In this episode of the Tyler Tech Podcast, Rudy Zucker, project manager for the City of Naperville, Illinois, shares how the city modernized its annual Arbor Day Tree Sale — an innovation that earned Naperville a 2025 Tyler Excellence Award (TEA).

Recorded live at Tyler Connect 2025 in San Antonio, the conversation explores how Naperville transformed a traditionally in-person, labor-intensive program into a simple, secure, and user-friendly digital experience. Rudy walks through the city’s shift from a basic online payment workaround to an integrated solution using Resident Access and Tyler Payments, helping the city strengthen PCI compliance while meeting rising resident expectations for ease and convenience.

Rudy also highlights the behind-the-scenes impact of the new approach, including reduced staff workload, improved inventory tracking, faster refunds, and the elimination of cross-department silos. What once required four or five staff members to manage now takes just one — freeing teams to focus on higher-value work while delivering a smoother experience for residents.

Whether you support finance, public works, or digital services in local government, this episode offers practical insights on modernizing payments, improving security, and showing how even small community programs can deliver big wins through thoughtful digital transformation.

This episode also highlights the Tyler Excellence Awards, which celebrate public sector organizations using Tyler solutions to make a meaningful impact in their communities. Apply now at the link below!

Submit Your Tyler Excellence Awards Application Now!

And learn more about the topics discussed in this episode with these resources:

Download: Modern Governments Live in the Cloud
Download: White Paper: Procuring a Modern Payments Platform
Download: Process Payments in Real Time
Download: How to Create a Unified Digital Payment Experience
Read: Excellence 2025: Civic Interaction & Public Trust Solutions
Read: 7 Payment Automation Myths
Read: How Governments Build Public Trust With Data and AI
Read: Enterprise ERP a Leader for Cloud ERP for Local Government
Read: Increase Community Resilience With Modern Payment Systems

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