Email Sent to County Clerks and GIS Contacts

The following email was sent out on Friday January 25th, 2013 to all Wisconsin County Clerks and GIS Contacts.  If you did not receive this email, or received it in error, please let us know by emailing us at gis@legis.wi.gov so we can either get your information on our contact list, or take your information off.

Good Afternoon,

We would like to once again thank you and your staff for your assistance with the Local Redistricting effort over the past two years. The process of local redistricting in Wisconsin went relatively smoothly, thanks to all who were involved.

There were some challenges that local governments around Wisconsin faced with regard to the U.S. Census Bureau data. Wisconsin’s constitution requires that federal census data be used for redistricting. Over the last ten years, census data used for this process has dramatically improved, but it can be made better.

The Minor Civil Divisions information released by the U.S. Census Bureau needs to be updated by local governments on an annual basis to be accurate. The U.S. Census Bureau conducts the Boundary and Annexation Survey (BAS) annually to collect information about selected legally defined geographic areas. The BAS is then used to update information about the legal boundaries and names of all governmental units in the United States. The Census Bureau uses the boundary information collected in the BAS to tabulate data for the decennial and economic censuses, and annual estimates and surveys such as the Population Estimates Program and the American Community Survey.

To reduce the burden on local governments and avoid duplication of efforts, the Census Bureau offers consolidation agreements to Wisconsin counties that are interested in submitting boundary changes for the local governments (incorporated places and minor civil divisions) within their jurisdiction. The Consolidated Boundary and Annexation Survey (CBAS) program allows counties to report boundary and feature changes for some or all of these governments within their county.  Once a local government agrees to the consolidation, the local government will no longer receive BAS materials.  Instead, the county BAS respondent will be responsible for providing the Census Bureau with all boundary updates. For more information about the consolidated BAS (CBAS), please refer to the Census Bureau's website.

Currently, 24 Wisconsin counties have signed a consolidated (CBAS) agreement with the Census Bureau to participate in the 2013 CBAS program.

In an effort to help county and local governments streamline the process of submitting data to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Legislative Technology Services Bureau (LTSB) has developed software that quickly and easily compares census data and local datasets. This software developed for Esri ArcGIS 10.x creates the necessary files needed to participate in the Census Bureau’s BAS and CBAS programs. This software is currently available to any Wisconsin county or municipality free of charge. It is LTSB’s goal to ensure every local government in the state has the ability to participate in the BAS program so that future releases of Census Bureau data (including the Census 2020 redistricting data) reflect the most accurate municipal boundaries possible for Wisconsin. Additionally, this software will send accurate municipal boundaries to LTSB, enabling us to construct an updated, statewide layer of municipal boundaries.

For more information on BAS, CBAS and the LTSB Data Integration tool please visit http://legis.wisconsin.gov/ltsb/BAS/

Sincerely,

Tony

Tony J. Van Der Wielen
Legislative Technology Services Bureau

BAS Integrator Update - 1/18/13

Due to some unforeseen circumstances, the release of the BAS Integrator Tool will be delayed until next week.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.  We are working hard to get the tool to you as soon as we can.

Please make sure to subscribe to our blog to get email updates on when the tool will be available on our website for download.

Thank you.

Another BAS Integrator Update

Greetings!

We received some feedback from the U.S. Census Bureau on Friday, January 4^th, 2013 that will require us to make a few tweaks to the BAS application.

We will be releasing a new version of the application no later than Friday, January 18^th, 2013. This update will include the 2013 BAS data provided by the Census Bureau and any technical changes needed for the correct submission of data.

Let us know if you have any questions by emailing gis@legis.wisconsin.gov.