Indianapolis – (December 9, 2010) – Residents of the City of Foley, Ala., now will have an easy way to access local government land records and geographic information systems (GIS) without visiting city offices. City residents will incur no cost access to Beacon™, an award-winning public access tool developed by The Schneider Corporation (http://www.schneidercorp.com), a provider of creative solutions for land, infrastructure and facilities projects that help increase revenue, lower costs and mitigate risk.
Beacon™ replaces the city’s current Geographic Information System (GIS) solution, a change that will help the city save money while gaining functionality.
“Keeping in line with our motto ‘The Forward City,’ the City of Foley was ready to take our GIS website to the next level, and the robust platform of the Beacon™ product was the perfect way to do just that,” said Karen Childress, GIS specialist for the City of Foley. “Not only is the website a wonderful tool for the public to use, but the Account Management Module allows city employees to search, map and report department specific data quickly and efficiently. The Beacon™ product was a cost effective way to bring GIS to each department so that city employees can provide services to our citizens more effectively.
Beacon™ gives users 24/7access to a variety of local government data including GIS, appraisal and tax information, and the data is updated daily. Beacon™ also streamlines how the public interfaces with the community by consolidating searches of multiple sites into just one query that can be conducted from any computer. The result is a more efficient way to obtain up-to-date information on properties, as well as providing search, reporting and printer-friendly features. Beacon’s features include:
• Data summary/results reporting
• Statewide property record reporting
• Land improvement data
• County assessor assessment valuation
• Tax history
• Aerial photos mapping
• Report printing and email links
Schneider is the recognized technological leader in land records management. Beacon™ is used by more than 120 local governments and includes information on 6.2 million parcels with an assessed value of $430 billion. It saves individual user communities more than 25 hours per day on average in staff time–the equivalent of three full-time employees–normally spent servicing residents’ requests for the information now available on a self-service basis via the Beacon™ portal.
To access Foley information on Beacon™, users can go to http://www.cityoffoley.org/Home/CityofFoleyInteractiveGISMap.aspx.
About The Schneider Corporation
The Schneider Corporation provides creative solutions for land, infrastructure and facilities projects that help increase revenue, lower costs and mitigate risk. Schneider is a leader in providing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions to hundreds of municipal, county, state, federal and private entities. In a 2009 National Customer Satisfaction survey Schneider was rated “exceptional” or “one of the best” by virtually all respondents for reputation, customer service, product and service quality, and project execution. Our additional expertise in engineering, surveying and architecture enables us to offer an integrated approach to complex projects. A woman-owned business for decades, Schneider is recognized nationally for its award-winning work. For more information about Schneider, please visit http://www.schneidercorp.com. For more information about Schneider GIS solutions, please visit http://www.gis.schneidercorp.com.