How the City of Racine Modernized Asset and Permit Management with GIS

Nearly 78,000 residents call the City of Racine, Wisconsin, home. Situated along Lake Michigan, Racine balances historic neighborhoods with industrial corridors and emerging development, positioning itself as an affordable, culturally rich community that welcomes new investment. As the city continues to grow, its leaders remain focused on the fundamentals that shape daily life in the community.

Maintaining safe sidewalks, protecting homes, and ensuring reliable infrastructure all contribute to a place where residents can feel supported and neighborhoods can thrive. Behind the scenes, geographic information system (GIS) technology powers this work—a single source of truth for the city’s operations that connects everyday improvements and supports consistency across neighborhoods.

Historically, assets, permits, and service requests were managed across disconnected systems. From paper files and spreadsheets to legacy databases and institutional memory, these silos limited access to current condition data, slowed response times, and increased the risk of errors.

As development in Racine expanded and infrastructure demands grew, city leaders found it increasingly difficult to respond effectively to critical issues such as damaged sidewalks or basement flooding. Without a shared operational view tied to location, staff lacked the visibility needed to manage infrastructure proactively and equitably.

To address these challenges, Racine adopted a location-based approach that connects infrastructure maintenance, permitting, inspections, and asset management in a shared system. The new system uses ArcGIS Enterprise, which is integrated with Trimble Cityworks asset management system (AMS) and permitting, licensing, and land (PLL) solution (now called Trimble Unity Maintain and Trimble Unity Permit).

“The majority of our GIS data related to property value ties to the tax parcel layer, which is the primary layer connecting all permits and licenses,” explained Jacob Pitsch, data and Trimble Cityworks analyst for the City of Racine. “Trimble Cityworks is built on top of ArcGIS, so there is a seamless transfer of data between the two.”

Every asset, permit, and service request connects directly to a tax parcel and is accessible across departments. Since adopting Trimble Cityworks in 2011, Racine has processed more than 65,000 work orders, handled 6,000 service requests, and created approximately 290,000 PLL cases. Today, staff manage about 300 service requests and work orders per month using map-driven dashboards that provide real-time insight into activity across the city.

Since implementation of the new system, the City of Racine has used ArcGIS and Trimble Cityworks technology to improve how staff inspect infrastructure, manage permitting workflows, and connect property data across operations.

For instance, sidewalks are one of the most visible indicators of neighborhood condition. Previously, inspections were tracked in a standalone Microsoft Access database with limited reporting and no spatial context. In 2021, Racine moved sidewalk management into Trimble Cityworks AMS. Through its integration with ArcGIS, sidewalk inspections are now directly tied to parcel data and location.

Inspectors now use the Trimble Cityworks iOS application on iPads to conduct inspections, even when working offline. They document trip hazards and damaged areas, and each inspection generates custom work orders associated with the appropriate parcel. The system captures the number of affected sidewalk squares and automatically calculates material quantities needed for repairs.

Since its implementation, Racine has completed 3,300 sidewalk inspections. Each inspection takes approximately five minutes less, resulting in a savings of 275 labor hours. Map-based views allow staff to group repairs by location, streamline scheduling, and accelerate reporting and invoicing while improving revenue collection by linking invoices directly to parcels.

After a major rain event caused widespread basement flooding, the City of Racine applied the same GIS-based approach to flood mitigation. Using state funding, the city offers vouchers of up to $5,000 to homeowners without sump pumps to help defray equipment costs. During the first 17 months of the program, the city issued 100 vouchers, and 70 projects were completed.

Trimble Cityworks PLL leverages GIS to track permitting activity in relation to parcel data and infrastructure, making it the perfect application to track the sump pump program.

A separate permit is created and linked to the plumbing permit for the sump pump, as the building department normally would do regardless of the program. Once the plumbing permit is completed, the contractor submits an invoice for the cost of installation. City staff then pay the invoice and mark the pump permit as completed in the workflow.

Linking flood mitigation efforts to property records and service history in a centralized system allows stakeholders to generate visual dashboards and parcel-based heat maps to analyze trends, coordinate outreach to vulnerable neighborhoods, and, ultimately, address the stormwater infiltration problem that causes backups in major rain events.

Racine also uses ArcGIS Enterprise and Trimble Cityworks PLL to connect construction activity directly to property assessments. GIS provides the spatial link between permits and parcel data. Every permit is associated with a parcel, allowing construction value data to flow automatically to the assessor’s office. This closed-loop workflow reduces errors and helps prevent missed revenue. Under the former manual process, a major redevelopment project once failed to reach the assessor’s office. The new system virtually eliminates that risk while supporting an accurate and equitable tax base as development continues across the city.

Beyond these programs, Racine continues to expand Trimble Cityworks AMS to support asset life cycle management across departments. The city has developed asset models for traffic signals, poles, streetlights, and other infrastructure, replacing siloed spreadsheets with shared spatial data that supports inspection, maintenance, and planning.

Standardized service request templates streamline how residents interact with city services while ensuring that staff consistently capture accurate location-based information. Water and wastewater data, previously maintained in a separate database, are also being incorporated into Trimble Cityworks, bringing more assets under a unified system of record.

Through the combination of ArcGIS Enterprise with Trimble Cityworks AMS (now called Trimble Unity Maintain) and Trimble Cityworks PLL (now called Trimble Unity Permit), Racine has unified sidewalk management, flood mitigation, permitting, and asset management into a coordinated strategy. Inspections are completed faster, repairs are prioritized, and shared spatial insight guides infrastructure investments. City leaders continue to identify opportunities to use streamlined workflows to improve service delivery and reduce costs for taxpayers.

By connecting everyday improvements through a common platform, Racine demonstrates how location-driven technology creates a foundation for 21st-century municipal operations.