Used with permission of the URISA News

What would you think if I told you that the greatest revenue return on GIS implementation will be in agencies that you have not worked with yet?

In late 1993, as I was wrapping up my time with Orlando/Orange County, Florida, one of the internal auditors had asked for help in processing some cable TV customer data to verify franchise fees. The auditors, who worked for our elected comptroller, could request digital data from an audit source. The comptroller's office was not a direct GIS member agency or direct participant and had not funded any GIS activities. The auditor had asked, "Could we match the records against the GIS to determine record accuracy?" We said that it would be easy to do some address processing using the audit file and the GIS's single line, street map database with address ranges.

Since about the 1930s, auditors have been using statistical sampling methods to review every 100th record or so for accuracy. This was done to minimize the amount of record checking needed. The most recent audit of cable customers was completed using the traditional sampling techniques and had returned about $2,000 to the County. However, by using the GIS, we were able to process all of the cable TV customer records, not just a sample.

In fact, with computer processing, it now makes sense to process all the records. If you think just government has bad records, think again. By processing the address fields of the customer service location against the GIS, we found many interesting things. Some customers were not even identified in the proper county, much less accurately located in unincorporated Orange County versus a municipality. Continued confusion about mailing/postal cities versus proper jurisdiction locales had caused the taxing jurisdictions for many records to be misidentified. All too often, we accept the mailing address as properly locating a property, an event, or a customer. Although this audit was made only nine months after the last traditional audit, it returned $63,000 from the smallest cable TV company in Orange County--with about a week's worth of address matching work!

It didn't take much for the auditors to get "GIS enabled." Many subsequent audits have returned hundreds of thousands of dollars from simple address processing against the GIS. A cellular telephone audit returned $650,000, and a resort tax audit of condominium properties showed revenues that were $700,000 ahead of previous best projections. With auditing and data corrections, remember that the return is higher for subsequent years as well. Orange County, Florida, has received millions of dollars of audit benefits from using geoauditing techniques.

Well, the cat is out of the bag, so much for that as a business plan idea! This is also a neat way for URISA to get back into the important fiscal operations of government. Watch out for GASB34! Check around. Your government can experience similar benefits. E-mail me at peichelberger@chesco.org if you need additional background materials, or check the URISA Web site (www.urisa.org) and share your experiences with URISA.