County officials on Monday approved an agreement that will add additional tools for the assessor’s office related to the county’s geographic information system (GIS), Beacon.
The Bartholomew County commissioners signed-off on a three-year agreement between the county and Schneider Geospatial, LLC to add additional services related to the assessor’s office.
The GIS system is used to maintain parcel maps and connect parcels to individual ownership records. The system also visualizes and validates data that assessed values are based upon.
County Assessor Ginny Whipple told the commissioners that the additional services add appraisal tools to better establish assessed values and gives taxpayers “much better access to comparable properties for appeals.”
Whipple mentioned as well that the additional service package will provide better data extract tools for the auditor’s office.
“There’s just a lot in it that really will help my office,” she said.
The agreement costs $173,647, including a one-time setup cost of $50,263 and annual hosting fees of $39,919, $41,116 and $42,349, respectively.
Schneider Geospatial last year purchased the GIS system the city and county previously used to display assessment and tax information, which was called Elevate. The new system —Beacon — can be accessed here.
