Erica Esplin, Berrien County GIS director, told commissioners the county has deployed a modern ArcGIS enterprise system and added tens of thousands of address points to 911 dispatch.

Esplin said the county has added “over 70,000 new address points to the dispatch systems with another 9,000 coming soon to aid in emergency response,” and that staff have begun field data collection to capture unit-level addressing in apartments and mobile home communities.

Esplin said the ArcGIS enterprise deployment, completed in partnership with the county information systems department and vendor Pro West, replaces unsupported systems, provides a secure environment for geospatial data and is intended to speed map-based services for internal departments and the public. She said staff training is underway and that “by 02/19/26, county staff and the public should see substantial improvements in speed, accuracy, and accessibility of GIS data and services.”

The director said the land description work has been returned to county staff and will process “more than 300 taxpayer land reconfiguration applications” this year. She said remonumentation for 2025 is “supported entirely by state grant funds with no local match required.”

Esplin introduced recent staffing additions by name: deputy director Carson Evans and 9-1-1 GIS data manager Julius Bathas, and noted other team members completing certifications, naming GIS technician Kirsty Sexton and GIS specialist Larry Shooks. She also noted state-level involvement, saying she was appointed to the state GIS advisory board and to the remote sensing advisory board and that she serves as vice president for the Michigan Statewide GIS Professional Organization.

Esplin described ways different county departments are using GIS: interactive construction-history and hazard tools for the roads department, evacuation and communication mapping for the health department, exhibits and analysis for courts, predictive modeling for drains, and integration with assessment tools such as PivotPoint and EagleView in Equalization. She said the county receives high-resolution aerial imagery on a three-year cycle under the MYSALE program.

No formal board action was taken on the presentation; commissioners thanked Esplin and invited further, longer briefings for the board or the public.