| Abstract
The King County Geographic Information Systems Fund
On December 13, 2001 the King County Council approved ordinance 2001-0555 (enactment 14270) creating the King County Geographic Information Systems Fund. The King County geographic information systems fund operates under the name King County GIS Center (KCGIS Center).
King County Code gives internal service funds full financial and operational responsibility to provide designated services. Agencies receiving services or benefiting from internal service fund activities are required to budget for internal service fund costs.
The KCGIS Center uses the IBIS accounting system for all expense accounting and the ARMS accounting system for revenue accounting.
KCGIS Center Funding, Rate Setting & Billing Methodology
The KCGIS Center segments its operations into three ‘business lines’ (Enterprise GIS Operations, GIS Client Services, and Matrix GIS Staffing Services) each focused on common GIS services and resources. Each business line supports a logical cost allocation methodology to help GIS users understand the basis for individual GIS charges.
To ensure that customers fully fund appropriate costs, and to ensure the fair allocation of costs for shared services, a detailed budget/rate development spreadsheet is used to account for all planned costs and to determine a rate that will recover sufficient revenue within each business area.
Enterprise GIS Operations (O&M):
The KCGIS Center’s core business supports enterprise GIS infrastructure and operation services. For 2007 these services will be provided by 12.60 FTEs. The KCGIS Center allocated all 2007 budget Enterprise GIS Operations costs into 29 discrete categories of services, based on actual documented level of effort. The total cost for each GIS service category is allocated proportionately to each of six distinct GIS user communities benefiting from the service and to each agency within the community on the following basis:
- GIS Sponsor Agencies: DOT, DNRP, and DDES are allocated these costs at a 1:1:0.5 ratio.
- GIS Technical Committee members: Each of 17 agencies with desktop GIS activity has Technical Committee membership and each is allocated these costs on an equal basis
- Desktop GIS Users: Agencies are allocated costs that benefit desktop GIS users on the basis of the number of desktop GIS users within each agency.
- Web GIS Users: Agencies are allocated costs that benefit Web GIS users on the basis of the number of ‘hits’ on KCGIS Web Mapping applications within each agency.
- KingStat User Agencies: Each of the seven agencies that report to the King County Executive are allocated an equal share of 2007 budgeted costs to develop, implement, operate, and maintain the County’s new KingStat performance monitoring and reporting system.
- GIS Imagery Users: Costs for the GIS imagery replacement reserve fund are allocated via eight equal shares to KCA, DDES, DOT Roads, DNRP-WLRD, DNRP-WTD, GIS Technical Committee members, desktop GIS users, and web GIS users.
The KCGIS Center obtains signed automated interfund transfer forms from each of the agencies included in the KCGIS O&M funding model. Funding is then transferred on a monthly or quarterly basis from each agency to the KCGIS internal service fund by the County’s automated financial system.
GIS Client Services:
KCGIS Center provides on-demand GIS client services to meet the unique or unanticipated needs of county business units. Client services will be provided by 5.00 FTEs in 2007. An hourly billing rate for the budget year is calculated by dividing total projected costs (labor, overhead, management, administration, and other direct costs) by the total number of projected billable hours. For 2007 tiered hourly billing rates were instituted to recognize labor cost differences for three categories of GIS staff.
Agencies are billed for GIS client services work completed. Agencies can also prepay for GIS client services, establishing an account with the KCGIS Center that can be used to obtain future GIS training, services, or products at the rate in effect when the services are actually provided.
Matrix GIS Staffing Services Unit:
KCGIS Center directly manages and/or staffs GIS operations for seven divisions in the County’s DNRP, DOT, and KCA and offers this service to other departments as well.
Each division designates a GIS matrix manager, who is responsible to both evaluate the level of business need for direct GIS services and to coordinate the assignment of allocated staff to work on specific projects. For 2007, matrix GIS services will be provided by 13.40 FTEs. The KCGIS Center obtains signed interfund transfer forms from each of the divisions included in the Matrix GIS Staffing Services Unit funding model. Funding is transferred on a monthly or quarterly basis from each agency to the KCGIS internal service fund by the County’s automated financial system.
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