County assessor says new data website is great for taxpayers

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
By Nick Schneider, Assistant Editor
Greene County Daily World
http://gcdailyworld.com/story/1609818.html

Greene County residents now will have an easy and a free way to access local government land records and geographic information systems (GIS) information without visiting the county courthouse in Bloomfield.

Through a recent partnership with the Schneider Corporation, a provider of creative solutions for land, county residents are now able to access an Internet Web site known as Beacon.

Beacon, which is endorsed by the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns (ACT), streamlines how the public interfaces with the community by consolidating searches of multiple sites into just one query that can be conducted from any computer.

The result is a more efficient way to obtain up-to-date information on properties, as well as providing search, reporting and printer-friendly features, according to the company.

Beacon Basic's functionality also includes links to Zillow and Google maps. The full version of Beacon gives users around-the-clock access to a variety of local government data including GIS, appraisal and tax information, and the data is updated daily.

Greene County Assessor Nancy Snellenberger likes the new Web site and encourages taxpayers and realtors to take a look at it.

"The Beacon Basic site is a great benefit to the citizens of Greene County, taxpayers and businesses," she said. "Beacon Basic is a great time-saver for our citizens."

Beacon Basic's features include:

• Data summary/results reporting.
• Statewide property record reporting.
• Land improvement data.
• County assessor assessment valuation.
• Tax history.
• Aerial photos mapping.
• Report printing and e-mail links.

Snellenberger said she is really excited about this new service for anyone wanting real estate property information.

It's open 24/7 and it is updated daily. It comes from the DLGF (Department of Local Government Finance). It is our (Greene County) information and of course, you can get all 92 counties. The real estate people are really excited about it. They don't have to call or come in here (to the assessor's office). They can just go to the site."

Snellenberger said she learned about the new Web site a few weeks ago, prior to attending a state assessor's conference, from an e-mail she received from the vendor.

"When I went into it (the site) I was just so impressed that I stopped by their (vendor) booth at the conference and they talked to me about it. They said our taxpayers could access all of the data online," she explained. "You can tell I am excited about it. I think it is just wonderful for the taxpayers."

Snellenberger introduced the Web site this week to realtor Connie Puckett from Key Associates of Linton.

Puckett is also impressed.

"It is very advantageous to us. We can just go online and pull up any information on a listing that we have within our office or we need to do any kind of market analysis or any kind of information whatsoever, it will safe us a trip to the courthouse," she said. "I'm very excited about it. She (Snellenberger) made my day. Ironically, we had called over there (to the courthouse) to get some information that she would normally have had to look up on her computer for us because we didn't have access to it.

"This will open up a whole new window of opportunities for us to obtain information. This is open to the public. It is great. I love it."

The Beacon Basic data, available in cooperation with the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF), features every taxed property in all 92 counties in Indiana. It has been published at no cost to the state or counties, and is available at http://beacon.schneidercorp.com and is searchable statewide at http://www.indianaguidepost.com/.

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