Supervisors approve Schneider Corporation for GIS services

A contract with Schneider Corporation for Jasper County’s Geographic Information System was approved on Tuesday.

The Jasper County Board of Supervisors decided to move forward with the outside consultant to provide GIS services because, among many things, it will save the county a considerable amount of money.

“I have been aware of this service that you have offered to other counties, and I have talked to other counties about it, and I haven’t heard a complaint yet,” supervisor Joe Brock said.

Jasper County will enter into a three-year contract with the first year at $47,250 and the following two at $33,600. A fourth year option in available at $33,600. Over a four-year time period, the county will save more than $220,000 by switching services to Schneider versus keeping an in-house GIS director.

GIS services are computer mapping services that can show many different kinds of data on one map. It enables users to more easily see, analyze and understand history, patterns and relationships on the map.

As a part of the services, Schneider will have a professional on-site at least one day each month. That professional will perform activities including assistance with other system integrations to the GIS, assistance with applying GIS to specific tasks, non-classroom style raining and data maintenance. Other tasks include the creation of attribute driven data layer such as schools districts, flood plains and zoning layers.

The county will also receive additional support through Schneider for data packaging for custom request, data creation, data tune-up and map creation that can be done remotely or on-site.

The current Jasper County GIS Director will have the option to apply for a position through Schneider to continue the services.

In other business

• Kelly Meyer was approved for hire as a collections coordinator for the county attorney office. The starting pay rate is $19.59 per hour.

• The Newton High School Athletic Booster Club was approved to use the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn on Sept. 22 to sell food, drinks and apparel before the homecoming parade.

Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com