Montgomery County's system required 126 work years to build, with years spent in analyzing, designing, testing, and implementing the application software. It would cost nearly $5 million to duplicate this software development today. However, Washington County was able to use this software through remote computing, based on a licensing arrangement developed by a private company and Montgomery County. This agreement overcame the constitutional and other restrictions on the county's direct provision of the support. Using remote computing benefits the recipient county in many ways. It need not purchase a mainframe computer or employ analysts and computers. The installation is rapid, and using an existing system results in fewer problems than using a new one. However, county data processing staff, those unfamiliar with computer security techniques, and hardware manufacturers may oppose this approach. Nevertheless, the Washington County transfer project was accomplished in just 3 months and shows how efficient such an approach can be. Figures.