GIS stands for Geographic Information System and is a framework for gathering, managing, and analyzing spatial data in order to draw, virtualize, or organize data in a geographic way.

A GIS system can be utilized by an organization that has a set of data and could better utilize that data if it could by analyzed, displayed, or improved by adding a geographic component to it. Elections, Planning, Promotion and Tourism, Enhanced 911, Real Property, Emergency Management, Highway, Sheriff, District Attorney, Youth Bureau, and Health are all departments either currently utilizing GIS or are those that could benefit from incorporating it.

Real Property utilizes GIS in cadastral tax mapping and related mapping services. Our office is tasked with providing local assessors with a graphical representation of the parcels on their assessment roll. These parcels are mapped in a digital environment that allows for multi-purpose use for other cadastral visualizations and analysis.

Technically speaking there is only one tax map that covers the entire County and the 24 towns, nine villages, and two cities.

However, since it was created in the pre-digital era, the map was broken down into smaller sections covering 400x400 feet each, resulting in approximately 1,133 section and subsection maps representing almost 60,000 parcels of land.

Effectively these terms all mean the same thing. SBL stands for "Section, Block, and Lot" and it is how a tax map number is formatted. This is the same number that is sometimes called a Tax ID or Parcel ID number on the assessment roll and tax bills. You may also hear it referred to as simply the "tax map number."

• The first 5 digits refer to the section map that the parcel is located on.
• The 2 digits after the first dash represent the block number within that section. Each section may have up to 99 blocks, although most contain less than 5 blocks.
• The digits after the second dash represent the lot number within that block. If the lot number contains a period - such as 24.01 - it typically indicates that the parcel was split and came out of a larger piece or is part of a land tract or subdivision.

At a minimum, the tax map will display the parcel lot number, the boundaries of the parcel, and the road frontage in feet. If the parcel is less than an acre in size, the depth will also be displayed in feet. If the parcel is over an acre, the acreage will be displayed below the lot number.

While the GIS Parcel Viewer will display parcel boundaries along with ownership information, the tax map itself does not contain any ownership information and must be cross referenced against the assessment roll.

The Real Property Department maintains the tax map, in cooperation with the County Clerk and the local assessors. As deeds and surveys are filed with the County Clerk, they are transmitted to Real Property who processes the sales for the local assessor and makes any changes to the tax map as may be necessary.

In most cases, the information found on the tax map concerning dimensions and acreage comes from the legal description of the property from the filed deed. In the case of ambiguity, these dimensions are often digitally measured. At no point should acreage or dimensions be taken from the tax map at face value without independently verifying them against public records or accurate field surveys.

Paper copies of the tax map are filed in the Real Property office and with the local assessor in each municipality.

PDF copies of the tax map are available online via the Real Property database.

The online Tax Map Explorer web map is a digital representation of the entire county tax map and contains all the same information that's available on the paper section maps.

Additionally, the boundary lines from the GIS Parcel Viewer web map are the identical to those from the tax map, but overlayed on aerial imagery.