“Our job is to serve citizens as courteously and efficiently as possible. The new portal is a great way to enable citizens to obtain information quickly and accurately.”

James M. Jones, Wilmington City Finance Department Director

City of Wilmington

Portal Provides Online Services For Businesses, Citizens

The Client

Wilmington is the largest city in the State of Delaware and is one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. In recent years the city has experienced tremendous economic development and revitalization and is continually seeking opportunities to foster economic growth while providing innovation through its initiatives.

The Business Need

The City of Wilmington was seeking a solution to provide an array of online services to its businesses and citizens through its website. Wilmington was interested in a solution that would allow it to streamline internal operations and increase revenue flow by providing online payment of utility bills, taxes, and other services. A self-service online portal was needed to reduce the number of people inquiring about taxes and utilities via the telephone and walk-up help counter.

The Solution

Diamond Technologies created a new Internet portal for the City of Wilmington's Finance Department. Wilmington residents and other researchers can now use the internet to find out the details on every real estate parcel in the city, including records of property tax and water bill payments. The recently completed first phase of the Finance Portal project makes it possible to search online for the location, ownership and size of any parcel of real estate in the city, as well as the status of property-tax and city water bill payments for the parcel. Diamond Technologies is now working on the project's second phase which will allow property owners to make online payments of their property tax and water bills, and online parcel searches will also yield information about violations of the city's building, housing and rental codes. The website is built upon the Microsoft .Net Framework and utilizes the latest Microsoft synchronization technology to seamlessly integrate the website with multiple city financial databases.

Business Impact

Wilmington anticipates an increase in tax, utility and other revenues as a result of the new solution and reduced costs for providing these services. The online solution will reduce the workload on clerical staff providing an opportunity for them to provide higher value services to the City.