KCGIS User Group October 3 Meeting Topic: The Sound to Summit Regional GIS Study

The next King County GIS User Group Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 3, 11am–12noon
King Street Center, Conference Room 7044-45

Feature Topic: Announcing the Sound to Summit Regional GIS Study
Greg Babinski, King County GIS Marketing & Business Development Manager

In Washington, public agency operating budgets are restricted by a mandated 1% limit on annual increases in property tax revenue. Fortunately, regional collaboration could lower the need for increases in GIS budgets by reducing duplication of effort and expense among local GIS operations. Regional sharing could also effect a shift of costs away from data maintenance and administration toward greater provision of services.

Recently the Sound to Summit Regional GIS Steering Committee announced the launch of a project to explore ways to collaboratively organize and operate GIS data and services within the region. The goal is to maximize the benefits and minimize the costs of GIS for all regional agencies while ensuring sustainability. A key outcome will be low-cost access for medium and small agencies to state-of-the-art GIS applications.

This presentation will describe the factors that motivated the launch of this multi-year project, outline our work plan, and provide examples of other viable regional GIS enterprises in the US and Canada.

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