Little Rock's public housing authority is switching to an upgraded software system at a cost of almost $183,000 in hopes of easing several agency processes as well as making it simpler for residents to submit forms.
Executive Director Rodney Forte didn't set a date Thursday for the Metropolitan Housing Alliance to transition from its current software system to a new one to be provided by Lexington, Ky.-based Tenmast Software.
Forte told the Housing Authority Board -- the governing body of the housing alliance -- that the new software will be phased in and run side by side with the current software for a while to make sure the transition goes smoothly.
The software will be used for the agency's accounting, personnel matters, work orders, tenant forms and documents, and other agency tasks.
"The software we are using is an old system. It's difficult to service in terms of our service contract. When we have a problem, it takes a while to get what we need from the service provider," Forte told the housing board at its monthly meeting Thursday.
"We are open eight hours a day. There's still 16 other hours in the day that we are not here, and so the goal was that potentially we'd be able to build software or find software that residents could tap into those other 16 hours as well, either via the computer, Internet and so forth, where they could fill out documents," Forte said.
The Tenmast software will also allow the agency to communicate better with landlords in the Section 8 program -- a federally regulated program that allows low-income tenants to use housing vouchers to rent privately run housing units.
Tenants receiving a housing voucher as well as tenants at the public housing complexes run by the alliance have to file paperwork regularly to meet federal Housing and Urban Development requirements. They will be able to do so more easily with the new software, Forte said.
He said the software has electronic redaction capabilities -- a feature that will allow the agency to more easily redact personal information from public records that are requested under the state's Freedom of Information Act.
The five-member housing board voted 4-0 to authorize paying Tenmast Software up to $182,960 to provide the new software and supporting services.
Commissioner Ted Dickey recused himself from the vote when he saw the company's name and realized his stepbrother-in-law works for the company in Louisiana and owns company stock. Dickey didn't recommend the company to the housing agency and didn't know of the conflict of interest until seeing the name on the resolution at Thursday's meeting, he said.
In addition to the software upgrade, the housing alliance is reviewing its phone system and voice-messaging services, Forte said. He expects a proposal that will save the agency "a substantial amount of money" to be presented to the board in the future.
Metro on 05/22/2015