Why not put assessment and tax information into public GIS?
The answer for Gray County, Ontario came from the county planning staff but is detailed by Planning Director Jan McDonald:
It’s not a county responsibility to provide site by site information about taxes and assessment,” McDonald said. McDonald explained that Grey County is not responsible for maintaining up-to-date assessment and property tax information about properties across the county. Those responsibilities lie with MPAC and lower tier municipalities. “The concern we have is the date of the information. To provide that information on our GIS website would take some time and effort and if there was an error (a user) would call the county and we wouldn’t have the information to determine what’s right,” she said.
She went on to note the data is available at municipal offices. Chatsworth Mayor Howard Greig had concerns, too.
“I think there is a real legal question with this. With that information somebody could filter out that there is a single person living alone in a million dollar home. This has the potential to be used for the wrong purpose,” said Greig, pointing out that the county is not denying the public information. “The information is available. Somebody can go into any municipal office and go through the tax rolls,” he said.
- Blue Mountains Currier Herald
