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GIS Strategic Plan Summary
Stages I and II
February 7, 2011
Appendix 1
Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy Report, January 13, 2009
Montgomery County Planning Department
Montgomery County, Maryland
GIS Strategic Plan Update

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy Report
FINAL
January 13, 2009
Submitted to:
John Schlee
Geographic Information System Team Leader
Research and Technology Center
Montgomery County Department of Park and Planning
Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission
Dedrick Annex
1400 Spring Street. Suite 500
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-2748
301.650.5603
Submitted by
KCI Technologies, Inc.

10 North Park Drive
Hunt Valley, MD 21030
VERSION CONTROL
Version Date Description
1.0 October 3, 2008 Internal Draft
1.1 October 9, 2008 Internal Draft
1.2 October 10, 2008 Draft
1.3 October 13, 2008 Draft for Distribution
2.0 December 17, 2008 Incorporation of comments
3.0 January 13, 2009 Removal of census address reference

Montgomery County, Maryland—GIS Strategic Plan Update
Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy
TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 1

AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT ........................................................................................................................... 1
Improve Quality of Key Data ................................................................................................................ 1
Improve Data Documentation and Accessibility ................................................................................... 1
Improve GIS Availability ...................................................................................................................... 1
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS ....................................................................................................................... 1
ORGANIZATIONAL REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................................ 2
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY .................................................................................................................... 2
Address Data Maintenance Enhancements ........................................................................................... 3
Application and Environment Enhancements ....................................................................................... 3
Data Maintenance Strategy .................................................................................................................. 4
Organizational Tasks ............................................................................................................................ 4
SECTION 1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 5
BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................................................ 5
PROJECT SCOPE .......................................................................................................................................... 5
METHODOLOGY.......................................................................................................................................... 6
ORGANIZATION OF REPORT ........................................................................................................................ 7
SECTION 2 CURRENT GIS ENVIRONMENTS ..................................................................................... 8
NETWORK................................................................................................................................................... 8
SOFTWARE ................................................................................................................................................. 8
Department of Technology Services...................................................................................................... 9
M-NCPPC – Research and Technology Center ...................................................................................10
HARDWARE ...............................................................................................................................................10
TOOLS / SERVICES .....................................................................................................................................11
Department of Technology Services.....................................................................................................11
M-NCPPC – Research and Technology Center ...................................................................................12
SECTION 3 CURRENT GIS STAFFING AND ORGANIZATIONS ....................................................14
MONTGOMERY COUNTY AGENCIES...........................................................................................................14
AGENCY GIS SUPPORT ..............................................................................................................................14
USER GROUPS ...........................................................................................................................................15
TECHNICAL COMMITTEES..........................................................................................................................15
POLICY COMMITTEES ................................................................................................................................16
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SECTION 4 CURRENT AGENCY GIS RESPONSIBILITIES .............................................................18

DATA MAINTENANCE ................................................................................................................................18
Planning Department ...........................................................................................................................18
Montgomery County DTS-GIS .............................................................................................................21
DATA SALES ..............................................................................................................................................24
SECTION 5 GIS NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS .................................................................................25
DATA RESOURCES .....................................................................................................................................25
DATA ENHANCEMENTS .............................................................................................................................27
DATA SHARING AND PUBLISHING .............................................................................................................28
Central Data Publishing ......................................................................................................................28
Data Standards ....................................................................................................................................29
Metadata ..............................................................................................................................................29
GIS APPLICATIONS ....................................................................................................................................31
TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND TRAINING ........................................................................................................32
ORGANIZATION .........................................................................................................................................32
COMMUNICATIONS ....................................................................................................................................33
SECTION 6 RECOMMENDATIONS ......................................................................................................34
GIS TECHNOLOGY.....................................................................................................................................34
Data Maintenance Responsibilities......................................................................................................34
Data Maintenance Environment ..........................................................................................................35
Data Maintenance Workflows ..............................................................................................................35
DATA SHARING .........................................................................................................................................37
GIS Data Portal ...................................................................................................................................37
ORGANIZATION .........................................................................................................................................38
COMMUNICATIONS ....................................................................................................................................39
SECTION 7 IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY ....................................................................................40
ADDRESS DATA MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENTS ......................................................................................40
1. Address and Centerline Data Conflation ........................................................................................40
2. Data Maintenance Workflow Implementation ................................................................................40
3. MAR Maintenance Environment Enhancement ..............................................................................41
APPLICATION AND ENVIRONMENT ENHANCEMENTS .................................................................................41
4. GIS Portal Implementation.........................................................................................................41
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5. Develop Consolidated Web Presence .........................................................................................41

6. Migrate DTS Fully to ESRI 9.3 Environment .............................................................................41
APPENDIX A USER WORK SESSION PARTICPANTS ......................................................................43
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Montgomery County Planning Department of the Maryland-National Capital Park

and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has been tasked by the Montgomery County
Council to perform an update of the GIS Strategic Plan that was prepared in 1996. The
project goal is to review the status of the County GIS implementation and identify ways
to enhance and improve GIS operations to better support County GIS users and the public.
Montgomery County Government (MCG) Departments, County Agencies, M-NCPPC,

WSSC, and the municipalities have all implemented GIS and integrated its use into daily
operations. There is a substantial user base in the County and supporting key data
resources available. There is even greater recognized potential to expand GIS use through
improved tools and services, including leveraging current technology that is available.
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
Based on the user survey that was conducted and user and staff work sessions facilitated
by KCI, three major areas for improvement have been identified:
Improve Quality of Key Data
Improve data maintenance workflows for key address, building and street centerline data
resources, eliminating redundancy and improving data accuracy. Clarify and formalize
data maintenance responsibilities. Implement formal feedback loops supported by
adequate communications tools and tracking capability.
Improve Data Documentation and Accessibility
Improve access to GIS data by implementing a central GIS Data Portal that catalogues
and documents all data that is available to County users including identification of update
cycles, content, and sources. Enforce metadata requirements and provide means for all
County users to post available data via this mechanism.
Improve GIS Availability
Improved access to GIS resources was identified frequently by users. One area is
increased GIS software license availability, additional GIS training, and end user support.
The other area is consolidation and improvement of GIS web services which would
improve the GIS functionality available to the public and to the casual County GIS user.
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
In order to make improvements and expand GIS use, there are several areas of technical
advancement required. These include:
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1. Provide additional training, both in-house and ESRI-based, to County GIS users and
to GIS support staff. Develop a training plan that identifies levels of training based
on staff responsibilities.
2. Establish data standards for format, naming conventions, and metadata that support
the GIS Portal implementation.
3. Migrate existing data maintenance environments and processes completely to the
ArcGIS 9.2/9.3 environment, eliminating coverage data formats and use of AML
routines. Transition all data resources and attendant maintenance activities to
centralized, multi-user environments that support versioning and history tracking of
data and allow multiple users across various organizations to edit, review and QC
data, tracking all activities comprehensively.
4. Develop a consolidated County web-based GIS one-stop shop for staff and the
general public. This will support greater GIS use and expand services to the public
with minimum requirements for training and technical support.
5. Provide additional end user support, application development, and technical support
through a combination of redefining DTS-GIS and M-NCPPC roles, extensive staff
training, and use of consultant resources.
ORGANIZATIONAL REQUIREMENTS
It is acknowledged that in order to support the suggested improvements and technical

advances, there are budgetary and organizational issues that must be resolved.
1. Establish a governance model which brings GIS coordination and decision making to
the ITPCC for consideration and adoption of policy. Examples where governance
would improve current activities are elimination of duplicate data acquisition,
coordination of initiatives such as mobile GIS computing, adopting standards, and
defining roles and responsibilities for GIS activities throughout the consortium.
2. Develop a budgeting and funding mechanism for GIS line items such as major data
acquisition, training, and consulting support that ensures the needs of end users and
central and departmental GIS support groups are met. Consider options such as an
investment fund or capital budget that is funded by all of the consortium agencies
with oversight by the ITPCC.
3. Improve communications regarding GIS data, activities, and resources through
several channels, including expanded MC:MAPS, interest-specific GIS user groups,
and improved connections between County agencies and departments and the M-
NCPPC Planning Department. A Communications Plan should be adopted that
ensures all GIS users are in contact across agency and department lines to create a
virtual GIS organization.
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
Several specific tasks were identified that are key to making immediate progress with
resolving current problems. These tasks and the associated budgets and implementation
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considerations are described in Section 7 of the report. It should be noted that each of
these initiatives will require some combination of consulting support, additional funding
or staffing to accomplish. It is recommended that the Phase II Implementation budget for
this project be applied to the first three tasks. Tasks 4 through 6 could be performed in
parallel if adequate funding can be identified.
Address Data Maintenance Enhancements
Perform conflation of address, centerline, and building data sources and combine into a
central data model with a multi-user maintenance environment. Modify workflows to
ensure the best possible quality and timeliness of data, including feedback loops, review
cycles, and QA/QC.
1. Address and Centerline Data Conflation—Merge existing sources of address,

building, and centerline data, performing data conflation to obtain the best
resulting data quality. Augment data with source, quality, and status data
elements.
2. Data Maintenance Workflow Implementation—Develop a new, complete

workflow for address assignment, street name approval, and address, building,
and centerline data resources maintenance. Define staff roles and responsibilities.
Develop standards and procedures to ensure compliance with the new workflow.
3. MAR Maintenance Environment Enhancement—Modify the existing Master

Address Repository (MAR) Data Model, which includes address, centerline,
building, and parcel data to accommodate all County requirements and to house
the conflated data results. Update data maintenance tools to provide
comprehensive editing of all components in a multi-user environment.
Application and Environment Enhancements
Implement a GIS Portal for improved data access and a consolidated County-wide GIS
web application that supports a broad base of County staff and public users. Migrate
existing data maintenance applications to ArcGIS 9.2/9.3 to support multi-user editing
and more efficient operations.
4. GIS Portal Implementation—Implement a central portal to all GIS data resources

available to County, M-NCPPC, and consortium staff. Define data standards,
catalogue data resources, populate portal inventory, and establish procedures for
end user publishing of data.
5. Develop a Consolidated Web Presence—Implement a consolidated County web

site that provides an easy-to-use, intuitive interface to GIS data and applications
for staff and the general public.
6. Migrate Data Maintenance to ArcGIS 9.2/9.3—Implement data maintenance tools

in ArcGIS 9.2/9.3 to support maintenance of data layers that are currently being
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maintained as ArcInfo Coverages. Provide training and transition support to staff.

