About GIS

Gallatin County GIS

Gallatin County GIS has its roots with the county's implementation of a map-based 911 CAD system created by Intergraph (now Hexagon AB). This brought the power of digital GIS to 911. After a couple of years with the system, the county realized it required a dedicated staff member to administer and maintain the system so they hired the contractor working on the system as the GIS Manager. This GIS Manager went on to provide the foundation for the organization and headed it as a department until 2015. The Department was staffed by three full-time positions regularly and occasionally employed temporary staff/interns up until 2020.

In 2000, the County Commissioners adopted Resolution 2000-128 which set policies for addressing properties and naming roads. The document also established the Gallatin County GIS Department as the authorized addressing and road naming authority for the county. In 2002 a supplemental policy for re-addressing and re-naming roads was adopted with Resolution 2002-17. These two documents guided the addressing and road naming practice in the county for the next 20+ years until the adoption of Resolution 2023-077, The Gallatin County Addressing and Road Naming Policies and Procedures Manual, which establishes a robust address reference system. The essence of addressing as an orientational system for the road network means it's inherently spatial and the priority role it plays in emergency response gave rise to Gallatin County GIS as it has given rise to so many local government GIS shops. As the operations of the department formed, the organization moved more fully into the position of being a general support function with the employment of GIS staff in support of field data collection, analysis, and administration for other county departments. For example, Gallatin County GIS has contributed to several projects in the past such as the Gallatin County HAZUS-MH Earthquake Study, improvements to the county's geographic coordinate database (GCDB), and the Gallatin Valley Ditch Project. This support function was further improved with the creation of the county's first web map application. 

The first web map application hosted by Gallatin County GIS was an Esri IMS application used in the 2000's prior to 2008 when the application was migrated over to ArcGIS Server. Several map applications tailored for use by different departments according to their needs were created and served as the first iteration of the web maps hosted today. In 2011, a consultant organization was hired to improve the web map applications with querying functions to non-Esri databases like Tyler's iTax system used by the Clerk and Recorder's Office. In 2016, the original web map application was revised to employ a JavaScript modular framework that facilitated making style and content changes to the map applications. This was the last major project to work on the web map applications although several independent custom web applications have been made for specific uses since such as the EHS Data Manager, the Fort Ellis Fire Fee Map, and the COVID Dashboard. 

In 2015, the GIS Department became a Division of the Planning Department while also seeing an exponential increase in addressing/road naming service demand (see graph, below). That increase has been sustained ever since and, combined with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to a change in the capacity of the GIS Division to perform its general support function while also continuing to fall behind on years of deferred maintenance. This year (2023), GIS was moved under 911. This move will help pave the way to adopt the needed changes for Next Generation 911.