Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Mass Innovations, From The Beacon, May 2012
Building on work initiated in Yarmouth, the Cape Cod Commission is moving toward creating a region-wide system for processing permits and licenses online as well as facilitating inspectional services.
The project, which in March received a $500,000 Community Innovation Challenge grant from the state, promises to benefit Cape Cod towns in a number of ways, according to Cape Cod Commission Executive Director Paul Niedzwiecki.
“The local towns will be able to preserve their identity and design their own sort of local portal that we’ll push this through,” Niedzwiecki said. “They’ll also be able to customize the software so that they’re doing the kind of permitting that they want, and they’re asking the kind of questions that they want to ask.
“It will be a big step forward in efficiencies, because so much of what the towns do now happens on paper,” he added.
The convenience of the online system also has the potential to boost local revenue, according to Niedzwiecki. Even though dog licenses are required by law, for example, not every dog owner bothers to obtain one.
“By making it more convenient for taxpayers, you will voluntarily get a revenue spike, by more compliance,” Niedzwiecki said. “And by using the technology to make it more efficient, you’ll also save money there.”
The Cape Cod Commission will be looking for a vendor whose software can integrate the different permitting functions. Niedzwiecki said that the Cape Cod Commission will own and operate the software, and then share it with the region’s towns.
The project is part of a broader initiative known as SmarterCape, which uses GIS and other technologies to enhance service and reduce costs. The idea for the online permitting and licensing system was developed by Ed Senteio, a technology consultant who devotes two days per week of pro bono service on behalf of Yarmouth, where he lives.
Senteio said he set out to develop an application that could be used across town departments.
“If you were dealing with the town of Yarmouth in an online, automated fashion, we didn’t want you to have to go through different systems to facilitate that interaction,” he said.
Senteio said there are significant advantages to pursuing the project on a regional basis, starting with the license fee for the server that will host the system’s infrastructure. So long as the total population of the communities involved doesn’t top 250,000 – which is more than the population of the Cape and islands – the cost of the server license will be far lower on a per-town basis than if only a few towns were shouldering the burden.
The regional scope also will enable a broader suite of features, such as automated emails that notify people when a particular license fee comes due.
Several other Cape towns have expressed interest in being among the three communities that pilot-test the technology. The aim, Senteio said, is to have a functional system in place by the end of this year.
“We would do it in a way that would allow us to more rapidly bring on the other towns,” Senteio said. “We would pick towns that had financial management systems, assessing systems, so when we put this together, the rest of the towns in the area would be able to take advantage of what we did.”
For more information, contact Ed Senteio at (508) 398-2231, ext. 1281.