Determine potential to enhance and streamline the Public Safety data provision
process through updated tools.
Data Maintenance Strategy
Task 3 of this project focused on the recommended strategy for updating key landbase
data sources including planimetric, topographic, hydrologic, and orthophoto data. A
comparables analysis of similar jurisdictions showed that data updates were not funded
by data sales, as has been the case for M-NCPPC. Typical budgets were $200k to $500k
per year and were funded through consortiums of local agencies. A proposed budget for
Montgomery County was identified for annual and rotating updates to these sources
within this range. In order to proceed with the recommended strategy, the detailed data
specifications, cost estimates, and budget line items need to be developed.
Responsibilities for the data acquisition and data review, QA/QC, and acceptance needs
to be defined.
Organizational Tasks
The following steps are recommended to support organizational improvements.
Establish an ITPCC subcommittee to examine the requirements for a governance

model in more detail and to recommend a model and identify any required
documentation or agreements needed.
Redefine the MC:MAPS charter to expand activities, rotate leadership, and define
reporting requirements to the ITPCC.
Develop MOU’s between consortium members for the joint funding of GIS
activities, including the annual data maintenance for planimetric and orthophoto
data.
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SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND
The Montgomery County Planning Department of the Maryland-National Capital Park

and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) has been tasked by the Montgomery County
Council to perform an update of the GIS Strategic Plan that was prepared in 1996. The
goal of the project is to review the status of the County GIS implementation and identify
ways to enhance and improve GIS operations to better support County GIS users and the
public.
Since the first major GIS implementation efforts among County agencies began in the
1990’s, Montgomery County has grown a substantial GIS user base among all agencies
and municipalities. The County has established a GIS operation that is supported by
multiple groups and based on cooperation and coordination. GIS has been incorporated
into key aspects of business functions and has been used extensively to support County
planning activities and operations. The overall GIS implementation is on par with
surrounding jurisdictions.
With increases in government accountability, performance measures, and data

accessibility, there is an increased understanding that GIS is the tool that can support
these requirements. The importance of the quality of the GIS data and its accessibility to
all potential users is understood by the upper levels of executive management. Many
governments, at all levels, have implemented programs to provide more centralized and
open access to data. Montgomery County supports the concept of data publishing and
sharing.
There are committed and skilled personnel throughout the County in various agencies,
departments, M-NCPPC and the municipalities who expressed the desire to improve
communications and increase sharing of expertise and resources. There is strong support
for coordination of data resources, sharing of technology, and joint funding of major data
update efforts.
This report describes the many opportunities for improving communication, data
maintenance and workflows, data sharing methods, and organization that were identified
during the course of the project.
PROJECT SCOPE
Phase I of the strategic planning effort is intended to evaluate the current GIS
environment and operations, identify ways to improve core data, applications, and
technology, and develop a strategy and budget for maintaining data.
Phase II will implement some of the identified strategies to enhance GIS resources and
expand capabilities.
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Phase I has been divided into three tasks:
Task 1 – Current Status: Provide ITPCC with a clear understanding of the current status
of GIS programs within ITPCC member agencies through user surveys and interviews.
Task 2 – Business Process/Interagency Coordination Strategy: Provide recommen-

dations on improving GIS information sharing among ITPCC member agencies to reduce
data redundancies and to ensure data integrity, data consistency, and data quality across
the member agencies.
Task 3 – Data Maintenance Strategy: Evaluate the current data update practices and
provide recommendations on the data update strategy and funding sources based on the
changes in user’s requirements, availability of technologies, and best practices. The data
maintenance strategy will primarily focus on the County’s planimetric data maintenance
and updates.
This report summarizes the Task 1 and 2 findings and provides recommendations related
to the GIS implementations, responsibilities, workflows, and communication methods in
fulfillment of Task 2. This report focuses on data resources that are related to the
addressing, street centerlines, buildings, and property mapping that are critical to many
County functions.
The Task 3 report on Data Maintenance Strategy addresses the acquisition and funding
strategies for planimetric and orthophoto data resources.
METHODOLOGY
The determination of requirements has been based on the results of the Task 1 online user
survey and the work sessions held with GIS users and support staff in County agencies,
departments, and the M-NCPPC. Work sessions have included the ITPCC agencies as
well as municipalities. The two central GIS support organizations, Montgomery County
DTS-GIS and the Planning Department Research and Technology Center (RTC), have
also been interviewed. Appendix A includes a complete list of all meetings and work
sessions held and the participants.
In this report, several terms are used to refer to GIS users and staff throughout the County:
Montgomery County Government (MCG): Departments that report to the Executive

Branch of the County
County Agencies: External agencies that are not part of the government, such as HOC
and MCPS.
County Departments: MCG internal Departments such as DFRS, DPS, DEP.
Planning Department: The Planning Department of the M-NCPPC
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Research and Technology Center (RTC): The Research and Technology Center of the
Planning Department which supports both IT and GIS for M-NCPPC.
DTS-GIS: The GIS support group for MCG Departments
County users: There are many references to GIS users through County agencies and
departments. This reference generally includes users in all agencies dependent on
County data including WSSC and M-NCPPC.
ORGANIZATION OF REPORT
This document consists of seven sections.
Section 1 Introduction—Project background and methodology for conducting Task 2.
Section 2 Current GIS Environments—Description of servers, software, and

applications implemented by the agencies.
Section 3 Current GIS Staffing and Organizations—The organization currently in

place and the GIS support structure and staffing.
Section 4 Current Agency GIS Responsibilities—Detailed description of current

activities related to data maintenance, data sharing, and publishing.
Section 5 GIS Needs and Requirements—Condensed summary of the needs and issues
described by users and support staff.
Section 6 Recommendations—Recommendations for resolving noted deficiencies and

for improving workflows, data quality, and communications
Section 7 Implementation Strategy—Specific tasks that should be undertaken to

enhance operations and improve data quality and availability.
Appendix A is a list of all meetings and work sessions held and the attendees.
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SECTION 2
CURRENT GIS ENVIRONMENTS
As part of the requirements gathering process, the KCI Team performed a high level
review of the County’s existing GIS computing environments. The evaluation included a
review of existing hardware and software as well as current practices in application and
database development. Although all departments use GIS in some form and have a
variety of servers, workstations, and software in use, this evaluation focused on the
computing environments supported by MCG DTS-GIS and M-NCPPC’s Research and
Technology Center (RTC). These two groups provide the bulk of centralized support,
software, data servers, and applications to County agencies.
NETWORK
The County has a Fiber network in place to connect all county departments and agencies.
DTS has also ensured access through the firewalls for M-NCPPC, City of Gaithersburg
and City of Rockville to share and access data. Some users may find that they are
firewalled from accessing specific servers. There are procedures in place to request
access, however, some users may not be aware of them. All departments and agencies
should be able to access the spatial data on either DTS or M-NCPPC’s server
infrastructure.
SOFTWARE
Montgomery County has standardized on the ESRI GIS software suite of products which
provide comprehensive GIS functionality for creation, editing, analysis and publishing of
map data. The ESRI products are a combination of desktop and server tools that work
together to form an enterprise environment for data maintenance, data editing and data
publishing to County users. Licenses for the server products reside within DTS and M-
NCCP for the database and application servers while a bank of concurrent licenses are
available for desktop users to access from their workstations. The desktop products are
separated into ―flavors‖ including ArcView, ArcEditor and ArcInfo. For the most part,
ArcView meets the majority of user’s needs in terms of data viewing, analysis and map
publication. For the power users whom need to perform data editing on geodatabases and
perform a higher level of geoprocessing, the ArcEditor and ArcInfo licenses are more
appropriate.
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A detailed listing of the known ESRI software, with versions, is shown below:
DTS M-NCPPC
ArcGIS 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise Standard 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise Standard

Server 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise Standard 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise
provided by C-GIS Advanced
ArcSDE 2 – ver. 9.1 1 – ver. 9.2

1 – ver. 9.2 (DEP) 1 – ver. 8.3
ArcIMS 1 – ver. 9.1 (intranet) 1 – ver. 9.3 (internet)

2 – ver. 9.2 (internet/DEP
intranet)
ArcInfo 8 – ver. 9.2 21 – ver. 9.3

1 – ver. 9.3
ArcEditor 1 – ver. 9.2 none
ArcView none 10 – ver. 9.3
It should be noted that the DTS licenses (10 total ArcInfo, ArcEditor) support only DTS
staff, while the 31 M-NCPPC client licenses are floating licenses and support all of M-
NCPPC staff. A more detailed discussion about each of the entities is provided in the
following sections.
Department of Technology Services
DTS maintains concurrent ArcInfo and ArcEditor desktop licenses which are used
primarily by DTS staff. Departments which use GIS desktop products on a regular basis
are responsible for purchasing their own licenses as needed. All users must have
dedicated licenses within their own department; there is not a central pool of licenses
available for the casual user. There may be a total of between 40 to 50 actual client
licenses in place across the County; however they cannot be shared between departments.
All licenses are purchased under a single contract with ESRI; however the contract lapsed
in 2007. Negotiations have been taking place between the County and ESRI, but a
Master Purchase Agreement is not yet in place, thereby hampering departments from
purchasing additional licenses, receiving upgrades and customer support.
In addition to the desktop products, DTS also has server products that manage the spatial
data in a relational database environment as well as server products which host and
publish web applications over the Intranet and Internet. DTS’s ArcSDE spatial data
engine works with Oracle 10g for spatial data management. ArcIMS has been the
primary web application development platform for the County including publication of
several sites involving street lights, transit, bikeways, places of interest, etc. As part of
ESRI’s product migration path, the County has received a copy of ESRI’s ArcGIS Server
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software which is capable of fully replacing the ArcSDE and ArcIMS products,
depending on the County’s requirements. DTS also has a second ArcGIS Server license
obtained through the Towson C-GIS centerline project. DTS has installed and configured
an ArcGIS Server with applications for snow operations, council districts and places of
interest.
M-NCPPC – Research and Technology Center
M-NCPPC maintains concurrent ArcView and ArcInfo desktop licenses which are shared
by all M-NCPPC staff. All M-NCPPC licenses are centralized and maintenance support
is paid by RTC for all M-NCPPC licenses. Most licenses are now version 9.2; however
staff are being migrated to the version 9.3 platform. M-NCPPC staff report that the total
amount of licenses is routinely maxed out by current usage. Additional licenses will be
needed in the future to support increasing usage by users.
As far as server products, M-NCPPC currently maintains all datasets within the
ArcSDE/Oracle environment as multi-versioned datasets. Multi-versioning allows RTC
staff to create versions of the data for edit by users and then perform QC on the version
prior to reconciling the edits back to the default version. This workflow gives the
greatest flexibility in providing a central data repository that resolves issues with multiple
users editing the same datasets. In addition, RTC staff developed and support several
web applications using ArcGIS Server that give both internal and external users access to
key datasets. An ArcIMS server is still supported also with older applications that have
yet to be migrated to ArcGIS server.
HARDWARE
DTS and M-NCPPC’s Research and Technology Center utilize the Microsoft Windows
platform for all desktop and server environments. The servers are used primarily for data
maintenance operations, data publishing and web hosting of applications and services.
This enables users from across the county to access central servers in order to use
common datasets available to them in their business processes.
A detailed listing of the known file, database and application servers are shown below:
DTS M-NCPPC
File Server gis-db4 (countywide) [name] (countywide)

