Creation of New GIS for Municipality

Question

Our city is preparing to develop a new enterprise GIS which will eventually serve all city departments.  So far, a basic GIS has existed in the information technology department.  However, the public works department has shown an interest in assuming responsibility of this expanded GIS.

The question is, "What are the arguments for locating and managing a GIS in one city department verses another?"

AdamCottrell · Answer

If you work for a City in the United States like I do, then who does what and where depends 100% on where the funding is coming from. For example, at the City where I work, our GIS is decentralized in a rather unique way:

- With two exceptions: Our Citywide Enterprise GIS is housed on a central server. It includes our Sanitary Sewer, Storm Sewer, Potable Water Utility, and Transportation/Planning/Parks GIS data. Our Public Works GIS Group oversees this data.

- Our Wastewater Treatment Plant and Recycled Water Utility GIS data is housed with the GIS Group at our Wastewater Treatment Plant.

- Our Airport GIS data is housed with the GIS Group at our Airport.

- Our IT Dept does not play a role in GIS other than to do server maintenance.

Why this strange set up?

Our Citywide Enterprise GIS in our Public Works Department is what is considered Enterprise Funded. Meaning it is not funded by General Fund (Property & Sales Taxes). Generally speaking, around 95% of the costs (personnel and non-personnel) are paid for using our Sanitary Sewer, Storm Sewer, and Potable Water Funds.  The other 5% of the funds come from General Funded sources.

Our Wastewater Treatment Plant and Recycled Water Utility GIS in our Wastewater Treatment Plant is Enterprise Funded 100% by our Plant.

Our Airport GIS at our Airport is 100% funded by our Airport.

Our IT Dept has no consistent funding source, it is dog-eat-dog, beg-borrow-steal, for these folks. They get whatever funding they can get, usually the leftovers. It not uncommon when you ask for assistance from our IT Dept on a project, GIS or non-GIS, and once they find out the project is Enterprise Funded they will make every attempt to exort more funding out of your project to fund other unrelated projects in their department!

Just like children, Cities do not like to share. They are very protective about how their Enterprise Funds are used.

In my case, and in the case of GIS in general in our City this is a good arrangement. In the past, when we had our IT Dept meddle in GIS they made a mess of things. Better to keep IT out of GIS in our case.

Despite all this, we are an all ESRI shop, using SQL Server with ArcGIS Server. We are able to easily share/exchange data. No problems.

Great Point!  I could not agree more but this is how our cities differ and my absent-mindedness to other cities able to collect enterprise funds.  Our Departments are not Enterprise Funded.  The Sanitary Sewer has their own Board and are completely seperate from the City.  The water company is not part of the city as well.  Public Works Dept is tasked with storm water maintenance but we are not charging a storm water fee.  So it is a "dog-eat-dog, beg-borrow-steal" for us all and I could not agree more with the sharing part.  It is unfortunate to say, as well, that the majority of users, if not all, who would be required to do GIS work are not experienced or even know what GIS is.  We are currently moving the data management to a De-centralized environment where each respective dept manages their authoritative data.  This is a slow process due to training and they see it as additional work to their current daily operations.

THayes2000 · Answer

Thank you for your post.  Your main points are noted.

We do have a GIS history which is centralized and staffed in IT.  However, our user needs are changing as are budget sources and staff changes.  We may likely end up with a decentralized system as our organization evolves absent new revenue sources and dramatic new thinking about how GIS is best delivered long-term.