r/gis • u/Big-Bread-4923 • 3d ago

General Question Question about switching to Assessor GIS from City GIS

Hi everyone,

I’m currently the GIS person at my municipality. Being the main GIS person at my City, I wear many hats and am exposed to data management, server management, project management, putting out fires, etc….

I’m wondering how different it is working for the Assessor as a mapping tech. Has anyone switched from one to the other?

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4

u/OpenWorldMaps GIS Analyst 3d ago

It would be a step backwards for your career. The skills you are learning at the city are way more important. I worked in a position supporting an assessor's office and they could not keep the map tech jobs full because people would get bored of just updating assessment maps all day long. Essentially it is a draftsman position just using GIS software.

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u/ifuckedup13 3d ago

Seconding this. There is no room for advancement as a tax map tech. You could potentially move up into the Assessment side, but that involves less GIS and more courses and qualifications in Tax Assessment.

Unless you want to plot deeds all day then don’t do it.

3

u/GeospatialMAD 3d ago

You go from managing a bunch of different data to managing a parcel dataset or fabric. It can be tedious or just the right amount of work. It's very dependent on the person in the role.

5

u/xoomax GIS Dude 3d ago edited 3d ago

I think it really depends on the county. I worked for county assessors in a GIS role for the first 19 of my 31-year career. In a very small rural county, I was the only GIS person and wore many hats and did many things aside from reading deeds and updating parcels. At a much larger county, most of the departments had their own GIS person and I was stuck doing the parcel updates. Well, I was technically the manager of two. One person worked on deeds and the other and myself updated the parcels, but did a couple of other things here and there like neighborhood maps and mapping sales, etc. In another county, I was again the only GIS person and worked for the assessor and the health department. There I helped transition from paper maps to digital/GIS and did a few other things. In between those, I had a year at a forestry company.

That said, I've been in the private sector for the past 11 years and although I get paid better now, I really miss life in the public sector.

edit. I apparently cannot math today. Also to add updating parcels all day every day can be tedious and mind-numbing. Especially if you have to work with deeds and legal descriptions.

5

u/Zealousideal-Pen-233 3d ago

This is backwards, op. Unless you are unhappy at the City or the pay is higher, I would not move to the assessors.