gis-db7 (DTS work group)
gis-db9 (DTS work group)
ArcSDE/Oracle gis-db5 (intranet) [name] (intranet)

gis-db8 (intranet) [name] (intranet)
mcg-arcims2 (intranet)
ArcIMS mcg-arcims3 (internet) [name] (internet/intranet)

mcg-arcims (intranet)
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mcg-arcims2 (intranet)
ArcGIS Server mcg-arcgis2 [name] (internet/intranet)

(internet/intranet) [name] (intranet)
The ArcSDE servers within DTS’s infrastructure are available for users to access existing
datasets as well as load their own datasets for use by other departments. In addition,
datasets are also available in shapefile format on the file server, primarily for use by
Contractors. It appears that the datasets in ArcSDE and Shapefile format are not always
in sync and therefore causes some confusion to the users as to which is the most current.
DTS reports that their current architecture supports current operations as well as
projected future operations.
M-NCPPC serves all of their datasets to their users through ArcSDE. With the high
volume of daily users, they are experiencing issues with low memory on the database
server. This usage is only expected to increase and therefore the server infrastructure will
need to scale with increased usage.
TOOLS / SERVICES
In addition to the hardware and software components of the GIS environment, it is also
important to highlight the tools and services that are being provided to users. ESRI’s
technology has especially moved towards the establishment of a variety of address
locator, geoprocessing, map and geodata services that can serve to leverage a central
repository in a distributed manner. By publishing services that County users can easily
access and use they do not need to understand details of the data and the GIS processing
required. This section describes some examples that are currently provided.
Department of Technology Services
DTS has created and serves the following services for use by County users:
Address locator – centerline address ranges with zipcode;

Address locator – centerline address ranges without zipcode;
Address locator - DTS building addresses;
Address locator – MNCPPC master addresses.
These services are accessible to users having access to the DTS ArcSDE server(s) and
eliminate the need for users to understand and correctly configure an address locator of
their own. DTS also plans on serving additional geoprocessing services in the future.
In addition to services. DTS also hosts a number of web applications for countywide use
as well as department specific needs. The departments do not have direct access to the
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web application servers and are therefore reliant on DTS to design and develop a web
application when needed.
The following web applications are some examples of what DTS currently hosts in their
environment:
Montgomery County Bikeways Map Viewer

Montgomery County Recycle, Trash and Yard Trimmings Pickup Day Search
Montgomery County Street Light Web Map
Montgomery County Transit Information Center Map Viewer
Montgomery County Public Safety Map Viewer
Montgomery County Map Viewer
Places of Interest Map Viewer
Digital Aerial Photo Image Server
Most of these sites were designed and developed with ESRI’s ArcIMS web product. This
product will eventually be deprecated and therefore the County will need to migrate to
the ArcGIS Server platform. These sites are based primarily on data that is updated on an
annual basis and therefore do not reflect current data.
DTS also supports a large data maintenance operation in primary support of Public Safety.
Several tools, automated routines and procedures have been developed to perform data
maintenance, quality assurance/quality control and translation to formats for input to the
Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system. Most of these tools were developed using
ESRI’s Arc Macro Language (AML) and require the data to be in coverage format. This
environment does not support multi-user, versioned editing. DTS should migrate their
routines and procedures to the current ESRI technology following detailed review of
current procedures and workflows.
M-NCPPC – Research and Technology Center
M-NCPPC’s Research and Technology Center (RTC) has created and serves various
address locator and geoprocessing services for use by M-NCPPC and all County users.
These services include:
Address Locator based on the MAR data model
Composite Address Locator which searches the MAR as well as Centerline
Notification program which performs geoprocessing to generate mailing lists
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Polygon Processor which automatically generates layer files containing important

Hansen entities such as site plans, permits, BOA cases, etc. A total of 12 GIS
layers are available to all County users as a result of this application.
In addition to services, M-NCPPC also hosts a number of web applications. The

following web applications are some examples of what DTS currently hosts in their
environment:
Information Locator Wizard

Intersections Tracking
MC Atlas
M-NCPPC has developed a website for public use titled MC Atlas (www.mcatlas.org).
This website was developed in ESRI’s ArcGIS Server technology and may serve as a
template upon which other applications can be developed. The website uses spatial
datasets that are directly being maintained within the geodatabase environment and
provides an exciting and new user-friendly interface. M-NCPPC plans to continue to
expand the functionality and data availability through this one-stop interface for both
internal and external use.
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SECTION 3
CURRENT GIS STAFFING AND ORGANIZATIONS
Montgomery County has grown a large user base and GIS operation that is on par with
the surrounding jurisdictions. They have incorporated GIS into some key aspects of their
business functions, and much of that has been recognized. The need to continue to grow
and support GIS within the County and M-NCPPC is apparent.
The MC:MAPS is an established mechanism for communication and dissemination of

information to the user community. Although it is a good vehicle and one that can work
effectively, over time, some of the vigor that sustains a group such as this has diminished.
The need for it is still acknowledged, and with a bit of effort, a revival of this open forum
for exchange could become a very useful structure for the GIS community.
There are committed and skilled personnel throughout the County in various departments
and M-NCPPC. Continuing to communicate and exchange technical expertise
throughout the County is quite valuable. Many departments have dedicated GIS
resources.
MONTGOMERY COUNTY AGENCIES
The agencies that participate in the current Montgomery County GIS committees with
both formal and informal roles are:
Montgomery County Government

Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Montgomery College
Montgomery County Housing Opportunities Commission
City of Rockville
City of Gaithersburg
City of Takoma Park
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC)
These organizations are the focus of the GIS Strategic Plan Update.
AGENCY GIS SUPPORT
Each of the Agencies maintains their own GIS support group within the IT support
structure of the Agency. Users within each Agency typically contact their Agency GIS
group for technical support and requests for data.
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Montgomery County Government includes several large Departments that have internal
IT and GIS support units as well. These GIS units provide technical support within the
Department and provide liaisons to the County DTS-GIS team. The Departmental units
primarily provide support for applications of GIS and project-specific mapping requests
within their Departments. In most cases this departmental support consists of only one
dedicated GIS professional or manager.
The Montgomery County DTS-GIS unit provides centralized support for GIS servers,
software licensing, and training within the Montgomery County Executive Branch. The
unit also supports Departments that do not have internal GIS resources or experienced
users, providing data maintenance and ad hoc mapping for those Departments. These
include State Attorney’s office, County Executive, DHHS, Regional Service Centers, and
Finance.
The Montgomery County Planning Department Research and Technology Center (RTC)
provides GIS support to the Parks and Planning Departments. The GIS unit provides GIS
data servers, data maintenance, and application and mapping support to all users
throughout the Departments of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning
Commission.
The Cities of Gaithersburg and Rockville each have GIS Managers that provide support
to city staff and act as liaisons to the County agencies. Takoma Park is supported by GIS
experienced staff in their Planning Department. Smaller municipalities such as
Poolesville, Washington Grove, and Chevy Chase do not currently have adequate GIS
expertise and support.
USER GROUPS
Currently, there is no official County-wide GIS user group established. Departments run
informal internal groups to keep their users up to date and educated in current GIS
activities. The Planning Department at M-NCPPC runs a GIS user group within the
Commission for both the Planning and Parks Departments. This user group meets
monthly with selected technical topics identified for presentation and discussion. Special
meetings are scheduled to go over new technology and GIS initiatives and opportunities.
GIS users in all Agencies expressed the need to have a County-wide GIS user group
structure that would include sub-groups focusing on specific data areas such as property,
addressing, natural resources, and permitting and development. This would keep
everyone up-to-date regarding ongoing data initiatives and available resources and help
avoid duplication of efforts.
TECHNICAL COMMITTEES
The MC:MAPS Committee was established to coordinate GIS activities at a technical

level between Agencies. Each Agency has designated one representative who is the
liaison with the Committee and attends bi-monthly meetings of MC:MAPS.
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Participants include:
DTS
DOT
DEP
DPS
Fire/Rescue
Police
MCPS
County Stat
Parks Department
Planning Department
WSSC
Gaithersburg
Rockville
Takoma Park
Representatives provide brief updates at the meetings on their GIS activities that may be
of interest to others. This is the primary communication between Agencies. At times,
major initiatives underway that duplicate efforts or are of common interest are discovered
through these meetings. The meeting structure should be updated. Planning and hosting
of meetings should rotate through all of the participants, providing more flexibility in
format and content of meetings. The original role of the Committee in serving as an
advocate for GIS needs to ITPCC should be reprised.
Communication between Agencies needs to be expanded beyond these meetings to

include bulletin boards or blogs to keep steady information flowing regarding ongoing
activities.
POLICY COMMITTEES
The Interagency Technology Policy and Coordination Committee (ITPCC) promotes IT

strategic planning and coordination among the agencies of Montgomery County
Government (MCG). The agencies included are:
Montgomery County Government (MCG)

