Citywide Asset Inventory in 2026: A Municipal Mapping Guide

Say a mid-size city needs to reconcile 1,860 visible assets before its next capital planning cycle, allowing one staff member 40 minutes for each record: 18 minutes at the asset, 14 minutes of travel and access time, and eight minutes for data entry. That is 1,240 staff hours: 1,860 x 40 / 60. At an assumed loaded labor cost of $56 an hour, the mapping effort consumes $69,440 of staff capacity before anyone performs a condition assessment.

I would count and reconcile the visible assets before sending a truck to every pin. Facilities can review roofs while parks checks courts and fields against the same dated baseline. Staff visits then answer questions that need boots on the ground, rather than rebuilding separate lists of what exists.

Asset Search by PorchRocket finds physical assets visible from above using aerial and satellite imagery cross-referenced with property records and public datasets. We set the search rules with your department experts, review every candidate and deliver dated evidence in the city’s working format.

What should a citywide asset inventory cover?

Include the visible assets each department must maintain or plan around, with one agreed counting rule and a named steward for every asset class.

Start with the buildings and grounds already on the city’s books. Add the visible infrastructure that supports stormwater and utility work. Then define whether the search also covers private assets the city regulates or bills. Those are different populations, and each needs a responsibility field.

I would use this scope sheet at the first meeting:

Asset family	Visible features to inventory	Department decision	Follow-up record to connect
Municipal facilities	Roof sections and rooftop equipment	Inspection assignments and service coverage	Building ID and maintenance history
Paved areas	Parking lots, paved yards and service areas	Maintenance packages and surface reconciliation	Pavement survey and work limits
Stormwater facilities	Wet ponds, dry basins and visible structures	Inspection routes and maintenance responsibility	Facility plans and permit references
Drainage	Visible culvert ends, outfalls and open channels	Field verification assignments	As-built records and inspection findings
Parks and recreation	Courts, fields, pools and visible structures	Service boundaries and renewal planning	Parks facility register
Water and operations	Water towers, tanks and fleet yards	Department ownership and inspection coverage	Utility records and site documentation
Urban forestry	Visible tree cover and trees near facilities	Arborist survey areas and work planning	Field tree records

Connect a mapped roof section to its building and a basin to its maintenance documents. The last column gives the department the records it needs to issue work without another morning spent matching unfamiliar pins to the crew’s existing files.

Choose the classes around an upcoming decision. A facilities director preparing a roof inspection package needs a different first edition from a stormwater manager reconciling basin responsibility, even though both can share the same site and parcel references without requiring the same attributes.

The broader asset inventory from aerial imagery guide covers the search process across physical asset classes. For a municipal first edition, I would concentrate on the classes that two departments already need, then extend the agreed schema. That gives the city a testable delivery without making the first purchase depend on resolving every department’s data backlog.

Define the counting unit and the boundary first

Give each site a parent record and each maintained component its own persistent ID, then distinguish city ownership from location and maintenance responsibility.

One recreation campus might contain two buildings, six courts and a basin. Counting the campus as one asset works for a site directory. It fails when the parks crew needs court-specific work orders. Counting every visible component as an unrelated site creates a different problem: the same address appears repeatedly without showing the shared access or purchasing contact.

Use the departments’ approved hierarchy, with components nested under assets and each asset connected to its site. Keep older IDs as aliases. A facilities employee who searches last year’s building number should still reach the current record, even after a department renames the campus.

Set four geographic scopes explicitly:

• The administrative boundary used to organize the project.
• Owned or maintained sites outside that boundary.
• The utility or stormwater service area, where it differs.
• Private facilities included for a stated regulatory or billing purpose.

For a county asset inventory, begin with the county’s site list and service responsibilities. Include county buildings inside incorporated cities. Ask the county to identify shared facilities and roads or drainage assets whose maintenance is divided by agreement. The search boundary should follow the approved scope.

Keep a separate maintenance-responsibility field beside the parcel owner. Assign it from the city’s records or a maintenance agreement, and retain that reference so the next reviewer can check the assignment. Location alone does not establish ownership.

I would settle overlapping counts in the pilot. Decide whether a forebay is a basin component, whether adjacent parking areas share one maintained surface ID, and whether separate roof sections need separate records. Apply the same rule in production. Preserve the rule version so next year’s analyst can reproduce the count.

What does GASB 34 require in 2026?

For eligible infrastructure using GASB 34’s modified approach, an updated inventory must support condition assessments and documentation of preservation at the government’s established condition level.

GASB Statement 34, paragraphs 23 and 24 describe the modified approach’s inventory and assessment requirements, including consistent condition assessments at least every three years. The approach also requires annual estimates of the amount needed to maintain and preserve eligible infrastructure. Governments otherwise generally depreciate capital assets under the statement’s reporting framework.

That three-year interval applies to assessments under the modified approach. It does not establish a universal three-year aerial photography schedule for every roof, tree or park feature. Have finance identify the eligible networks and reporting treatment before the purchasing specification assigns an accounting purpose to each layer.

