The town of Smithfield is looking to pull the plug on its decade-long conversion to Munis, citing increasing frustration with the financial software made by Tyler Technologies.

Town Treasurer Laura Ross briefed the Town Council at its May 19 Finance Committee meeting on her proposal to solicit a quote from Munis competitor RDA Systems, which markets its platform as an “enterprise resource planning,” or ERP, system that automates payroll, real estate and car tax billing and other governmental accounting functions. As of 2023, it was used by over 40 Virginia localities.

Town Manager Michael Stallings said the town had been transitioning to Munis since 2015, the idea at the time being to better integrate with Isle of Wight County, which also uses Munis and whose Commissioner of the Revenue’s office is responsible for valuing the taxable property in the county and its two towns. The town of Windsor is also in the process of transitioning to Munis.

“A lot of what was sold to us at that time has, even in Windsor, still hasn’t come to fruition to this day,” said Stallings, who prior to becoming Smithfield’s town manager in 2020 held the same role in Windsor.

Tyler Technologies, in a statement to the Times, declined to comment on “a specific client’s use of our solutions” but said Tyler has “over 45,000 solutions installed across 13,000 locations.” “We value our partnership with the town of Smithfield and remain committed to supporting them in any way we can,” the company said in its statement.

Over the past decade, both Smithfield and Windsor have encountered Munis issues that delayed mailing of tax bills.

“Every year that our tax bills have been delayed it has been because of the conversion,” Stallings said.

In 2020 when Smithfield added a $6-per-month trash collection fee, it caused incorrect balances due on town residents’ real estate tax bills. Windsor experienced a similar issue in 2019 when Munis was unable to import personal property valuation assessments from Isle of Wight County, causing a nearly 90-day delay in the mailings.

Windsor Town Manager William Saunders said the town is still using MUNIS and is not currently planning to switch software platforms.

“It is expensive and not perfect, but it performs the duties the town needs in such a system and enables the transfer of data with Isle of Wight County with little manipulation,” Saunders said.

Assistant County Administrator Don Robertson said Isle of Wight is also still using Munis and is “not experiencing the same issues as the town.” 

Stallings said one of the issues that arose shortly after Smithfield’s conversion began was when Munis decided it would no longer support the locally-hosted servers in use by the county and required conversion to cloud-based services. Accounts payable and permitting are the only two components of Munis that are presently functional in Smithfield, Stallings said.

The financial statements that are presented monthly to Smithfield’s Town Council are generated in Microsoft Excel using data from Munis and the town’s old software.

Stallings said the town recently paused implementation of all remaining nonfunctional Munis components.

“None of us feel confident that we’ll ever get to the finish line,” Stallings said.