Sidwell to Modernize Land Records Management for Stoddard County, MO

St. Charles, IL – Stoddard County, Missouri, located in the southeastern part of the state, covers an area of 875 square miles, and encompasses more than 18,700 parcels. The County recognized the need to modernize their land records management system but needed to take a phased approach. In early 2009, Stoddard County selected Sidwell to provide them with color aerial photography which would be used as the base map for their improved system.  When they were ready to embark on the next step in the process, after careful consideration of proposals from a variety of providers, Stoddard County once again selected The Sidwell Company to provide professional GIS services and convert their existing hard-copy mylar maps into a cadastral-based GIS.

During the parcel reconstruction process, Sidwell’s team of mapping experts will use the existing Stoddard County tax maps, original subdivision plats, and Government Lot Plat Books as reference source documents.  The resulting contiguous digital cadastral mapping system will contain all taxable and exempt parcels within the County. The land records data will be delivered in the industry-standard ESRI personal geodatabase format, and will be fully integrated with the County’s existing tax cycle and appraisal systems. This will eliminate the duplication of efforts in maintaining each system. Additional enhancements to the system will come in the form of data layers featuring flood, school and road districts, political townships, and soil data. Sidwell will also provide the County with complete farmland assessment calculations for all agricultural parcels.

To aid in the ongoing maintenance of their new system, Stoddard County will employ Sidwell’s Parcel Builder® software suite, which includes Administrator, MapEditor, MapPlotter, MapViewer, and the Genealogy extension for tracking parent-child parcel relationships within the GIS. The County will receive customized training on the use of the software and best practice maintenance workflows for the new system.

Finally, to aid the County in effective deployment of their enhanced mapping data, Sidwell will prepare the geodatabase for map plotting, which will allow the County to generate hard copy output at will for any map within the system, and will provide the County with an initial set of bound hard copy map plots. Additionally, Sidwell will create and host an interactive GIS website using Sidwell’s new technology based upon Microsoft’s Silverlight web application. This will allow Stoddard County to provide easy web-based public access to their GIS data.

This project will ultimately provide Stoddard County with a modern and progressive cadastral land records management system that will not only meet their current needs, but provide them with the ability to grow and adapt as their County’s needs and technology change in the future

About Sidwell
For over 80 years, The Sidwell Company has provided outstanding products and services, evolving and innovating every step of the way.  Sidwell is an employee-owned firm providing integrated land records management solutions and GIS mapping and software development to local government and private-sector organizations across the United States.  Sidwell’s premier parcel mapping solution, Parcel Builder™, is currently used by over 160 customers nationwide. Sidwell also offers a full range of aerial photography and photogrammetric services, and is the Midwest Distributor for Ashtech™ GPS products and solutions.  For more information about Sidwell services and products, call 877.SIDWELL (877.743.9355) or visit www.sidwellco.com.