The GEO-Jobe Blog

Left to right (Zach Layne (ESRI), Neill Jobe (GEO-Jobe GIS), Jack Dangermond (ESRI), John Isbell (Sumner County, TN Assessor)

Sumner County’s Assessor of Property was one of 150 (out of a pool of over 300,000) to be recognized recently by ESRI. Sumner County Assessor of Property John Isbell accepted the award for his office and said he was thrilled to be recognized for the county’s diligence in both making information accessible on its public website as well as working with other governmental entities on its Enterprise system. The County is a long time client of GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting, who assisted during the planning and implementation stages.

Sumner County started its GIS in 2001 and launched the public version of the site in 2004. What followed was wide acceptance from those outside the County, from realtors and economic developers to those just wanting to see how values had changed over the years. The public site (http://tn.sumner.geopowered.com), which runs on GEO-Jobe’s GEOPowered web GIS platform, receives in excess of 500 users each day. Users are able to search by the easy-to-use map interface or through text-based parcel number, owner name, and address search. The powerful map interface gives users the ability to navigate within multiple map information layers, like aerial photos, streets, parcels, zoning, school districts, voting districts, and more.

The non-public secure GEOPowered Enterprise GIS was developed for exclusive use by internal users only. The Enterprise system, through the use of GIS data replication, allows many agencies, like all of the county’s utility districts, and county offices like the Sumner County Board of Education, planning department, and EMS, as well as larger cities in Sumner like Gallatin, Hendersonville, Goodlettsville and Portland to access common base data that is consistent across agencies and is always up to date.

It is all too common today that many government agencies across the United States have the same or similar data stored in multiple locations with different coordinate systems and even different formats. For example, parcel maps are maintained in one location while utilities and 911 are stored in different locations. The concern is determining which is the most up to date. In some cases it could be a matter of life and death. Imagine sending a fire truck to the wrong house based on incorrect data. Sumner County’s system has proved that data sharing and replication solves this and other fundamental problems like this by ensuring that the base geographic data at each desktop at each agency is the same. It’s essentially like having real-time data.

Sumner County Assessor Isbell, an elected official who oversees a $900,000 budget, noted both GIS sites serve another purpose as well. “They show that Sumner County and the cities and public utilities are working together to make government more efficient and to ultimately save the tax payers money,” he said.

Sumner County runs on GEOPowered, the powerful web GIS solution from GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting. If you’d like to learn more about GEOPowered and how Enterprise GIS can save your organization time and money, contact GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting at info@geo-jobe.com. You can count on GEO-Jobe to be “Your Dependable Leader in GIS.”

GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting is an ESRI Authorized Business Partner and ESRI Certified Reseller/Consultant/Instructor.

GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting is the Trimble Dealer for the State of Tennessee.

Filed under: ESRI, Places