CAMACloud in Metro Portland

The Challenge

Yamhill County is located in the southwest corner of Metro Portland, Oregon and has approximately 100,000 residents, and 50,000 parcels which are assessed on a 7-year cycle. Due to legislation mandates, the county’s staffing was slashed while the volume of work remained the same. The increased workload combined with a smaller staff resulted in assessment delays, some up to 20-25 years. Recognizing the lag in the assessment cycle, Yamhill County sought a mobile solution that would work for its new, streamlined dynamic.

The Solution

Woolpert introduced its flagship product, MobileAssessor®, to Yamhill County. MobileAssessor was just the tool that Yamhill County needed to tackle its insurmountable workload after other companies fell through on their assessment products. The county soon enjoyed the ability to optimize field data collection, instantly associate and synchronize photos and take advantage of administrative tools that could perform on-the-fly quality control and field tracking.

Yamhill County has completely embraced MobileAssessor technology and seamlessly integrated it into workflows. County Assessor and Tax Collector Derrick Wharff highlighted how pleased he is with Woolpert’s ability to host collection data in the cloud. “Woolpert takes our database and puts it in the cloud which greatly reduces any burden placed on our IT department. That’s a big win for us”, shared Wharff. With MobileAssessor’s refined interface, Yamhill County appraisers have been able to create consistency in their data to provide better inventory which has lowered its COD.

Derrick’s final note to potential users explains, “I just want to tell people it’s inevitable. Mobile is where it’s all going, and if you can’t see it now, then you’re already two years behind.”

Working with Woolpert

Yamhill County was one of the first mobile and ProVAL installations in Oregon, so challenges moving to a new system were anticipated. Assessor and Tax Collector Derrick Wharff stated “We had a team at Woolpert that really understood both back ends, the effort and intent, and here we are with a very viable product. Woolpert really saved us last year during COVID.” With a personalized care team and a product built by fellow assessors, Yamhill County was in good hands with Woolpert.

“We ran our appraisal effort without reappraisal, so just the new construction, from November through July. We’re doing the same effort in four months instead of nine. The balance of that is what has allowed us to do reappraisal—that’s a 200% increase when you go from nine to four months.”