Maryland National Parks and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC)
Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)
Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC)
Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC)
Montgomery College (MC)
The chairmanship of the Committee is rotated every two years among the members.
Meetings are held three to four times per year to review interagency IT issues, including
GIS activities.
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The ITPCC CIO Staff Subcommittee is composed of representatives from each member
agency who are in the role of Chief Information Officer (CIO). This subcommittee meets
periodically and proposes the yearly work plan, scope and tasks to be completed,
allocates resources, and make recommendations to the ITPCC.
In recent years, the MC:MAPS has not formally reported to the ITPCC or the CIO Staff
subcommittee on GIS activities. These reports should be made on a regular basis and
should include recommendations on GIS funding, major initiatives, and operational
deficiencies.
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SECTION 4
CURRENT AGENCY GIS RESPONSIBILITIES
This section focuses on the data maintenance responsibilities and workflows for key
datasets, including addresses, centerlines, property, and buildings. Maintenance of other
agency specific layers are also described but not in as much detail.
DATA MAINTENANCE
Many Agencies have responsibility for maintaining GIS data that is related to their
primary business functions. Examples include voter registrations, water and sewer
facility locations, well and septic tank locations, student addresses and information,
school districts, parks facilities, and natural resources inventories. These types of data
resources are maintained and updated by the responsible Agency and then shared with
others on an as needed basis. Most of the County data resources are placed routinely on
the County and Planning Department GIS data servers.
DTS-GIS and the Planning Department provide data development support to their users
who do not have internal GIS capabilities.
There are several key GIS data resources that are essentially base data that support other
data layers and are fundamental to all Agencies operations. These more critical datasets
and their components are maintained by either the Planning Department or Montgomery
County DTS-GIS, in some cases sharing or overlapping responsibilities and activities.
These include:
Property Mapping
Addresses
Street Centerlines
Planimetric Mapping
Orthophotos
The requirements and activities related to maintenance and use of the first three data
categories as well as buildings are the focus of the detailed discussion provided in this
report. The overall planimetric mapping, orthophotos, topographic contours, and other
data sources such as LIDAR, Pictometry, and satellite imagery are the focus of the Task 3
Data Maintenance Strategy Report.
Planning Department
The Planning Department GIS support is provided by the Research and Technology
Center (RTC). This unit performs data maintenance of the key data resources that are the
responsibility of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-
NCPPC) including addresses, centerlines, property and planimetric mapping. The GIS
unit also supports data collection and development activities of Planning and Parks
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Department users that are specific to their functions. This includes a wide variety of
natural resources data, zoning, land use, transportation, development, and planning
information. The Hansen Land Development system is also supported by the RTC,
specifically the maintenance of the address and parcel information in the Hansen database.
Address and Street Information
The Montgomery County Planning Department of the M-NCPPC is legally responsible

for assignment of addresses and street names for the County (State Law Article 28, § 5-
117). The Planning Department performs this function as part of its Development
Review and Approval process.
In support of this requirement, the Department has implemented a Data Model that
supports a Master Address Repository (MAR) integrated with related parcel, building,
and street datasets. A process has been implemented that includes address assignment,
address point creation, street name approval, street centerline creation, address range
definition, and parcel/lot polygon creation and update. The Data Model is implemented
in ArcSDE which supports versioned data editing and centralized access to current data.
County users have reported problems with the address assignment process, including
incorrect assignment of ranges on some street blocks, incorrect assignment of addresses
based on existing ranges and failure to make corrections when informed. In some cases
duplicate street names have also been allowed. It would be beneficial to integrate the
review of assigned addresses into the development review process which would give
County Agencies the opportunity to review them during the development approval
process and would help identify corrections early in the process.
The overall quality of the address point layer that is part of the MAR has also been
criticized by County users. Addresses are crucial to Police and Fire and Rescue
operations as well as the 911 Dispatch function. However, the Planning Department
currently receives very few requests for edit or additions to address data from GIS users.
Property Mapping
The Planning Department led the effort to capture the County’s property base map in the
GIS in the 1990’s and is responsible for maintaining the property base map. The primary
sources for updates are the approved subdivision record plats, State Right-of-Way (ROW)
plats, and Deed Splits.
Developers are required to submit plats in digital form following final approval, however
there are many exceptions for minor or re-subdivisions, accepted datum, plats, or WSSC
that result in unacceptable submittals. Often these submittals do not support transfer to
the GIS property layer and the line work must be digitized or adjusted significantly.
Planning Department staff has had difficulty in updating lot lines to reflect deed splits
accurately due to the information provided. Contractor support has been used to assist
with these updates.
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The SHA ROW plats are drawn by referencing the centerline only, not property, which
makes it difficult to relate to the property base. SHA should provide digital files of the
ROW plats to Planning.
County users have identified data missing from the property base map and errors in lot
configurations. There is not a clear process to notify maintenance staff of errors. Many
errors have existed since the initial development of the property map. In addition, there
is an overall requirement to improve the spatial accuracy of the entire property base.
There are many applications in the County, including evaluation of set back requirements,
building sizes, determination of legislative impacts, and changes to the tree canopy that
require more accurate property lines. Department staff has inadequate resources to make
all corrections that are currently known and to perform comprehensive quality assurance
on the entire property map.
The cities of Rockville and Gaithersburg have assumed responsibility for their property
mapping. Gaithersburg has used coverages and AML’s to perform updates. Planning is
currently trying to get this data integrated back in to the overall County property map.
The Rockville data was edited for a time using ArcView which doesn’t provide the
necessary editing tools for polygons, allowing slivers to be created in the data. Planning
is currently maintaining the Rockville property data.
It is the goal of Planning to have all edits to the County-wide property base performed on
a central database using versioning with final oversight by Planning. The current ESRI
toolset and history capability would support this. Procedures need to be implemented to
support this and adequate staffing dedicated.
Planimetric Mapping
The Montgomery County Planning Department is responsible for periodic updates to the
planimetric mapping layers. This is performed under Contract by data conversion
vendors. Parts of the County have been updated on a rotating cycle with some areas as
much as seven years out of date. There are a total of 58 geographic data layers in the
planimetric database. Currently 44 of these are being actively maintained and updated.
The planimetric layers include the building footprint layer which is essential to many
County operations including Public Safety. Interim updates to this layer are performed
by Planning Department staff who update building footprints based on feedback from
DPWT or internal staff. There is not a thorough process in place for capturing all update
sources and for obtaining feedback from County users on updates on a regular basis.
Several enhancements in attribution are being performed on the building layer. Planning
staff has performed analysis to determine building elevations from DEM data. Building
heights were computed from property information. Staff is developing a link to the DTS-
GIS Places of Interest (PLOI) layers by using spatial overlay and linking PLOI’s to
buildings. This activity also identified missing buildings that were then added.
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The roadway edges layer is also updated to reflect major projects that are completed in
between planimetric updates. This is critical for Master Planning and impervious surface
analysis.
County users require that both the building and roadway layers be kept as current as
possible during the interim period between planimetric layer updates. Procedures and
workflows need to be developed that identify all available sources as well as feedback
loops for routing corrections and additions to the Planning Department staff.
The planimetric data maintenance strategy that is being developed as part of this project
will address scheduling and funding for regular updates, however, interim updates of key
layers such as the building and roadway edge layers must still be addressed as part of data
maintenance workflows within the Agencies. Workflows must be defined and agreed
upon to ensure that all sources of building and roadway construction or demolition are
transmitted to the Planning Department staff responsible for these updates.
Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) of ongoing planimetric deliveries is being

performed by contractors. The review and editing of older deliveries that were not
developed to correct standards is being performed by Planning Department staff. This
QA/QC work has been a major drain on resources. So far QA/QC and data correction
has been done for 42% of the area. All future planimetric conversion projects should
include consulting support to ensure that accurate and up-to-date detailed specifications
are developed and QA/QC activities are conducted.
Montgomery County DTS-GIS
Many of the staff resources of the DTS-GIS unit are focused on data maintenance.
Currently four staff are dedicated full time to maintenance and preparation of data to
support Public Safety. One of these staff is maintaining the PLOI (Places of Interest)
layer full time. One staff is dedicated full time to maintaining the centerline layer and
one 80% to maintaining the building layer. There are 13 staff total in the unit.
Staff also responds to requests for mapping and updates from many County users.
Generally these users do not have GIS support within their own departments and have
sporadic or annual needs for GIS products. Between data maintenance and end user
support, DTS staff is over committed and cannot tackle new initiatives.
Several key data layers, including the centerlines, are maintained as coverages with tools
developed with AML in ESRI 7.2. This is the environment that staff is comfortable with
and by some standards such as storage and processing resources is efficient. However,
this environment does not support relational database maintenance and centralized, multi-
user environments that are needed to implement more streamlined and efficient
workflows. DTS staff has not been able to migrate to full use of ArcGIS 9.2 due to time
constraints, and lack of training, experience and technical support. Many layers such as
buildings and PLOI are maintained in geodatabases.
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Centerline Layer
The DTS-GIS maintains a centerline layer with address ranges in an ESRI Arc/Info
coverage format. This layer is updated daily with centerlines and address ranges assigned
by the Planning Department. Staff receives a copy of the preliminary plan with addresses
marked on the plan. If the parcels are in the property layer, the centerline is digitized
with respect to these features, if not it is entered schematically to be updated later based
on orthophotos or the parcel layer updates. The potential addresses (full block ranges)
are entered for each centerline based on the marked addresses. Possible errors in address
assignment are sent back to the Planning staff, however they may not be getting to the
staff capable of or responsible for making corrections.
There is not a formal opportunity for County users, including Police and Fire and DTS-
GIS, to review address assignment so that feedback can be provided. A process for
resolving disagreements in assignments may be needed.
Buildings
DTS-GIS has been maintaining a building layer separate from the planimetric building
layer being maintained and enhanced by Planning. This originally began due to the
inadequate update cycle of the planimetric building layer which was tied to the periodic
basemap updates. In response to requests from Public Safety organizations for a more up-
to-date building layer and accurate addresses, DTS-GIS embarked on a program to
develop this. The layer was originally derived from planimetric building layer eight
years ago. Addresses were obtained from the tax map as well as other sources (MVA,
DPS, HHS, MDPTS) to populate address attributes for each building polygon. The layer
is maintained in ESRI Shape file format and the data is updated on monthly basis. This
layer does not adhere to the MAR model which includes address point features that are
linked to both building polygons and parcel polygons. The Tax Account ID has not been
preserved. This layer does not support the broader range of applications that the MAR
can support.
Many County users, especially Fire and Rescue and the Police Department, have
contributed notifications of updates to DTS-GIS for use in maintenance of this layer. The
Fire Department provides building Pre-Plans which are PDF’s of building details and
floor plans. DTS updates building footprints based on these plans and links the PDF files
to the resulting building features as well. The Fire Department also provides marked up
orthophoto prints with address corrections. Buildings up to 5 miles outside of the County
boundary have been included for emergency response purposes. Additional sources used
include the 2007 orthophotos and in some cases site plans. The Solid Wastes Division
which identifies many building and address inaccuracies, forwards corrections to both
DTS and the Planning Department, however this is the exception as most identification of
corrections are not provided to the Planning Department.
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Public Safety Layers
A set of approximately 60 GIS layers are processed and provided for import to the
Northrup Grumman Computer Aided Dispatch (NG CAD) system on a quarterly basis.
The process involves exporting layers as coverages (if not already maintained as
coverages), performing extensive topology and content checks, and providing ASCII flat
files of data to Public Safety for further processing and import into the NG CAD database.
The version of the NG CAD software in use is not ESRI compliant and therefore neither
shapefiles nor geodatabases can be used. Extensive improvements in the process have
been made in recent years which have resulted in updates being performed quarterly
instead of only annually. Also, configuration control and QA/QC procedures have been
implemented that have helped to ensure data integrity.
There may be further opportunities for streamlining this process, including a transition of
the data preparation and review process into the ArcGIS 9.2 environment which could
eliminate some manual steps and reduce data conversions required. The data layers that
are being updated as part of the process should be maintained on an ongoing basis. Many
of these layers support other County users and are obtained from other departments. The
current process requires dedication of 4 1/2 staff for four weeks per quarter. The current
process has been in place for more than four years. A detailed review of this process, the
data sources, maintenance requirements, and the NG CAD requirements should be
conducted to determine if any further improvements can be made.
Most local jurisdiction E-911 CAD Operations require daily updates to the address based
locator data at a minimum in order to provide safe dispatch service to the population.
The possibility of incorporating individual address points into the CAD system should be
investigated. DTS staff has indicated that the system cannot utilize address point data. At
a minimum, through improvements to the data maintenance environment, applications,
and procedures conducted by DTS, it may be possible to implement a continuous process
that allows data to be provided on at least a monthly basis and requires less resources to
support.
It is understood that much of the data provisioning is dependent on constraints of the NG

