GIS/ County saves by outsourcing its Web site

Warren County, Ohio, has begun providing Internet access to its digital parcel maps and property records through a Web site hosting arrangement with a third party. The arrangement has saved the county money while providing residents with easy access to property information. “People were asking for it,” says Nick Nelson, county auditor. “It’s become an expectation.”

Before Warren County’s GIS Web site launch, the auditor’s office had paper maps, appraisal data and a relatively mature GIS, but public access was limited and sometimes inconvenient. “People had to come here to see what we had,” Nelson says.

Nelson was encouraged to put the information online after several other Ohio counties – including Greene, Hamilton, Lucas, Delaware and Franklin – put their parcel maps and property records on the Internet. “Property owners, real estate agents, appraisers, title searchers and people looking for houses kept asking us, `When are you going online?'” Nelson says.

Beginning in the 1990s, Warren County developed and programmed its computer-aided mass appraisal (CAMA) system, tax accounting system and GIS in-house. Last year, the county sought the help of Day-ton, Ohio-based Woolpert to create and host its GIS Web site because it could not provide the service quickly with its in-house resources. In spring 2000, the company linked the county’s digital parcel maps to the auditor’s CAMA data and began hosting the GIS Web site.

Using standard query criteria, residents now can use the Internet to retrieve Warren County’s parcel maps and related CAMA data, such as property, sales, land, yard and building information. “Now that residents can access information on the Web, it eliminates travel time and walking back and forth between offices,” Nelson says.

Hiring a third party to create and host its GIS Web site cost the auditor’s office one-eighth as much as the cost of creating and hosting the site in-house. The office did not have to hire additional IT professionals or purchase hardware and software right away.

In the future, Nelson plans to host the GIS Web site in-house so the office can maintain control of the site, its updates and enhancements, and security. Before that can happen, the office will need to purchase an Internet map server. The Internet map server is a duplicate data-storage system that will prevent anyone from tampering with the county’s live GIS data.

“We are very comfortable with our ability to do these things once we have all the resources and tools in place,” Nelson says. “But [working with a third party] allowed us to get up and running in a month rather than wait another year until we could do it in-house.”