The State of Maryland has acquired an Esri enterprise license agreement (ELA) that provides unlimited access to ArcGIS software to staff in its agencies. Under Governor Martin O’Malley’s leadership, the state uses GIS for much of its work including groundbreaking transparency and accountability initiatives such as StateStat, GreenPrint, and PlanMaryland. Now, access to the software will extend to all corners of state government.
“The drive for this came down from the top,” said Kenny Miller, deputy geographic information officer, State of Maryland. “Governor O’Malley is such a tremendous supporter of using GIS technology to improve decision making and transparency that he wanted all the agencies to have access so they can adopt GIS in their business missions.”
Agencies that did not have GIS software can now spatially enable their data to make workflows more efficient and map complex issues for greater clarity. For example, the Department of Legislative Services hadn’t previously used GIS but immediately secured licenses once the ELA was in place. Staff will use the software to map capital and operating budgets for legislators who can then spatially analyze impacts of budgetary decisions.
“The ELA is important because it makes accessing software easier, but also because it is a collective, multiagency investment in geospatial technology,” said Barney Krucoff, geographic information officer, State of Maryland. “The ELA is a case of many pooling their resources for the common good and as such is a model for the rest of the Maryland geospatial program as a whole.”
For more information on Esri ELAs, visit esri.com/ela.
