Managing a non-centrally funded GIS: How the city of fort worth and other U.S. cities manage
Issues
A primary issue recognized by ISS is that with a large portion of their GIS funding relying on the
charge-back of staff time, they may not be able to completely cover the cost of all their GIS staff.
If the model was strictly followed, this would mean ISS could be faced with laying-off or
reassigning GIS staff. To avoid this highly disruptive event, during the early years of the
program, ISS will subsidize the GIS program. The goal of achieving total reimbursement for the
GIS program through fees and service charges to departments, however, remains.
How Other Jurisdictions Fund Enterprise GIS
To compare and contrast Fort Worth's method of funding enterprise GIS, we polled the
experience of four other public agencies who have significant experience with managing
enterprise GIS and contending at some level with the issue of non-central funding. The agencies
that participated in our poll were:
- City of San Jose, California
- City of Arlington, Texas
- Clark County, Nevada
- King County, Washington
Table 1 summarizes the information collected from each of these agencies as well as the City of
Fort Worth. The information has been categorized into three major sections:
Environment: reporting the date the jurisdiction started their department-based
automated mapping programs (AM/GIS), when their enterprise GIS programs were
initiated, the GIS software being used, the number of participating departments and
department staff, the title and reporting structure of the individual responsible for
managing the enterprise component of the GIS, and the number of staff assigned to the
enterprise GIS program (including the manager).
Responsibility: listing the responsibilities assigned to the enterprise GIS group and those
assigned to the departments who utilize GIS.
Budget: reporting on the jurisdiction's budget cycle, the methods used to pay for the
enterprise component of the GIS budget, and the primary vehicles the jurisdiction uses to
review and coordinate enterprise GIS budget development.
Table 1 How Some Jurisdictions Are Funding Enterprise GIS
Comparing the enterprise GIS funding systems being used by Fort Worth, San Jose, Arlington,
Clark County and King County (see Table 1) one can see some important similarities. All of
these jurisdictions have moved the GIS Manager or Coordinator role into the organization's
Information Technology department and all of the jurisdictions rely on departments hiring the
staff necessary to update the data components "owned" by the department.
More interesting, however, are the differences between the funding systems. The most notable
differences relate to three issues:
- the extent to which departments are given autonomy in making GIS software purchases
- how jurisdictions fund their enterprise GIS support group
- the methods used to develop, coordinate and review the enterprise GIS budget
Central or Decentralized GIS Software Procurement
Fort Worth, San Jose and King County require their departments to pay for departmental GIS
software, and departments are allowed to select GIS software from a variety of vendors.
Arlington and Clark County have implemented systems that centralize the purchase of GIS
software with the enterprise support group - these two jurisdictions pay for all of the
organization's GIS software from the General Fund**.
The jurisdictions that allow decentralized (department driven) procurement of GIS software do
so because of the strength of the department-based GIS systems that were in place at the time of
the enterprise GIS initiative. The state of GIS technology is such that heterogeneous software
environments can be supported under the enterprise model of a central GIS data server.
But there are costs to a heterogeneous software environment that our polled jurisdictions
recognize and admit to. Maintaining an enterprise GIS in a heterogeneous software environment
can impose additional costs for middle-ware, operating system software and staff training, as
well as for the promulgation and maintenance of standards and on-going system administration.
King County has recognized another issue with decentralized software procurement: with
expenditures spread across divisions, departments and sections it is difficult to get a handle on
the organization's total IT investment and support costs. It is equally difficult to monitor and
manage the strategic direction of these investments. The recognition of these issues has become
acute enough at King County that the County's Council is requiring the organization to document
their total cost of IT, perhaps as a prelude to improving the County's strategic management of
these resources.
In fact, Arlington and Clark County report their system of centralized control over the
procurement of GIS software is a direct response to issues of cost efficiency, standardization and
strategic resource management. At Clark County, this has been taken to the point of also
** Arlington's Technology Services Department purchases all "core" GIS software for its departments. Departments
must pay for any specialty software (vendor provided extensions and third-party applications) for which they have
won justification.
centralizing the development of all GIS application programming to ensure standardization and
re-usability.
Funding the Enterprise Support Function
Our poll also found a difference in how the jurisdictions are funding the enterprise component of
their GIS. Two of the jurisdictions totally fund their enterprise GIS support function through
money received from their user departments. At the City of Fort Worth, this is accomplished
from a combination of GIS server connection fees and charging staff time back to departments.
King County employs a similar approach that allocates the bulk of its fixed costs to departments
based on the number of "view access" software licenses owned by each department. King County
supports the other portion of its program costs by charging back staff time based on a range of
GIS services that are "purchased" by the County's departments.
The funding method used at the City of San Jose is the most unique. San Jose's enterprise GIS
function is totally funded by an existing capital project. In addition, San Jose's departments also
are required to fund their GIS programs through special projects or levied fees. To date, the City
has been unwilling to support GIS through operating funds. This has introduced a great deal of
uncertainty into GIS program budgeting, with departments "scrambling" each year to pull their
budgets together. San Jose's enterprise GIS group is facing a real challenge with its upcoming
budget because the capital project that has funded them will be completed.
At the opposite end of the spectrum is the method employed by the City of Arlington and Clark
County to fund the enterprise component of their GIS. The General Fund supports the enterprise
GIS function at both of these jurisdictions. This is of particular interest because these
organizations also purchase the GIS software needed by their departments. Further, at Clark
County the enterprise GIS group also develops 100% of the GIS applications needed by its
departments. This method of funding enterprise GIS reflects each jurisdiction's political
commitment to maximizing cost effectiveness and the enterprise management of their IT/GIS
programs.
