PRESS RELEASE
Hamer Enterprises Wins IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Award for Best IBM Systems and Technology Group Industry Solution
eAccess Solution Gives Citizens Easy Access to Property Tax Information
McALLEN, Texas, February 28, 2005 - Hamer Enterprises has been named the winner of the "Best IBM Systems and Technology Group Teaming to Win - Industry by Industry" category in the annual IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Awards competition, honoring IBM Business Partners for their ingenuity, customer satisfaction and outstanding achievements in providing on demand business solutions.
Using IBM middleware running on IBM eServer* iSeries*, the eAccess solution from Hamer Enterprises eases the task of tax billing and collection management and voter registration. Travis County, Texas uses eAccess to let citizens interact directly with the DB2 database, retrieve their tax statement and pay their property taxes using electronic payments. Additionally, taxpayers may file for various property exemptions, bid on properties for resale and have detailed access to information related to each owned property within Travis County. The solution also supports voter registration, and provides critical voter information including sample ballots, ADA compliant forms, polling locations, directions and maps.
"Judges selected Hamer Enterprises as the winner in this category for helping Travis County reduce incoming phone calls from citizens by approximately 30 percent and walk-in traffic by 40 percent, with its Web site now ready to assist in collecting $1.5 billion in taxes," said Donn Atkins, General Manager, IBM Global Business Partners. "Hamer demonstrates great passion, determination, and a keen understanding of their clients' needs."
Hamer Enterprises CEO, William C. Hamer adds, "Government is continually faced with the problem to do more with less and still provide the citizens with all of the services they require. Citizens today expect instant response to all of their needs or concerns with government. Most of the business related citizen transactions revolve around paying taxes, fees and fines, as well as, receiving timely information in regards to specific needs, such as, registering to vote, viewing precinct information and determining where to vote."
Hamer continues, "This customer service issue results from the government trying to meet the needs of citizens, with a shrinking budget. It demands better use of technology that could allow the citizen to become an active participant in the process."
Hamer Enterprises responded to this issue with its eAccess solution. This product empowers the citizen to access information globally. They now have the ability to manage their own government business, thus relieving the government entities' budgetary constraints associated with staff and resources. The eAccess solution provides the citizen with the ability to interface with a back-end database while performing such tasks as receiving electronic payments. Thus providing citizens the inter-operability required in an "On-Demand" world.
About IBM PartnerWorld Beacon Awards:
Nearly 600 nominations were judged by a team of leading industry journalists,
analysts, and IBM executives, who selected winners and finalists in
31 award categories. These IBM Business Partners will be honored during
the IBM PartnerWorld 2005 Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Feb. 27-March
2.
About Hamer Enterprises:
For 28 years, Hamer Enterprises has provided hardware, software and
services throughout the United States. Their predominant successes are
due to providing dynamic and high utility application software tools
in the public sector areas of restitution, supervision, and property
and collection management. Visit www.hecorp.com for more information.
About Travis County:
Travis County is home to Austin, Texas, the state capitol. The Travis
County Tax Office serves an average of 800 visitors daily inside the
office, 250 customers at the drive-throughs, and answers 1,400 phone
calls. Travis County receives an average of 240 voter registration applications
and collects over $6.5 million in taxes each day. On an annual basis,
Travis collects over $1.64 billion in taxes and fees; registering 675,934
vehicles; validating documents, collecting fees and sales tax for 204,000
vehicle title transfers while auditing 132,000 others; and registering
over 585,000 voters. Visit www.traviscountytax.org for more information.
*Trademark or registered trademark of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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