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1. CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order by Chairperson Erdahl at 8:30 a.m. It was held at the Roseville City Hall.
Members Present: David Arbeit, Virginia Erdahl, Brad Henry, Richard Johnson, Paul Leegard, and Gary Caswell
for Patrick O'Connor.
Members Absent: Dennis Welsch
Visitor: Mark Beauchamp, Gina Buss, Yvonne Chaillet, John Lunde, and Trudy Richter of the Fair-Share Financial
Model consultant team.
Support Staff: Randall Johnson
2. ACCEPT AGENDA
Gary Caswell moved and Arbeit seconded to consider Item 4b (critique consultant presentation) before Item 4a
and to accept the agenda, as revised. Motion carried unanimously.
3. ACCEPT MEETING SUMMARY
Henry moved and Arbeit seconded to approve the March 10, 1999 meeting summary, as submitted. Motion carried
unanimously.
4. DISCUSSION/ACTION ITEMS
4b. Critique Consultant Presentation Planned for April 21st Policy Board Meeting - and - 4a. MetroGIS
Fair-Share Financial and Organizational Structure Project Update
Staff summarized the two primary purposes of the Fair-Share Model presentation to the Policy Board on April
21st – 1) receive confirmation on several assumptions the consultant team will use to develop the financial and
organizational models and share a schedule of activities for the remainder of the study. John Lunde summarized the
content of the presentation, concentrating primarily on the assumptions for which ratification will be sought from the
Board. The Fair-Share model presentation will follow the presentation from the I-35W Corridor Coalition and should be
used to illustrate concepts. John also explained his work to develop a unit-pricing scheme for regional data solutions,
develop a "data readiness assessment" for custodians of primary data that will be integrated for a regional solution,
and to assess current and anticipated internal MetroGIS operational costs.
The Policy Advisory Team and consultant team spent a significant portion of the meeting discussing assumptions
key to the financial and organizational aspects of the study. Several changes to the assumptions included in the draft
presentation were agreed upon. The revised slides will be provided to staff for inclusion with the April 21st agenda
packet. Agreed upon changes included and Trudy Richter voluntered to prepare the revised language:
- The "policies already adopted" slide will be revised to paraphrase the language of the philosophies
incorporated into the interim data and cost sharing agreements, in particular concerning public sector access to data
and sharing costs.
- The "Conclusion" slide will be renamed "Timeline" and a more detailed list of decision/review milestones
will be provided. Staff will provide this list to the consultant team following comment from the Team chair.
- The "Data Sales" slide will be replaced with an assumption that clarifies MetroGIS will not diminish the
revenue stream of primary producers received from any sales of regional datasets to non-government interests.
- Identify the primary issue or issues associated with each assumption. The group agreed that these issues
include: value non-cash contributions such as data; using a measure of consistency with regional guidelines a factor to
establish the value of data contributions; identify incentives that will be necessary to sustain involvement by
producers of priority data, such as counties who state they do not rely much on data from other organizations to carry
out their responsibilities; exclude the concept of return on investment (ROI) when devising policies concerning sharing
data among government entities and clarify the difference between recovery of development costs and recovery of the
costs of reproduction.
Mark Beauchamp summarized his conceptual design for the financial model component of the study. He stated he
will rely upon the results of Task B (Estimate of Costs of Collaboration) to establish the universe of expenses that
must be addressed to sustain a mature MetroGIS organization.
The first step will be to develop equitable user (stakeholder) classes among which to allocate the costs of
sustaining the MetroGIS organization. The group concluded user classes should include counties, cities, watersheds,
school districts, metropolitan, state, and federal. Further discussion is needed to decide how to handle utilities and
possibly other non-government entities that maintain data identified as a priority information need or other assets
important to the success of MetroGIS. For the first pass, the group agreed non-government units should be excluded but
the model should be flexible enough to include other classes at a later date.
The second step involves developing a scheme to insure financial stability for MetroGIS. This will involve
defining an equitable contribution for each user class and, to the extent possible, tie the contributions to preceived
benefits received from the presence of MetroGIS. A combination of interviews, preliminary results of Will Craig’s
MetroGIS Benefits Study, review of priority information needs survey data, and consultant expertise will be used to
generate assumptions about the perceived benefit of MetroGIS to each user class. It was generally agreed that
organizations whose jurisdictions cross county boundaries (e.g., school districts, watershed districts, metropolitan,
etc.) will receive the most benefit from MetroGIS. A means to account for contributions in the form of cash, data, and
people/equipment must be included. A subscription fee was mentioned as a possibility for cash contributions. The group
also recognized the need to insure an equitable balance among the entities within each class (e.g., Minneapolis versus
Lauderdale within the City class) and a means to credit contributions to existing GIS collaboratives consistent with
the needs of MetroGIS (City of Roseville contributes to Ramsey County GIS Users Group which assists Ramsey County with
GIS data maintenance expenses important to regional data solution.)
The third step involves building a model in the form of a spreadsheet. It will be a living model with
flexibility to add components and will include a user-friendly means to revise assumptions and recalculate
contributions as policies change or better information becomes available.
Finally, guidelines for "sale" of data to non-government entities will be provided but the group agreed the
topic of data sales policies should be dealt with in-depth as a separate matter following this study.
4c. Information Policy Legislation Update
No discussion due to lack of time.
5. OTHER BUSINESS
None
6. NEXT MEETINGS
- Wednesday, June 2nd, Roseville City Hall, 8:30 a.m.
7 ADJOURN
The meeting adjourned at 10:40:A.M.
Prepared by Randall Johnson, AICP, MetroGIS Staff Coordinator
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