CAD Platform and future plans for migration, update, or conversion to a different system.
Other Data Layers
The DTS-GIS group maintains many other GIS layers that are specific to department
needs. Of these, many are of interest to multiple departments and users. Examples
include:
Agricultural Easements
Snow Route maps
Voter Registration
Precinct Generation and Mapping
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Administrative Districts
Police and Fire Areas
Responsibility has been assumed by DTS-GIS in most cases because the users
responsible for the data content or generating the events or source data do not have GIS
experience or staffing to maintain the layers themselves. Many staff are not regular users
of the GIS and have sporadic requirements only. Some efforts are performed on an
annual basis.
The maintenance workflow for some of these processes should be converted to an

ongoing process in response to source data and events so that current up-to-date data
layers are available to County users at any time.
DATA SALES
Both Montgomery County DTS and the Planning Department provide data to the public,
including individual residents, businesses, engineers, and developers. Each provides only
the data that they are responsible for. Data is currently provided upon request. Both
provide web sites on the internet that allow the public to view data that is available and to
request data. The DTS site provides information and a form that requestors then submit
for the request to be fulfilled by DTS staff. The Planning Department site allows users to
complete their request on line for tile-based data layers in a variety of formats.
The Planning Department operates an Information Counter where the Public may also
request data. Staff periodically generates Computer Aided Design (CAD) drawing files
when property and planimetric data updates are performed. The CAD files are generated
on a tile basis. Many requestors of data such as Engineers or Developers do not use GIS
and can only use the CAD data.
Requests for data to the DTS-GIS group are handled on an individual basis. The data
requested is identified, area of interest determined, and data formatted and written to
media by DTS staff. Handling requests are time consuming and require staff with a high
degree of expertise and knowledge about the data resources available.
The current systems are based on a combined (County and M-NCPPC) sales policy that
was developed quite a few years ago. This policy has not been reviewed or updated in
the context of changing responsibilities, newer technology, and sales results or analysis.
There is no formal reporting mechanism for sales. The policy should be reviewed and
updated.
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SECTION 5
GIS NEEDS AND REQUIREMENTS
Work sessions were held with groups of County GIS users based on their Agency and
Department functions and focus. Four groups were identified to help with defining
requirements:
Public Safety
Administration
Natural Resources and Infrastructure
Housing and Economics
The departments and staff who attended each work session as well as other meeting
participants are listed in Appendix A. Requirements identified through these work
sessions included data needs, impacts on department functions, application needs, and
technical support and coordination requirements.
This section describes the perceived needs of those interviewed. Many data needs that
were expressed are for data resources that may actually be available through other
departments but users were not aware.
DATA RESOURCES
There are many data layers that have been created and maintained by multiple
departments and agencies. Among those data resources, the following core datasets have
been identified as key data layers that are commonly used or requested by many
departments and agencies for their mission critical applications:
Address Datasets – The address datasets include address points (MAR) and centerlines
with address ranges. Most applications in the County rely on up to date address
information, such as public safety, emergency management, permitting, routing for
school bus, garbage pickups, as well as address matching and incident mapping, etc.
Property Datasets – Property datasets include parcel boundaries, subdivisions and

ROWs within the County. The property layer also contains premise addresses that users
often use in combination with the address datasets. Almost all mission critical
applications in the County require property information. The applications from planning,
zoning, land development review, site plan review, environmental impact analysis,
permitting, inspections to customer services, mailing, transportation planning, public
works, etc. are all relying on up to date property information.
Zoning Datasets – Several department agencies expressed interests in obtaining the

zoning layers from M-NCPPC. For example, DPS needs the zoning information for the
plan review process for the building permits and other types of permits, County Council
needs the information for zoning change effect analysis, etc.
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Planimetric Datasets – Building footprints, road and pavement edges, and hydrograph
are the most important data layers that are commonly used throughout the County for
many applications.
Topographic Dataset – Topographic data with 2’ contour intervals is required for many
applications such as land development and site plan review, drainage analysis for storm
water management, transportation planning, etc.
Vegetation Dataset – Vegetation data will include tree canopies and vegetation covers.
Several user departments had requested this dataset to support their business
requirements, such as the County’s indicator program, planning and land development
review, environmental analysis, etc.
Impervious Surface Dataset – Impervious surface data needs to be created since current
planimetric data does not have all features required by the impervious surface analysis.
DEP has been editing parking lots since 2002 to support the Water Quality Protection
Charge Program. Many user departments requested this dataset through the interviews for
drainage analysis, planning, and land development reviews, environmental analysis, etc.
The specific requirements for this data should be reviewed prior to the next contract for
planimetric data capture.
Utility Datasets – A number of users expressed interest for the utility data from the
utility companies, such as WSSC, Pepco, etc. Task 3 recommends that a consortium
agreement needs to be developed between the County and the utility company to obtain
and share data from each other.
Place of Interests Dataset – Places of Interest is a set of point layers with schools,
hospitals, shopping center, etc. It was originally created in 1999 by M-NCPPC and has
been updated on an annual basis. DTS has developed a more detailed set of PLOI layers
and is continually adding locations as they are identified. M-NCPPC has been linking
these locations to the building footprints in the planimetric layer and DTS has in parallel
been linking the PLOI to their building layer. The PLOI are important for the county to
identify the locations of the schools and other public places in the event of emergency.
Orthophotos – Almost all participating department and agencies require orthophotos

data. This is one of the core datasets most users currently have access to or a copy of the
data. Annual updates were requested by some of the users. The Task 3 document
recommends a regular 2-year update cycle.
Pictometry Dataset – The County currently has pictomery data which is renewed in a 2-
year cycle. The pictomery data is being used by DPS, Police, Fire and Rescue Service, as
well as other departments. Therefore, the pictomery dataset needs to be maintained as
one of the core datasets to meet the user’s requirements.
LiDAR Dataset – The County currently has 2008 LiDAR data. Although it is only
currently being used by DEP, many other departments and agencies have expressed an
26
interest in accessing the data in order to enhance their applications and business functions.
LiDAR should be managed and maintained as one of the County’s core datasets as well.
The following table lists core datasets that are currently used or requested by each
department or agency as well as municipalities who participated in the survey and
interviews:
DATA ENHANCEMENTS
Users expressed a need for enhancement or modification to core datasets as well as

