Cass County staff push to hire full-time GIS coordinator to meet state data deadline

County staff and a presenter identified a persistent data-quality problem in Cass County's GIS layers and urged the council to support hiring a dedicated GIS coordinator to meet state requirements.

Erin, who led the presentation, said a seed grant begun 18 months ago showed many county layers badly need correction and that "that map is showing that seed program that I'm talking about that we're at 40%." She told the council that the state is requiring parcel, address, centerline and boundary layers from counties and that those layers are used by state police, NDOT and DNR as well as local departments.

Staff explained that poor GIS data has cascading effects: it can misroute E-911 responders, cause errors in voter and dispatch systems, complicate highway and right-of-way work, and hamper planning and tax calculations. The presenters described a proposed job that would create, edit and maintain all county GIS layers and coordinate with assessor, planning, highway, E-911 and other offices.

To meet the seed-grant terms, staff said the county must reach 98% completeness within roughly 10 months; they proposed temporarily using nonreverting grant funds to hire someone now and then include the position in next year's budget. Staff also discussed seed-grant funding (examples cited included a $30,000 seed grant per layer), consultant costs previously incurred on layers like watersheds, and a likely market salary range discussed at the meeting.

Council members asked whether the city could share the position and about pay ranges; presenters said the county is the primary data owner and recommended county employment with potential intergovernmental arrangements to share costs. Erin said the hiring timeline and grant deadline make immediate action helpful, and staff described Beacon and Caliber integration challenges that led to months of editing in prior efforts.