The Howard County Police Department wins NACO Achievement Award for Permitting System Developed in Partnership with Voyatek

The Howard County Maryland Police Department (HCPD) has earned the NACO Achievement Awards for the results achieved with in its improved event permitting system, developed in partnership with Voyatek.

The new HCPD Permitting System has enabled Howard County to improve service delivery, increase employee engagement, comply with legislative requirements, and reduce costs for event permitting. The county now benefits from a sophisticated digital permitting system that provides a public-facing online permit portal, offers multiple fee-payment options, enables interdepartmental event notifications, reduces the complexity of the permit process, and more.

For example, before the new system, the special events coordinator spent 7.60 hours per day – 95% of their working hours — manually processing event permits. This left little time for secondary reviews and special requests from the county. With the new system, that time has been reduced to 4.89 hours per day (61% of working hours) and allows for secondary reviews and special requests from the county without overtasking the special events coordinator – resulting in higher employee satisfaction and a better work product.

HCPD has proved itself a leader in going beyond the legislative requirement to enable collection of fees. It recognized the opportunity to better partner with the community, and then designed and implemented a digital solution to capitalize on that opportunity. The permitting system is delivering positive experiences to the public and increasing employee morale. It also provides transparency and accountability in government operations that can easily be audited for program compliance.

The HCPD Permitting System has been studied by a neighboring county that recently realized a similar legislative change. HPCD shared its system structure to allow that county to efficiently configure a similar solution.