Pinal County GIS staff proposed repealing the county's GIS data fee schedule and publishing the same map layers for free on an open-data portal so residents and businesses can download individual layers or full data packages without paying or waiting.

The proposal, presented May 14 to the Pinal County Board of Supervisors, would shift the county from a manual, one-time paid data-delivery model to an automated ArcGIS Hub/ArcGIS Open Data portal that staff said would be updated weekly and would remove staff time spent processing payments and custom orders.

Sarah Hess, GIS supervisor for the county's Information Technology Services Department, said the current process requires members of the public to "submit a GIS data request form," make a payment, and then wait while staff process the order. "Right now, the current process for the public to obtain our GIS data is that they submit a GIS data request form. They submit their payment. Our staff then processes the payment, processes the custom GIS data order, and then delivers that data to the customer," Hess said. She added that sales are one-time deliveries, so customers must repurchase to get updated files.

Hess said the county already has the technology to publish the data on an Esri ArcGIS Hub portal and that the portal would host "the exact same data that we are currently selling today." She asked the board to repeal the fee schedule so constituents could download layers on demand at no cost, and so staff time could be freed for other work.

Hess drew the board's attention to parcel data policy: the county's current fee schedule, she said, allows distribution only of parcel boundary lines and parcel numbers; ownership and mailing information are distributed separately by the county assessor under that office's fee schedule and would not be included in the repeal.

Hess also provided historical context: the county's highest year of GIS data sales was fiscal year 2020-21, when sales totaled $17,325. She told supervisors the portal would be updated weekly via an automated process when feasible.

Supervisors raised operational questions. Supervisor Serti asked about more frequent aerial imagery to support code enforcement and other functions. Hess said the county has a contract with EagleView and performs countywide aerial flights every two to three years, with the next flight scheduled for the coming fall. "Purchasing aerial photography is very, very expensive," she said, adding flights are costly at the mapping resolutions the county uses and require image stitching and georeferencing.

Board members expressed general support for making GIS data more accessible. One supervisor commented that the revenue from sales appeared small relative to the staff time required to process orders.

No formal vote on the GIS fee schedule repeal was recorded during the session. Hess concluded by reiterating the county's technical ability to host an open-data portal and the department's goal to automate weekly updates.

If the board advances the proposal, next steps described in the presentation would include repealing the existing GIS data fee schedule and implementing an ArcGIS Hub site populated with the same public layers the county sells today. The assessor's office would retain its separate fee schedule for ownership and mailing data.