The Itat Quarterly
Fiscal Year 2023 - Q4 Edition
Welcome to The ITAT Quarterly!
The ITAT Quarterly newsletter is brought to you by the County Treasurers of IowaTaxAndTags.org. It is designed to increase communications and provide treasurers with information on hot-topic issues that concern Iowa County Treasurers.
Although not on the same level as Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Women, ITAT had another very successful March property tax deadline! ITAT saw an 8% increase in public citizen property tax transactions compared to last March and had strong growth in both Portfolio and Batch activity. Online vehicle collections were also up nearly 3% as ITAT had our 2nd largest online renewal month ever!
Thanks for taking the time to read this edition of The ITAT Quarterly!
County Treasurer Spotlight
Scott Finlayson, Johnson County
Q&A with New Johnson County Treasurer, Scott Finlayson
Q: How long have you been Treasurer?
A: Since January 2023
Q: What inspired you to pursue the Johnson County Treasurer elected position?
A: I was an attorney with a background in banking and was working for the Johnson County Attorney's Office, assigned to do the legal work for the County Treasurer. Former Treasurer Tom Kriz recruited me to be his Property Tax and Accounting Deputy.
Q: How many team members do you have in your office?
A: All of them... I hope!
Q: What are some successes that you have had during your time as Treasurer?
A: Having a happy and fulfilled staff and satisfied customer base is important yo me. So far, our staff and customer base are both happy!
Q: What are some challenges you have faced and how have you overcome those challenges?
A: I have dyslexia....Law school cured me of that!
Q: What solutions or accomplishments are you most proud of?
A: I clean my cats' litter boxes every day. Seriously! Ugh!
Q: What are your future goals for your team and your office?
A: Creating a good culture in the office for both staff and customers. Happy staff, happy customers, happy colleagues.
Q: What are you looking forward to most?
A: Catching a musky. Will I ever catch a musky?!
Q: What is something about you that most people don't know?
A: I am an introvert who has learned to act like an extrovert.
Q: Any other closing comments?
A: Thank you. The treasurer community has been very open, welcoming and helpful. I am afraid of making mistakes but knowing there are folks who are there to support and help me grow in the role is something I am grateful for every day.
Scott Finlayson, Johnson County Treasurer
Featured Enhancements
The ITAT Development Team is continuously making improvements to make Iowa Tax And Tags the best payment site possible. Some of the higher profile enhancements that the team is working on include:
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Point of Sale (POS) Upgrades (Phase 1 Rollout) - ITAT is rolling out new Point of Sale devices beginning this month. The new machines are from the Ingenico DX8000 series and includes all the latest in payment technology that citizens have come accustomed to. This includes contactless payments that will allow users to pay by tapping their chip enabled card or the ability to use digital wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay.
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ITAT Logo & Branding Refresh (In-Process) - ITAT has created a new logo and updated color palette that will be rolled out with the release of the ITAT version 2 redesign.
- ITAT v2 Guest Checkout Redesign (In-Process) - The ITAT developers are still progressing on the ITAT version 2 redesign. Check out Adam's progress update in the Technical Review section of this month's ITAT Quarterly!
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Upgraded API Integration with FIS (In-Process) - In conjunction with the website redesign, ITAT is modernizing the API connection to our payment processor, FIS. This is the first step in the payment integration that will allow users advanced payment options including save payment methods and schedule payments.
Adam Draayer, ITAT Product Owner
ITAT Version 2 Progress Update
The ITAT development team is still hard at work getting ITAT v2 ready to go live to the public. We have started to dig into the new FIS API (Application Programming Interface). Essentially, the FIS API is a number of commands that are sent back and forth to FIS that lets us tell each other ‘pay this amount using this credit card’.
For now though, we’re focused on making sure the new experience is even better than the old one. Using CSS and iFrames we hope to make the experience as seamless and painless as possible for our guest checkout, speeding up a process that no one likes to do, paying property and vehicle taxes. These new CSS styles will need to be dialed in and we are still working on a final look and feel. The ITAT development team and the FIS development team are meeting in April to go over our findings and iron out any kinks in the process.
| Event/Location | Date/Time |
| Delinquent Tax Notices Mailed | May 1, 2023 |
| ISCTA 2023 Annual Conference | May 9-12, 2023 |
| Subsequent Tax Payments Eligible for T.S. Certificate Holders | May 15, 2023 |
| Memorial Day - Office Closed | May 29, 2023 |
| Family Farm Credit from State | June 15, 2023 (approximate) |
| Elderly/Disabled Credit from State | June 15, 2023 (approximate) |
| Remit Brucellosis & Tuberculosis (TB) Eradication Funds to State | June 15, 2023 |
| Juneteenth - Office Closed | June 19, 2023 |
| Annual County Tax Sale | June 19, 2023 (unless moved) |
| Fiscal Year End | June 30, 2023 |
| Independence Day - Office Closed | July 4, 2023 |
| Ag Land Credit from State | July 15, 2023 |
Transitioning to the IowaTaxAndTags.org website is easier than you may think. Contact ITAT today to discuss the benefits of joining the IowaTaxAndTags.org website.
Email: Contact@IowaTaxAndTags.org
ITAT Team:
, Sr Applications Developer
Sarika Mandumula, Sr Applications Developer
Aaron Nord, Applications Developer
Zach Peterson, Applications Developer
Adam Draayer, ITAT Product Owner
Don Lewis, ITAT Project Manager
