Tumwater committee moves Esri three-year GIS license renewal to council consent calendar

On May 8, 2025, the City of Tumwater Public Works Committee voted to place a three-year small government enterprise agreement renewal with Esri on the May 20, 2025, city council consent calendar with a recommendation that the council approve and authorize the mayor to sign.

The item affects the city’s geographic information systems (GIS) software licensing, which the city uses for public-facing applications such as the “follow the snowplow” tool, story maps and an open-data site, plus internal mapping, desktop GIS work and mobile inspection apps used by operations staff.

Jennifer Radcliffe, the city’s GIS program manager, described the proposed contract as a three-year renewal for the city’s GIS software licenses. “The agreement is for our GIS software licenses, and it's a 3 year term agreement,” Radcliffe said. She told the committee the enterprise agreement is priced by population and that Tumwater moved into a higher pricing tier after surpassing 25,000 residents.

Radcliffe gave the committee the cost breakdown she negotiated with Esri: the city had previously paid about $27,500 per year; under the new population tier the full rate would be $42,200 per year, but the city negotiated a stepped increase. Year 1 would be $32,200, year 2 $37,200, and year 3 listed as $40,000 (the vendor’s stated tier rate is $42,200). Radcliffe said purchasing individual licenses outside the enterprise agreement would be more expensive.

Radcliffe outlined the types of services bundled in the agreement and how the city uses them: “We have software that allows us to create applications for our website, things like our follow the snowplow application. We have story maps … dashboards like our solar panel installation dashboard. We also have an open data site … and internal applications, like our city GIS viewer.” She said field crews use mobile apps to inspect assets.

When asked why the city uses Esri, Radcliffe said the company is the industry leader and commonly taught in schools, and that open-source alternatives can be harder to learn and implement.

Committee members put the item on the council consent calendar with a motion that was seconded and approved by the members present. The motion text presented to the committee was to place the small government enterprise agreement renewal with Esri on the May 20, 2025, city council consent calendar with a recommendation to approve and authorize the mayor to sign. The committee’s action was to forward the item for council consideration; the council will take the final vote on May 20.

If approved by the City Council and signed by the mayor, the three-year enterprise agreement would continue the city’s current GIS licensing arrangement and maintain access to the cited public and internal mapping tools.