Background and Challenge
In 2024, Madison County, Illinois, recognized the need to modernize its parcel data to address long-standing issues with accuracy and maintenance. Over the years, the County’s dataset had been built from multiple legacy sources, including shapefiles of varying quality and precision. This patchwork approach had resulted in inconsistencies, duplication, and spatial misalignments that complicated tax assessment, land use planning, and coordination across departments. Without a standardized, enterprise-level GIS environment, these inefficiencies also carried the risk of diminishing public confidence in the County’s records.
Compounding the technical challenges was a strict procedural constraint. The County needed to obligate remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds before the end of the year or risk forfeiting them. With less than two months to act, there was no practical way to initiate a traditional request-for-proposal process, which would have required weeks or months beyond the available time. This created an urgent need for a partner with both the technical expertise to deliver the project and a compliant procurement pathway that could be executed quickly.
Procurement Approach
Madison County is a member of OMNIA Partners, a cooperative purchasing organization. MGT, an Esri Gold Partner with more than 35 years of experience delivering geospatial services to local governments, had recently been awarded an OMNIA contract for Critical Incident Mapping and GIS Interactive Mapping. Because the contract was competitively solicited, it met all the compliance requirements for cooperative procurement.
This cooperative approach enabled the County to complete all procurement steps in approximately four weeks — a timeline that preserved the ARPA funding and allowed work to begin without delay. The combination of a qualified technical partner and a ready-made, compliant contract vehicle was the key to moving the project forward under severe time constraints.
Implementation
Once contracted, MGT’s team of Esri-certified GIS professionals began a record-driven parcel modernization process using Esri’s Parcel Fabric framework. The modernization was built on a precise, methodical approach: migrating legacy parcel data into the Parcel Fabric using deed records and legal descriptions as the authoritative source and applying Coordinate Geometry (COGO) techniques to ensure that each boundary was aligned to accurate bearings and distances.
To support sustainable operations, MGT established a versioned enterprise geodatabase that allowed multiple users to edit records simultaneously while preserving data integrity. Rigorous quality assurance and quality control procedures were applied to detect and correct any topological conflicts or duplication. Equally important, MGT provided targeted training to County staff to ensure they could manage the data, maintain accuracy standards, and leverage the enterprise GIS for future integrations and automations.
Current Status and Anticipated Outcomes
The project remains in progress, but Madison County is already positioned to benefit from a single, authoritative parcel dataset that is legally accurate, spatially consistent, and maintained in a scalable GIS environment. This modernization is expected to streamline tax assessment and planning functions, reduce duplication and boundary conflicts, and strengthen interdepartmental collaboration. The addition of staff training ensures that these benefits will be sustained over time.
By integrating a proven modernization methodology with an expedited cooperative procurement process, MGT has enabled Madison County to launch a critical infrastructure improvement within a highly constrained timeline, preserving funding, meeting compliance requirements, and laying the groundwork for long-term operational efficiency.