additional data needs and overall data changes:
Many users require historical data and multiple versions of data layers for analysis
and comparison purposes. The new requirements for Indicator Analysis would be
improved with specific calendar year driven snapshots of data. The Finance
Department requires snapshots of the property map and related data that are
produced on an end-of-year basis. ESRI’s current geodatabase technology
includes a history functionality that enables users to view data at any point in time,
provided that the date of interest follows the enabling of the history function.
A need was expressed by many staff for access to GIS layers containing permit
data and status, licenses, development status (pipeline), development patterns, and
land use. Data that is currently available may not be accessible to users, or may
not be in a useful form. There may also be an education effort needed to inform
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users about the location of such data. Metadata should be developed for all
datasets.
Agencies require GIS data along jurisdictional boundaries. Data which has been
accumulated by COG and other inter-jurisdictional groups needs to be identified
and made accessible to GIS users in Montgomery County. The COG MEGDS
(Minimum Essential Geospatial Dataset) has been published by DTS-GIS on a
shared drive, however some users were not aware of this.
Agencies have acquired duplicate or similar data through contract efforts due to
lack of coordination and publicizing of requirements and planned activities.
Key data resources such as address points, centerlines and address ranges,
buildings, and property are not considered to be accurate or timely. Many
complaints were made concerning both DTS and Planning Department versions of
this data.
There are no data standards published for address based data which is key to
many department operations. Although an address standard exists for the County,
it is not provided to users in a form that they can use to modify their data
development procedures and prepare their data effectively for mapping purposes.
Many data sources contain addresses that could be geocoded but currently exist in
improper formats such as word documents, hard copy, excel spreadsheets.
Multiple versions of key data are maintained in parallel by different Agencies.
Concerns about data quality resulted in multiple versions being developed instead
of improving communications and workflows.
Many data layers are maintained on an annual or sporadic basis upon request only
instead of continual updates occurring as events, corrections, and sources are
provided.
DATA SHARING AND PUBLISHING
Through the survey and worksessions, the following requirements were identified for
data sharing and publishing.
Central Data Publishing
There are overwhelming requests from users for core datasets and all other datasets
owned and shared by departments and agencies to be published from a central location.
Users request to access all available data from one data source. The data distribution
through the central publishing location will eliminate the following problems expressed
by the users through the interviews:
There is confusion about data resources that are available, the sources of the data,
the locations of multiple versions, the accuracy and the timeliness and status of
versions.
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Important data exists in multiple forms and locations on the network, including
mapped network drives and ArcSDE databases.
Published versions of critical data resources are not kept up-to-date on a daily
basis. Many data layers are maintained as shape files or coverages and loaded to
ArcSDE on a monthly basis.
This requirement does not necessarily mean that all data must reside on one physical
server. Data can reside on multiple servers, even between different agencies; however
there should be a central location for users to access such as a data portal. The portal can
serve to represent the integration of data across an organization and eliminate the need for
the user to know where to get the most up to date data.
Data Standards
Development of data standards was requested by many users to share a common set of
standard datasets through a central data portal. Any updates and additions to the datasets
should be compliant with the data standards published through the enterprise data portal.
Any noncompliant data should not be published or shared through the data portal until in
compliance.
Metadata
Both Montgomery County and M-NCPPC are maintaining comprehensive metadata for
the data they own. However, many users are not aware of the metadata or do not have
access to the metadata through a user-friendly tool. Users requested access to standard
metadata from one source. All metadata should be consolidated as one metadata source
for all GIS data cross the County. This standard metadata should be published through
the enterprise data portal for users to search the availability, timeliness, source, location
and quality of the data published through the data portal.
DATA MAINTENANCE
Maintenance of key data resources is conducted by multiple units and multiple Agencies.
Some efforts are duplicated, some are not coordinated properly, and others are
disconnected. A review of each staffing unit’s current activities reveals many
opportunities for streamlining and defining the workflows to reduce redundancies, clarify
responsibilities, centralize data, and implement feedback loops to improve accuracy.
The maintenance of key resources is interrelated and therefore the workflows for
maintaining these resources are discussed together. The resources involved include:
Property
Addresses
Street centerlines
Building footprints.
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During the user work sessions held as part of this project, the following issues were
identified with current workflows:
County users do not have an opportunity to review proposed addresses and street
names during the development review process.
Addresses assigned by the Planning Department are not always corrected in
response to notifications from the County.
Many sources of building and address updates are not communicated to the staff
responsible at the Planning Department.
There is no workflow in place at the Planning Department to correct assigned
addresses and maintain the MAR comprehensively.
DTS-GIS maintains the complete County centerline that supports geocoding and
boundary layers. DTS-GIS stores the potential address range of each street
segment. The Planning Department creates separate centerlines that are updated
as subdivisions and street names are approved. These centerlines reflect the
actual assigned address and are tied to the Street Name Master that Planning also
maintains. The characteristics of both versions are needed to support different
purposes. The workflow and requirements for maintenance of all centerline data
should be reviewed to determine the optimum centralized data model that can
support all needs.
The centerline maintenance process at the DTS-GIS is based on the UNIX
ArcEdit platform and the data is in coverages. This does not support multi-user
editing.
The Planning Department maintains a dataset of centerline corrections. There is
conflict about whether these corrections are incorporated completely into the
DTS-GIS version.
DTS-GIS has developed a building layer based on an older version of planimetric
layer and has applied updates from a variety of sources with different accuracy
levels. This was done in response to concerns raised by DFRS initially.
Problems in completeness and accuracy have been identified by County users
with both the DTS-GIS building layer and the Planning building layer and there
are significant inconsistencies between them.
Addresses have been assigned to the buildings in the DTS-GIS layer, however not
following the data model in use at Planning.
Both DTS and Planning Department staff perform field checks of addresses and
centerlines as needed. These efforts are not coordinated and results not shared.
The Department of Permitting Services (DPS) is one of the major users of address
information in the context of permitting functions managed in the Hansen system.
DPS has performed comprehensive address data comparison and cleanup, and
continues to maintain the address data in the Hansen system as accurately as
30
possible. Accurate addresses are extremely important to the early stages of the
development and permitting process. DPS has contributed information on poor
addresses for corrections to both DTS and Planning.
Agencies have acquired duplicate or similar data through contract efforts due to
lack of coordination and publicizing of requirements and planned activities.
Many data layers are maintained on an annual or sporadic basis upon request only
instead of continual updates occurring as events, corrections, and sources are
provided.
There are no defined workflows for providing feedback on corrections and
updates needed to data to the staff responsible for the data and no feedback loop
in place to ensure that edits are made.
There are many needs related to streamlining the data maintenance process and
eliminating the redundant data and data maintenance efforts. The following describes
some of the key requirements:
The current GIS datasets need to be created as versioned geodatabases using the
most current ESRI technologies. Data maintenance responsibilities for each
dataset need to be clearly defined to eliminate duplicated efforts. All edits
performed on the dataset should conform to the data standards established for the
dataset and the edits need to be synchronized back to the source, the production
version of the database.
Regular update schedules for each dataset need to be established based on the
requirements and the source of updates.
Any new data acquisitions need to be planned and coordinated in order to
eliminate duplicated efforts and costs.
Feedback loops need to be put in place for all datasets in order to leverage other
departments and agencies in the continual upkeep and improvement of the data.
There needs to be accountability by the data stewards to incorporate or address
the feedback provided.
GIS APPLICATIONS
The following applications and tools or related enhancements were requested by the users:
An address validation tool that supports batch processing of datasets should be

developed for departments to use to pre-process or cleanup their data in
preparation for geocoding.
Enhance or update the current web applications to improve the performance and
make it more intuitive, user friendly and functional.
Mobile GIS applications are required by Police, Fire and Rescue, as well Parks
Police so that real time GIS information can be accessed in the field.
31
A GIS application is required by DHHS to analyze the census and land use
information to predict health and social services that will be required in the
County. DHHS also needs the incident mapping capabilities to map the permits
that are concern of DHHS such as restaurants, assisted living facilities, nursing
homes, etc. for impact analysis, emergency response, and service projections.
Department of Finance needs a GIS application to look at development patterns

and growth to project revenue based on the future growth in the County.
Department of Finance also needs GIS to display 1) approved plans by
development type, residential or commercial; 2) permits issued for the approved
development for its revenue project purpose.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND TRAINING
There is a need for additional training throughout the County, both in-house for
general and introductory training and ESRI-provided for more advanced and
specialized courses. Appropriate levels of training should be defined for a variety
of typical staff: managers, GIS support staff, GIS power users, GIS casual users.
Some DTS-GIS staff needs training in current ESRI technology and exposure to
up-to-date data editing tools.
The GIS software agreement needs to be finalized between the County and ESRI
as soon as possible because users cannot get ESRI support or software updates
due to the delay in resolving contract renewal issues.
Additional technical and programming support is needed throughout the County

in developing applications for ArcGIS 9.2/9.3 and for mobile applications.
ORGANIZATION
The overall GIS support organizations in place are well suited to meet the needs of the
Agencies. The DTS-GIS provides centralized data, server, hardware, and technical
support to County agencies. Major departments have internal GIS support units to
support applications and end users within the departments. This structure allows
prioritization of resources within departments as well as efficient centralized support for
functions such as data publishing, server maintenance, and training. This combination of
centralized data, hardware, and network support and localized application and end user
support is typical of very large organizations such as major County governments.
The GIS support for the Planning Department is effectively provided centrally by the
RTC due to the smaller size of the Department and also the support for GIS skills
development within the user divisions.
32
The following areas indicated need for greater resources or re-definition of

responsibilities related to GIS organization and support:
The DTS-GIS staff is the only source of support for agencies that do not have
internal GIS units or resources. The DTS-GIS unit is overwhelmed with current
data maintenance programs and responding to user requests.
Several entities have a significant need for additional GIS support focused on
their needs and potential application of GIS. These include the Finance
Department and Health and Human Services Department, which do not have in-
house GIS expertise and have significant potential to use GIS to improve their
abilities to perform their business functions.
Other departments that have GIS units expressed the need for additional skilled
GIS staff to maximize their GIS use and benefit.
COMMUNICATIONS
There is a need for more open and frequent communication between Agencies on
activities, resources available, and technology enhancements.
There should be an organized way for GIS users to stay in contact with counterparts in
other Agencies with similar areas of interest.
Users need to be informed on a regular basis on the data changes and updates as well as
new datasets and applications becoming available. The communication can be through
regular news letter, e-mails, and online publication on the data portal.
33
SECTION 6
RECOMMENDATIONS
The KCI team provides the following recommendations to address the deficiency issues,
improve GIS performance, and enhance the data maintenance and data sharing
capabilities.
GIS TECHNOLOGY
It is recommended that the County upgrade GIS technologies to the most current ESRI
software environment. All data maintenance and data sharing activities should be
performed using the current technologies. Specific recommendations are:
DTS-GIS should migrate existing data editing processes from coverage based
editing to ESRI’s ArcGIS 9.2 environment so that multi-user versioned editing
can be supported. A geodatabase should be designed that allows all County data
resources to be maintained and accessed using ArcGIS Server and all existing
data migrated to this environment.
A plan should be put in place to transition all end users that are still using
ArcView 3.x or ArcInfo 7.x and 8.x to ArcGIS 9.2.
Technical support and application development for mobile technology needs to be
acquired or provided. There is tremendous potential for use of mobile GIS
technology that has been recognized.
Finalize and execute the County ESRI contract so that licensing issues can be
resolved and end user support obtained.
DATA MAINTENANCE
Data Maintenance Responsibilities
Data maintenance responsibilities for core datasets needs to clarified and formalized. As
discussed in detail in previous sections, address, centerline, and building data are being
maintained in parallel efforts with redundant datasets that have grown apart over time. In
order to improve these workflows, eliminate redundancy, and focus efforts on
maintaining one central data model, the responsibilities should be clarified.
Based on the legal definition of the assignment of addresses with the M-NCPPC and the
responsibility for the property mapping, these key data resources will continue to be
maintained by the Planning Department.
The current maintenance activities of both DTS and Planning should be reviewed as part
of the workflow analysis to clarify which roles should become review and QA support
and which have primary responsibility to maintain specific core data. Ideally, any staff
that has any responsibility for other than review and QA, would be performing edits
against the central relational data model. DTS-GIS and Planning will continue to be
34
responsible for maintaining data that is project related or agency related data, such as
administrative and political boundaries, facility locations, natural resources, etc.
Data Maintenance Environment
For key central datasets, a versioned geodatabase

should be created and a multi-user edit environment Production
should be established using the data synchronization Database
capabilities in ArcGIS Server. An edit version of

