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Assessor seeks guidance on fees and encourages GIS subscriptions for frequent users
Summary
The county assessor asked commissioners whether to impose fees for printed property cards and whether to change GIS subscription pricing to drive more users toward a paid online subscription; commissioners asked for more data and asked the assessor to return with comparisons.
Hand County Assessor Jamie presented options to adjust fees for property-card requests and to encourage users to purchase GIS subscriptions rather than continuing to request printed records from the assessor’s office.
Jamie said the county currently offers a variety of GIS subscription options (daily, monthly, quarterly, annual) and that the annual subscription is $250. She said day-to-day requests for property cards and sales documentation consume staff time and that some commercial users (appraisers, insurance companies) access public records repeatedly. Jamie said several counties charge either a per-document fee or tiered access fees and asked whether the commissioners wanted her to pursue a formal fee schedule or conduct further research.
She said she had created a Google Drive for sales data and related documents to reduce repetitive email requests and that she would email county stakeholders about the GIS subscription options to spur sign-ups. Commissioners and staff discussed whether small per-document fees discourage walk-in public access; one commissioner said public records should be available without charge while also recognizing the staff time required to compile and email material.
Why it matters: Adjusting fees or pricing for GIS access could shift recurring retrieval workloads from staff to paid subscribers and potentially offset office time spent preparing records, but it raises questions about access to publicly available information and collection methods for small fees.
Next steps: The assessor will gather comparative fee data from other counties and return with recommendations next month; commissioners asked staff to consider practical collection methods for small fees and thresholds for bulk-copy exemptions.
