Improving Collaboration,
Efficiency, and Transparency
in Hamilton County
Agenda
v Project Overview
v Project Selection Criteria
v Project Description: “Collaboration” v Project Description: “Efficiency”
v Project Description: “Transparency” v Key Takeaways & Future Plans
Hamilton County
v Location: SW Ohio
v County Seat: Cincinnati v Total No. Jurisdictions: 50 v Population: 802,374 (2010) v 3rd most populous County in
Ohio
Project Overview
March 2013v CAGIS and partner agencies started a
Pilot Project to implement “ArcGIS Online” throughout the consortium.
v Hamilton County Planning and
Development participated in the Pilot Project.
v ESRI conducted workshop with
participating agencies to set-up initial configuration and provide general
guidelines (ArcGIS Online).
Hamilton County Agencies City of Cincinnati Agencies CAGIS Utilities
Project Overview
Hamilton County Planning
Department of Planning and Development
Formed in 2010 after the consolidation of the following departments:
v Regional Planning v Zoning
v Storm Water & Infrastructure v Building Inspections
v Community Development
Project Overview
April - May 2013v Conducted group meetings –
brainstorming - to identify potential projects, map content, etc.
v Performed interviews with departmental
staff to estimate future user groups and determine the level of involvement
(whether GIS users or not).
v Assessed level of resistance – people
reluctant to access new technology.
Hamilton County Planning
Project Overview
May 2013v Finalized user level assessment – named
users and associated roles (applicability matrix).
Hamilton County Planning
Project Selection Criteria
v Identify projects that involved more than
two agencies and could potentially benefit from sharing data and maps.
v Identify processes that needed
improvement such as avoiding duplication of efforts and/or could potentially save costs.
v Identify areas where response to
customers could be improved – increase transparency.
COLLABORATION
EFFICIENCY
Collaboration
Storm Water Mappingv Since 2010, Hamilton County Storm Water District started
mapping their infrastructure comprising 36 jurisdictions.
v Besides the complexity of its extension, this ten year project is
divided in four phases in order to be able to distribute a balanced contribution among all participating communities.
v This project is a multi-agency effort project involving to name
a few: Hamilton County Planning, Hamilton County Engineer, Hamilton County Health, Hamilton County Soil& Water District.
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Collaboration
Accomplishments:v All agencies have access to the most up-to-date information:
Hamilton County GIS team would spend less time preparing maps or extracting data requested by other departments.
v Facilitated stormwater plan review process by offering updated
mapped assets including catchbasins, manholes, headwalls, culverts, ditches, etc.
Efficiency
Storm Water Detention Inventory Inspections
v Storm water inspectors are assigned to inspect approximately
50-75 detention basins per year, mostly during winter times.
v Workflow:
q inspector receives a printed list of sites to be inspected. q inspector visits the site, takes notes and pictures.
q once in the office, inspector completes a fillable pdf form
based on information gathered in the field and uploads pictures on local server.
q inspector prints the form and hands it to GIS staff for
Efficiency
Storm Water Detention Inventory Inspections
v We created a web application so inspectors can select the
detention basin point and edit a limited number of attributes.
v Tested (deployed application) on iPads. v Workflow:
q inspector organizes list of sites to be inspected by
checking the web map (by township).
q inspector visits the site and makes changes on iPad and
attaches pictures.
Transparency
Hamilton County Water Service Areas
v During Fall and Summer times received at least 5 daily phone
calls regarding the water service provider info for a specific address – most cases for reconnecting services.
v Although there is a major service provider covering almost
80% of the County jurisdictions, Hamilton County has contracts with ten different service providers
v People who called were misinformed; they would ask: is this
County Water? I would want to reconnect the services to this address…
Transparency
Hamilton County Water Service Areas
v Solution: we embedded a web map showing the different
County water service providers into our Water Supply division website.
v One important remark: make sure your data is accurate or as
accurate as possible before publishing it.
v Phone calls been reduced/stopped.
v Overall, this solution increased transparency: general public
has access to data through the web saving time of both customer and county’s staff.
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://w w w .h am ilto nco un ty oh io .g ov / /sto rm w ate r/w ate r.aspKey Takeaways
v Leveraged the County’s Enterprise GIS
environment and published an initial set of web maps and feature services.
v Facilitated coordination among agencies
involved in asset mapping project and County staff now is able to identify utility assets either in the office or in the field on mobile devices.
v Improved stormwater management
functions.
v ESRI web mapping tools helped Hamilton
County set an example within the State of
COLLABORATION
EFFICIENCY