Syncronize
the database needs to be created for certain datasets Publish
or data features based on the data maintenance

responsibilities established for internal GIS staff as
well as other user department who may be QA/QC
responsible for maintaining certain features of the DTS M-NCPPC
data. Data edits can be performed by multiple users

from multiple departments. However, edited data
must be synchronized back to the source. Both Edit 1 Edit 1
DTS-GIS and the GIS unit of M-NCPPC have

major responsibilities in maintaining the data. At Edit 2 Edit 2
the same time, they should be served as a gateway
of the enterprise wide production database if the
Edit 3
data is edited or contributed by the departments and Edit 3
agencies other than DTS-GIS and GIS unit of M-NCPPC. The figure above illustrates
the data maintenance environment that should be established by the County and M-
NCPPC.
Data Maintenance Workflows
A streamlined data maintenance workflow should be established for each key dataset.
Responsibilities need to be clearly defined at each step of the workflow. Specific
recommendations are as the following:
Identify one entity responsible for maintenance of each critical dataset, including
addresses, centerlines, and buildings. Develop complete workflows for
maintenance, review, quality assurance, and feedback identifying all participating
parties.
The Task 3 Data Maintenance Strategy document recommends update cycle for
the core datasets (planimetric, orthophoto). However, the interim updates of
buildings and roadway layers must be enhanced to include all available data
sources such as permits records (site plans, occupancy) and CIP project
information.
Data maintenance workflows should be conducted in continuous mode as opposed
to batch processes to the extent possible. Some data sources are updated annually
or as requested as opposed to continuously updated based on incoming event and
change information. This would ensure that all data is current at any given time
35
and may be used by County staff on demand with no additional processing

required.
The current workflow for the preparation of the Public Safety Northrup Grumman
(NG) CAD system data should be analyzed in detail with consideration toward
updating the environment and possibly developing new automated procedures for
generating the required data format for the NG CAD database. The current
procedures have been in place for four years, so a review may be warranted.
Maintenance of all GIS data layers should be migrated to centralized, versioned

editing of data layers in ArcGIS 9.2 and applications implemented to generate the
datasets needed for import to other systems such as the NG CAD system in an
automated fashion.
QA/QC of data maintenance activities should be conducted as an integral part of

all processes. The QA/QC activities include review of the central
ArcSDE/ArcGIS Server databases as well as routines which automatically check
database consistency and integrity, generate change reports, and maintain
historical logs. ESRI’s history/archive capability should be implemented for all
important data layers.
The data maintenance workflows for address, streets, buildings, and property data
should be analyzed in detail and redesigned to eliminate redundant activities,
centralize maintenance, improve feedback loops, clarify responsibilities, and
develop related procedures. All data edits should be performed on a centralized,
versioned database that is accessible to all users. This would support edits by
multiple users, reviews and QA feedback by multiple users, and tracking of
corrections and history. Data structure changes and application development
related to the improved workflows need to be identified and supported.
Design and complete a data cleanup process to conflate the multiple data sources
that exist for address, building, and centerline resources into one relational data
model.
Historical data should be made available to users, including annual ―snapshots‖ of
key data layers, such as property and indicator layers. ESRI’s history/archive
function should be implemented for some years to provide the ability to view data
at any previous point in time. This also provides a record of all previous edits.
Define and enforce feedback loops that transmit all known updates and
corrections in data to the data maintainer. Feedback loops require notification
that corrections have been accepted and completed. Support the defined feedback
loops with online tools that allow all County users to submit identified errors and
omissions in the data and to receive notification of their incorporation into the
database.
36
Modify workflows for address and centerline maintenance to incorporate County

user reviews, feedback, QA, and integrate address and parcel maintenance.
Develop an integrated data maintenance and quality assurance application for the
MAR and all related data that allows multi-user editing, posting of feedback, QA
results and tracking, accountability, and concurrent access by County users.
DATA SHARING
GIS Data Portal
An enterprise wide GIS data portal should be established to serve as a central data
publishing and data sharing platform. Core datasets should be maintained and published
centrally by DTS-GIS and M-NCPPC. Other data of common interest or agency-specific
data can continue to be maintained by individual departments or agencies, but the data
can be published and shared by others through the data portal as well.
Web services should be established to facilitate Agency Users
the data access and sharing across the County. `

Some web services should allow departmental `
or agency users to query and browse the data,
make maps with standard symbology, or `
` `
download data for their specific project
Agency Applications &
purposes. Other web services such as Agency Users
data
geocoding, address verification, parcel and
ownership verification, etc, can be created to Web Services
serve agency level applications for validation

and standardization of the address and parcel
information. This will serve to eliminate
redundant and inconsistent address and property Production
Database
information across the agencies within the
County. Direct access to the data server of the
GIS data portal can be also established through
Core Datasets Other Shared Datasets
ArcGIS with standard data categories and
display symbols. Adequate GIS floating licenses must be established to facilitate the
users who needs access to the GIS through desktop ArcGIS software. Implementation of
the GIS data portal must be accompanied with metadata to clearly document the data
residing on the portal. The figure above illustrates a high level concept of a GIS data
portal. One example of a data portal is ESRI’s GIS Portal toolkit which is described at:
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis/gisportal-toolkit/about/overview.html
Based on the County’s current operations, the following is recommended:
The GIS Data Portal should be implemented as a tool to fully document all data
sources that are available and to provide metadata and access to all of these
sources. This will eliminate confusion about multiple data sources, format, and
timeliness of data. This should provide a single gateway to data resources
37
regardless of whether they are maintained by County Agencies or the Planning

Department.
Data resources of both the County and the Planning Department should be
published on GIS data servers with map service capabilities for users. Ideally,
County users will access data directly through the GIS data portal, accessing the
source data at the location where it is maintained and supported by the Agencies.
If there is a concern about network issues, databases may be replicated across the
network to ensure consistent, high quality access and also to support data
redundancy in case of emergencies and extensive network or hardware failures.
However, such replication must be established for read only purposes. If there is
a need editing the datasets the data must be synchronized back to the source.
Enhancements made to the datasets for agency specific projects can be treated on
a case by case basis. If such enhancements are of interest to other users, this
dataset can be shared through the data portal as a separate dataset.
Standards should be developed and published for data formats, data structure,
conventions, and metadata. Standards for naming datasets, layers, tables,
attributes, and domains should be provided.
All County agencies that produce data of interest to other entities should be
trained and encourage to adhere to published data standards and formats and post
their unique data periodically to the County GIS data servers using established
procedures.
The Planning Department can technically support the Portal implementation

based on their current 9.3 environment. The initial establishment of the GIS
Portal could be based on the Planning Department resources and later expanded to
include publishing by DTS as their data resources are updated and catalogued.
ORGANIZATION
The GIS consortium with WSSC and the municipalities needs to be activated in order to
meet the needs for sharing the cost of data acquisition between Montgomery County and
the other entities. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) needs to be developed
among the members of the consortium for data sharing and funding purposes.
The regional data sharing initiatives and efforts need to be communicated to the County
users since some of the County’s business functions such as Public Safety, emergency
management, etc. need the collaboration efforts with surrounding County and City
Governments.
As noted during the meetings and interviews, the current DTS-GIS staffing is
overwhelmed with a broad range of responsibilities. The primary role and priorities of
DTS-GIS needs to be determined. There are many users in County departments who do
not have adequate GIS support that can best leverage GIS to meet their needs. Currently
38
DTS-GIS staff is focused on data maintenance activities and they do not have availability
or capability to support end users fully.
COMMUNICATIONS
Multi-level user groups should be established to address special interests such as

natural resources data, permitting and development status, addressing and
property, and infrastructure.
Communication between County Departments and the Parks and Planning

Departments should be encouraged and facilitated.
Virtual meeting tools such as WebEx or other online collaboration or tele-

