JACKSON, Wyo. — Teton County is considering a switch in its Geographic Information System (GIS) platform after County Assessor Melissa Shinkle brought up various issues with the current system to the Board of County Commissioners at their Monday voucher meeting.
Shinkle told County Commissioners that the current GIS through Dewberry Engineers and Esri Products, which the County has used since July of 2023, is lacking various assessor tools that were available to her and her staff on the previous platform. Most notably, the automated parcel ID number generator has not been working since last fall, and the staff has been keeping track by hand in a spreadsheet. Also, some of the plat maps recorded in April and May are still not available on the County’s GIS, Shinkle informed the Commissioners.
“On a broader scale for GIS purposes, the Esri product is good,” Shinkle said. “But I think for technical parts of GIS that are used by the assessor’s office and the clerk’s office and the treasurer’s office, and just enabling better public participation and viewing their data, the Esri product is seemingly a little bit more difficult to handle those specialized projects.”
The solution Shinkle proposed requires transitioning to Terra GIS. Rich Greenwood built Teton County’s original GIS platform, Greenwood Mapping, and maintained it for 29 years, cutting ties with the County in 2023. Terra GIS, which acquired Greenwood Mapping in 2024, is currently used by 15 Wyoming counties and three in Idaho.
“I think what made Mr. Greenwood’s GIS so special was Mr. Greenwood,” said Commissioner Wes Gardner. “But it seems that he has taken considerable thought into who he was willing to sell the product to. And given what I know of him, by proxy and by his product, I think I can trust that he’s done due diligence — and given the fact that there are 15 counties in Wyoming who made this move successfully.”
Shinkle told Buckrail that the proposed contract with Terra GIS would cost the County $68,000 per year. It is “much less expensive” than the current program, Shinkle said, which includes paying a GIS administrator’s salary and continued contracting with Dewberry for updates, on top of the contract for Esri’s mapping platform.
At the meeting, Shinkle explained that the maps on Terra GIS remain virtually the same since changing ownership. Though Teton County’s map was taken off the website, the data still exists and it would be a fairly quick process to bring it back for County and public access.
“We need first-rate tools for keeping track of land records and access for the public” due to the size of Teton County’s real estate economy, Commissioner Len Carlman said. “We might have gotten spoiled with Rich Greenwood’s GIS user interface, but it was a gold standard, and we went to something lower than gold.”
The Board of County Commissioners will consider this item further and vote on a decision at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21.
