 in 1998, said Joe Grillo, director of the city's Community Development Department. After testing it for several months, he said, the city began using it in May 1999. The city pays the San Diego firm $18,000 a year to maintain the product.

Chris Wuerz, the company's president, said he was disappointed by the city's decision. He said glitches claimed by the city "are a gross misrepresentation of any kind of problems they've had."

He said the city hadn't allowed its employees to attend the firm's training sessions during the past four years.

Wuerz said CRW Associates' software is used by 65 city or county governments in 12 states. The firm logs and responds to all problems reported to it, he said, and has no record of unresolved complaints from Beaverton.

Grillo and Brad Roast, in charge of city building permits and inspections, briefed City Council members on the problems Monday.

The council later approved the city staff's launching a replacement process that could cost as much as $350,000, according to department estimates. The current software keeps track of about $2 million in annual permit fees.

Grillo said Wednesday the software's problems have never cost the city any money, unlike a water-billing system Portland adopted in 2000 that has bled $17 million to $19 million in estimated extra expenses and lost billings.

But Grillo said the Beaverton software's problems have had at least one unfortunate side effect. Staying cautious, his department has limited the software's application just to building-permit data rather than extending its use as planned.

Grillo and department staff members had hoped other functions such as tracking developers' land-use applications, archiving city code violations and incorporating parcel maps could also be handled by the software.

By the time Grillo plans to replace the software next year, he said, it will be seven years old.

"That's a fairly long shelf life for software," he said. "Even if there were no issues, it can't get to where the city needs to go."

He said department staff by Oct. 1 will start drafting a request for proposals from specialized software vendors for a new product.

Oregonian

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