conferencing tools should be used to allow frequent, regularly scheduled meetings
as well as impromptu discussions between users to occur.
All support groups and advanced GIS users should be encouraged to provide
technical educational sessions on specific areas of expertise or investigation to
users through the County.
39
SECTION 7
IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY
There are several initiatives that the County should undertake immediately to make
significant progress in solving identified problems and improving GIS operations.
Although some of these steps have been identified through previous studies, progress has
not been made due to a variety of causes. These may have included lack of dedicated
resources, no clear mandate issued by management or authority not given to staff to make
changes.
Implementation of these steps will require dedication of resources and potentially use of
consulting services to obtain sufficient expertise and execute them in a timely manner.
Management directives and enforcement will also be required.
Some of this work may be performed as part of Phase II of this project. It may be
necessary for the County and the Planning Department to identify additional funds to
conduct all of the tasks. The requirements related to Tasks 1, 2, and 3 are understood in
better detail at this point as a result of the work sessions and interviews held as part of
Phase I. These steps are vital to improving data maintenance efficiency and quality of
key address, building, and centerline resources.
ADDRESS DATA MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENTS
Perform conflation of address, centerline, and building data sources and combine into a
central data model with a multi-user maintenance environment. Modify workflows to
ensure the best possible quality and timeliness of data, including feedback loops, review
cycles, and QA/QC.
1. Address and Centerline Data Conflation
Perform evaluation of all existing address, building, and centerline data sources.
Compare to MAR data structure, identify necessary changes in data structure and content
to support all known requirements. Perform data conflation and cleanup to incorporate
the most complete and accurate data sources into the MAR. Sources may include the
DTS building layer, the DTS centerline layer, the DPS address cleanup results, Hansen
database contents, and all current Planning data. Include special data such as the Pre-Plan
Building PDF hotlinks to the building footprints as well as the building elevation and
height information. Include both potential and actual address ranges. Include detailed
tracking information to track status of each data element such as ―approved, reserved,
assigned, built, active, inactive, abandoned, etc.‖
2. Data Maintenance Workflow Implementation
Develop a complete workflow for address assignment and street name approval. Include
the assignment steps, review, data entry, QA/QC, corrections, and feedback. Determine
appropriate roles for County staff including Fire, Police, DTS-GIS, DPS, Schools, others.
Document responsibilities and final workflow. Define staff expertise and job descriptions.
40
Develop interagency agreements to support the workflow and adhere to the assigned job
responsibilities. Develop standards for performance such as turn-around time for
corrections, timeframe for performing steps in the workflow. Modify the DRC process as
needed to incorporate the address assignment and street name review process fully into
the development review.
3. MAR Maintenance Environment Enhancement
Design MAR modifications to support full user requirements and history functions.
Develop complete online toolset for address notifications, reviews, feedback, and conflict
resolution. Develop complete data maintenance toolset for creating new addresses, new
centerlines, performing edits, and creating new building footprints. Include link to parcel
polygons and generation of annotation for addresses and street names for property
mapping.
APPLICATION AND ENVIRONMENT ENHANCEMENTS
Implement a GIS Portal for improved data access and develop a consolidated County-
wide GIS web application that supports a broad base of County staff and public users.
Migrate existing data maintenance applications to ArcGIS 9.2/9.3 to support multi-user
editing and more efficient operations.
4. GIS Portal Implementation
Implement a central portal to all GIS data resources available to County, M-NCPPC, and
consortium staff. Define data standards for all data created and maintained by County
users. Establish data centers at both DTS and Planning (making upgrades or
enhancements to existing centers as needed). Perform an inventory all data resources,
identify the versions to be published in the data centers, document the data resource fully,
implement the GIS Portal and fully populate. Perform testing and demonstration of the
Portal capabilities and modify as necessary. The Planning Department could undertake
the initial Portal implementation based on the status of their current environment and
later expand the access to DTS for data publishing as their resources are updated.
5. Develop Consolidated Web Presence
Design and implement a consolidated County web site for GIS data and application
access that provides simple, intuitive access to basic GIS resources for County and
agency staff as well as the general public. Provide links to specialized applications as
needed.
6. Migrate DTS Fully to ESRI 9.3 Environment
Perform inventory of all DTS-GIS applications, particularly data maintenance. Review

existing data that is being maintained in all formats. Develop data models for all data,
load data to ArcGIS Server, perform QA/QC. Determine all data maintenance and end
user application requirements currently supported. Design data maintenance tools to
41
maintain in ESRI 9.x. Develop tools. Train DTS-GIS staff. Provide startup support
during data maintenance transition.
Review in detail the current procedures and methods used to maintain the public safety
layers, prepare them for the data transfer, QA/QC, review, and processing on the NG
CAD side. Identify all constraints such as data formats and limitations of the NG CAD
system. Determine ideal update cycle for each data layer. Design new procedures based
on data maintenance in ESRI 9.x environment and full use of automation to generate data
and QC results. Document revised procedures and design the applications required to
support the process. This task will be a multi-phase task depending on the findings of the
initial analysis.
42
APPENDIX A
USER WORK SESSION PARTICPANTS
DTS-GIS STAFF MEETING

July 16, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Name Organization
Apollo Teng DTS – GIS
Vicki Kline DTS – GIS
Carol Bernard DTS – GIS
Barb Selbst DTS – GIS
Min-Ching Chen DTS – GIS
Yanli Gong DTS – GIS
Lian Chen DTS – GIS
Amy Purves KCI Technologies
Heidi Hammel KCI Technologies
Minna Li TechGlobal, Inc
PUBLIC SAFETY USER GROUP

July 28, 2008 at 9:30 am
Name Organization
Mark Wulff Department of Correction and Rehabilitation
Ed Daniel Police Department
Ron Smith Police Department – Technology Division
Christine Vandeyar Police Department – Technology Division
David Linn Police Department
Pat McMahon Fire and Rescue Services
Darien Manley Park Police
Sarah Ierley Fire and Rescue Services
Trent Bishop Police Department, ECC
Maureen Morello Emergency Management
Sherri Hendy Rockville City Police Department
Vicki Defries TechGlobal, Inc
43
NATURAL RESOURCES USER GROUP

July 28, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Name Organization
Mary Dolan MNCPPC – Department of Planning
Joe Davis MNCPPC – Department of Parks
Ronald Vaughn MNCPPC – Department of Planning, Transportation
Heather Gewandter City of Rockville
Marc Weinshenker City of Rockville
Alan Soukup DEP – Water / Wastewater
Arlene Andersen DEP
Mah Yeh DOT – Transit
John Madigin DEP – Solid Waste
Kirk Eby City of Gaithersburg
Erica Shingara City of Gaithersburg
HOUSING AND ECONOMIC USER GROUP

July 30, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Name Organization
Barbara Kearney CountyStat
Sarah Gomez Finance – Treasury
Phavann Chhuan Finance – Treasury
David Platt Finance - Treasury
Uma Ahluwalia Department of Human Services
John Salamon Montgomery County Public Schools
Mike Coveyon Finance – Treasury
Jennifer Barrett Finance – Treasury
Diane Bloom Finance – Treasury
44
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION USER GROUP

July 30, 2008 at 9:30 am
Name Organization
Richard Romer Legislative Oversight, County Council
Yung-Tsung Kang Department of Permit Services
Renee Miller MNCPPC – Development Review
M-NCPPC GIS STAFF MEETING

August 21, 2008 at 10:00 am
Name Organization
John Schlee MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Bobby Fleury MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
George Marenka MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Jay Mukherjee MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Les Scattergood MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
James Tedrick MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Chris McGovern MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Melissa Noakes MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Roselle George MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
PUBLIC SAFETY IT
August 21, 2008 at 1:00 pm (via phone)
Name Organization
Judy Miller Police Department
45
COUNTY COUNCIL STAFF

August 26, 2008 at 10:00 am
Name Organization
Jeff Zyontz County Council
Minna Li TechGlobal, Inc.
Vicki Defries TechGlobal, Inc.
Jim Cannistra Sanborn Map Company
MC:MAPS MEETING
September 1, 2008 at 10:00 am
Name Organization
John Schlee MNCPPC – Research and Technology Center
Barbara Kearney CountyStat
John Salamon Montgomery County Public Schools
Christine Vandeyar Police Department – Technology Division
Sarah Ierly Fire and Rescue Services
Marc Weinshenker City of Rockville
Kirk Eby City of Gaithersburg
Apollo Teng DTS – GIS
Yung-Tsung Kang Department of Permit Services
DTS MANAGEMENT MEETING

September 12, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Name Organization
Mark Damjan 311
Steve Emanuel Chief Information Officer
Ivan Galic DTS
Apollo Teng DTS-GIS
Dieter Klinger DTS
46
WSSC
September 23, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. (via phone)
Name Organization
Pedro Flores WSSC
47

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GIS Strategic Plan Summary

GIS Strategic Plan Update

KCI Technologies, Inc.

Version Date Description

1.0 October 3, 2008 Internal Draft

1.1 October 9, 2008 Internal Draft

1.2 October 10, 2008 Draft

1.3 October 13, 2008 Draft for Distribution

2.0 December 17, 2008 Incorporation of comments

3.0 January 13, 2009 Removal of census address reference

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .......................................................................................................................... 1

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

SECTION 4 CURRENT AGENCY GIS RESPONSIBILITIES .............................................................18

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

5. Develop Consolidated Web Presence .........................................................................................41

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

The Montgomery County Planning Department of the Maryland-National Capital Park

Montgomery County Government (MCG) Departments, County Agencies, M-NCPPC,

Improve Quality of Key Data

Improve Data Documentation and Accessibility

Improve GIS Availability

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

It is acknowledged that in order to support the suggested improvements and technical

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

Address Data Maintenance Enhancements

1. Address and Centerline Data Conflation—Merge existing sources of address,

2. Data Maintenance Workflow Implementation—Develop a new, complete

3. MAR Maintenance Environment Enhancement—Modify the existing Master

Application and Environment Enhancements

4. GIS Portal Implementation—Implement a central portal to all GIS data resources

5. Develop a Consolidated Web Presence—Implement a consolidated County web

6. Migrate Data Maintenance to ArcGIS 9.2/9.3—Implement data maintenance tools

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

maintained as ArcInfo Coverages. Provide training and transition support to staff.

Data Maintenance Strategy

The following steps are recommended to support organizational improvements.

Establish an ITPCC subcommittee to examine the requirements for a governance

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

The Montgomery County Planning Department of the Maryland-National Capital Park

With increases in government accountability, performance measures, and data

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

Phase I has been divided into three tasks:

Task 2 – Business Process/Interagency Coordination Strategy: Provide recommen-

Montgomery County Government (MCG): Departments that report to the Executive

County Departments: MCG internal Departments such as DFRS, DPS, DEP.

Planning Department: The Planning Department of the M-NCPPC

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

DTS-GIS: The GIS support group for MCG Departments

This document consists of seven sections.

Section 1 Introduction—Project background and methodology for conducting Task 2.

Section 2 Current GIS Environments—Description of servers, software, and

Section 3 Current GIS Staffing and Organizations—The organization currently in

Section 4 Current Agency GIS Responsibilities—Detailed description of current

Section 6 Recommendations—Recommendations for resolving noted deficiencies and

Section 7 Implementation Strategy—Specific tasks that should be undertaken to

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

Business Processes—Interagency Coordination Strategy

ArcGIS 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise Standard 1 – ver. 9.2 Enterprise Standard

ArcSDE 2 – ver. 9.1 1 – ver. 9.2

ArcIMS 1 – ver. 9.1 (intranet) 1 – ver. 9.3 (internet)

ArcInfo 8 – ver. 9.2 21 – ver. 9.3