New Permitting Software Ushers in New Era
Grand Island, Neb. — The Grand Island Building Department is the first of what will be many city departments officially making the jump to CitizenServe for its permitting needs.
Citizenserve is a company that provides online government and municipal software solutions for managing building permits, code enforcement, planning and business licensing. Their software is designed to be user-friendly and accessible, allowing citizens, contractors and business owners an easy way to interact with the government digitally.
The Building Department has been working with the new software for the past few weeks, and outside of a few minor hurdles, Chief Building Officer Ed Klimek says the rollout as gone well.
“It’s been good,” he said. “One of the big things is with our contractors – there are some trades that have to be licensed with us and (now) the licensing can be done online. They can make payments online.”
Prior to the city’s switch to CitizenServe, various departments have utilized individual permit application forms, which led to a lot of paperwork maintenance within City Hall. Now, all applications are digital and archived as such. However, with any change, Klimek expects it will take some time for everyone to get used to the new protocols.
“There are going to be some growing pains, and we just ask everyone to be patient with us,” Klimek said. “We’re learning the system. The customers are learning the system. It’s not anything new, but we’re trying to bring things up into modern times with our methods of processing.”
Other city departments will be onboarded with the new permitting software in the coming weeks and months.