Project Background

Updating Maine's GIS Strategic Plan and Designing a Statewide Integrated Land Records System

In March of 2007, the GeoLibrary Board received a matching grant from the US Geological Survey in support of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC) Fifty States Initiative. The work to be completed included 2 tasks. Task 1 was to update and enhance the GeoLibrary Strategic Plan and bring it into alignment with the goals of the Fifty States Initiative. Task 2 was to recommend a conceptual framework and functional specification for an Integrated Land Records Information System for the State of Maine . Two-thirds of the effort of the project was concentrated on Task 2.

The focus of the Strategic Plan update in Task 1 was on the following criteria:

a) coordination of local governments, academia and the private sector

b) developing sustainable funding sources; and

c) cultivating political champions to grow support for future geospatial initiatives.

The main thrust of Task 2 was to produce a conceptual framework and a functional specification for an Integrated Land Records System based on a sustainable political and technical architecture and user requirements, to enable the capture and maintenance of property data to the parcel level statewide.

For nearly two decades Maine counties, municipalities and the Office of GIS have worked piecemeal to standardize and assemble this essential resource. This initiative seeks to codify standards and procedures in such a way that integrates

Deed and plan records at the county level,
Municipal tax assessor parcel geometry at the municipal level, and
Attribute input from a variety of additional stakeholders (See Appendices B and C for an initial list of project participants to be targeted).

On January 16, 2008 the Geolibrary Board voted to accept a proposal from the James W. Sewall Company to provide services in fulfillment of this grant. The Sewall Team included: Reference Standard, Somers-St. Claire, GIS Management Consultants and Fairview Industries. The kick-off meeting and presentation was made to the Board on February 20, 2008: Kickoff presentation.

Input Solicited

As this project began, the GeoLibrary Board solicited input from the Maine GIS community, municipal, county, state and the federal government, county registries, the bar association, the real estate, the surveying community, and other impacted and interested stakeholders across the state of Maine. The project has included meetings, presentations, regional forums, surveys and interviews designed to capture each of these perspectives. Your input is vital!

Schedule

The majority of the work on the project was completed by June, 2009. Initial data gathering was followed by analysis and proposed solutions. Presentations were made to the Board throughout the process. Below is a diagram depicting the overall workflow for the project. The diagram was subject to adjustment to accommodate the Board's needs as required.

Project Workflow

Deliverables

The Sewall Team submitted the following to the Board for review:

A report outline at the start of each task or sub-task,
One or more draft documents at the completion of each task or sub-task as described in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, and
A final version after incorporating Board comments.

Task 1 Deliverable – Addendum to the 2002 Geolibrary Board Strategic Plan

Task 2 Deliverables – Research Findings Document; Conceptual Framework Document; Integrated Land Records Information System Functional Specification; and Promotion strategy Document comprise the Maine Integrated Land Records Information System final report.

Constituent participation has been a hallmark of this process, ensuring that a great diversity of input and perspective were considered in the development of this system. One very important change that has occurred is that the project is now referred to as the "GeoParcels" project.

GEOLIBRARY INFORMATION