This proposal is to do research to evaluate the costs and benefits of using a geographic information systems (GIS ) approach to conduct fiscal impact studies. The result of the research would be an evaluation of six widely recognized non-geographic approaches compared to a relatively low-cost GIS approach. The primary objective would be to determine the degree of variation in the fiscal impact conclusions among the approaches for a particular case study community, as a basis for establishing the benefit of a GIS approach. The costs of applying these different methods will also be documented. Finally, since the commercial application of a GIS approach would depend on the availability of data to conduct the study, and the ability to competitively price a consultant contract proposal, a survey will be done to determine the availability of the key data ingredients of a GIS approach. The hypothesis of this research is that a GIS approach will yield more reliable results to be used as the basis for governmental decision making because it would allow consideration of the complexities of local finance, the unique physical, historical and financial policy variations among governmental units, in addition, it would permit the community to use the information developed in the approach in an ongoing manner to evaluate the impacts of new unforeseen development proposals.
