Statewide Municipal Layer

Happy Friday!

We are happy to announce that we have a new “statewide” GIS layer of municipalities in Wisconsin! As of today (March 15^th, 2013), we have 31 of the 72 counties of data (that is 43% of the counties and approximately 63% of areas that contain population). Thank you all!

This is a continuous process so there is still an opportunity to download the LTSB BAS Integration Tool and contribute to the completion of an accurate statewide municipal boundary layer!

Find more information and the latest collected data at: http://legis.wisconsin.gov/ltsb/bas/. Make sure to click on the "Data" page!

Deadline for BAS Submissions

Hello all,

We have had several counties use our BAS Integration Tool over the last couple of weeks and the application appears to be working very well.

This is just a friendly reminder that all BAS submissions should be made to the Census Bureau by this Friday. It is not too late to download the tool and create the “change” file needed by the Census Bureau to make the TIGER data better for Wisconsin.

Also, by using this tool you are sending your data to our staff to incorporate into an accurate statewide municipal data layer.

If you have any questions regarding this process please contact us at: gis@legis.wi.gov.

Thank you!

 

BAS User Interface: Dismiss polygons

From our programmer Ryan Squires:

Dismissing the change polygons is not REQUIRED, only a method to narrow down the change polygons in order to locate the annexations/deannexations. If a change polygon is not dismissed, or documented, it is assumed that the polygon is a boundary correction only and will be included as such without being "dismissed" in the user interface.

Updated Documentation

As of February 19, 2013, documentation has been updated for the BAS tool.  Please use this updated documentation for information on the tool.

Updated BAS Documentation

Thank you!

WLIA Recap & BAS Updates

Thank you to all who visited our booth at WLIA in Lake Geneva, and attending our "BAS Integrator Tool" session on Thursday afternoon.  We enjoyed speaking with you and hope you found our presentation informative.

Since the conference, our programmer Ryan has made a few minor updates to the BAS tool.

• The Documentation Tool’s user interface was redesigned to help clarify the recommended workflow and reduce the size. Most of the functions have been placed in an organized tab system.

• There were a few functions that were streamlined to process at a faster rate.
• There was a minor bug with the year code not being able to update that has now been resolved.

Visit us at WLIA!

The BAS Data Integration Utility will be demonstrated and presented at the 2013 WLIA Annual Conference at the Grand Geneva Resort. 

Tony Van Der Wielen & Ryan Squires will be explaining and demonstrating how to use the BAS tool in the GRAND BALLROOM on Thursday February 14th from 4:15pm - 5:00pm.  They will also be stationed at Booth 30 (UW Applied Population Lab booth) for further questions about the BAS Integrator.

Bring your ward or municipal datasets and we will show you how the BAS tool can benefit YOUR county or municipality!

Looking forward to seeing you all in Lake Geneva.

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.