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King Co., Wash. renovates housing authority computer system
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The King County, Washington Housing Authority (KCHA) has
tapped Agresso to manage ongoing changes for their new enterprise
resource planning suite, the company announced yesterday. Under the
terms of the deal, Agresso will assist the KCHA in their Moving-To-Work
(MTW) program as federal compliance requirements and regulations change.
The
purpose of the MTW program is to give public housing agencies and the
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development the flexibility to design
and test various approaches for providing and administering housing
assistance, so long as minimum standards are met. The program was
started in 1996 and there are currently thirty-two public housing
authorities participating in MTW. KCHA delivers services to 40,000 King
County residents, among a population of over 1.7 million, supporting
more than 17,000 households.
“The program provides us a degree
of flexibility within the bureaucratic framework to develop better
approaches. To participate fully, we needed nimble financial tools like
Agresso that could keep pace with our new ideas, and allow us to report
in non-standard ways,” Craig Violante, the director of finance for
KCHA, said in a statement. Mr. Violante said one issue the department
deals with almost yearly is regulation tweaks for Public Housing and
Section 8 programs from Congress. “Some of these tweaks can have
profound impact on our finance department,” he said, adding their
legacy system created roadblocks and inefficiencies – highlighting a
need for Aggresso to manage ongoing changes.
King County is one of the largest counties in the country and they have a storied history in implementing ERP software.
In
2000, the county made headlines due to a $39 million failed
implementation that would have used PeopleSoft human resource software
and SAP R/3 financial applications. The project was halted and
restarted several years later with new systems integrators. KCHA’s
evaluation tools use solutions from Microsoft, SunGard and JD Edwards –
of which Agresso will perform post-implementation work.
Despite
this blight on King County’s record, it remains a leader in leveraging
technology to deliver vital services to its residents. And Agresso
North America president, Shelley Zapp sees housing authorities as a
promising area of growth for their public sector practice. “We see
housing authorities as a great fit for Agresso,” she said. “We expect
to see momentum build with North American housing authorities as our
message of post-implementation agility spreads.”
Related: King
County Housing Authority is looking for Software Conversion Specialist
to perform a variety of duties related to the conversion to a new
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system for Accounting and
Human Resources. The position closes October 30, 2009 at 4pm. Click here to view the ad.
To read the original article, click here. Or, go to CivSource to read the latest on how state and local leaders are delivering services through innovative use of technology.
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