There is a 2026 development to watch: GASB’s March 25, 2026 Infrastructure Assets exposure draft proposes amendments to Statement 34. An exposure draft is proposed guidance. Keep proposed fields separate from the requirements finance has approved for the city’s current reporting period.

Ask the controller for a crosswalk linking operational asset IDs to financial asset IDs. Record the infrastructure network and accounting treatment beside each link. Staff can then reconcile the systems while preserving each department’s counting unit.

An operations register might track each roof section while finance carries the building as one asset. Preserve that relationship in the crosswalk. Extra maintenance detail does not require a separate financial record for each component.

I would also keep the observation date separate from the acquisition date. A roof visible in an October image was present on that date; the image does not establish when the city placed it in service. Finance can join documented dates and accounting schedules after the physical records have been reconciled.

The inventory team’s deliverable is evidence of visible assets, organized for reconciliation. Finance supplies the reporting decisions, and qualified inspectors supply the condition findings. Agree on those handoffs before the pilot so a missing accounting field goes to the right person rather than becoming an unexplained blank in the GIS.

MS4 maps and stormwater billing need different layers

Use separate layers for outfalls and basin maintenance, with impervious-surface billing connected through shared site references and its own evidence requirements.

EPA’s illicit discharge detection and elimination guidance describes the regulated small MS4 requirement for a storm sewer map showing outfalls and the names and locations of receiving waters. It also recommends reviewing existing records and conducting field surveys to verify outfall locations. Use the city’s issued permit to specify its required attributes and deadlines.

The basin register serves another task. EPA’s post-construction stormwater guidance includes adequate long-term operation and maintenance of stormwater best management practices among the program elements. Give each included facility a responsibility reference and inspection history so the mapped location can support that work.

For the first edition, I would maintain these separate record groups:

• Outfalls, with receiving-water references and verification status.
• Ponds and basins, with facility boundaries and assigned maintenance tasks.
• Impervious surfaces, with surface categories and the billing review status.
• Connections established through records or field investigation, with the source attached.

Avoid drawing an unverified pipe connection simply because two visible structures line up. Give the field crew the question to settle and preserve its answer under the relevant asset IDs.

For billing, the City of Raleigh’s impervious-surface explanation, updated in July 2026, identifies roofs, driveways and parking lots among its examples and explains that the stormwater fee is based on impervious area. That is a local example, not a national billing formula. Apply the purchasing city’s approved surface definitions and adjustment procedures to its own layer.

Keep the observed surface category separate from the billing classification. Staff can review a newly paved area against permit records and the account’s applicable adjustments before changing a bill, using a retained inventory edition that lets a later reviewer trace the decision to the evidence staff had at the time.

The stormwater pond inventory guide goes deeper on basin counting and maintenance responsibility. Use the culvert and drainage inventory guide for field verification planning, and the impervious-surface stormwater billing guide when the deliverable must support a billing review. Each layer can share the citywide site references while retaining its own approval process.

Put the inventory to work in capital plans and grants

Link each capital candidate to its asset ID and inspection evidence, then document the service consequence in a project record separate from the physical inventory.

EPA’s asset management best practices guide starts with the state of water-system assets and connects that evidence to service levels and criticality, then to life-cycle decisions and funding. For a municipal team, I would begin by asking which service depends on each asset and what information is missing before the next investment decision.

I would add a project table beside the asset register, linking each proposed roof repair or basin rehabilitation to its affected assets and inspection reference, with a separate project ID and budget year that can change without rewriting the asset’s maintenance history. Several assets can share a project.

Separate the decisions. An image can establish that a court or roof section exists and show visible changes worth reviewing. The department’s assessment determines which work is warranted. Its estimator develops the work quantities and cost. The capital committee then compares the proposal with competing service needs.

For grant preparation, keep the evidence ready before an application deadline. FEMA’s July 2022 flood-risk and sediment-reduction application example requests project location, maps or images, representative photos and a detailed scope. It illustrates the evidence package an inventory can feed. Use the current funding notice for eligibility and application requirements.

A grant-facing project folder should connect the mapped boundary to the proposed work and the supporting inspection. Record the evidence date and the person who approved the scope. If the design changes, update the project record without rewriting what the earlier observation showed.

Before the next budget workshop, I would ask each department for its highest-priority candidate projects and the asset records behind them. Mark missing evidence as an assigned task. The resulting work queue tells the city whether it needs a records search, a field assessment or design work before it can compare the requests.

What should the city receive in its GIS?

Deliver geometry and dated evidence under persistent asset IDs, with each review outcome linked to the city’s department records through a documented crosswalk.

Asset Search delivers CSV, Excel and GIS-ready files. Agree on the receiving format before production, then test it with the pilot. A file that opens on a vendor’s computer still needs to join correctly to the city’s records and preserve the relationships departments approved.

Use this municipal asset inventory template as the minimum starting schema:

Field group	Recommended fields	Acceptance question
Identity	City asset ID, source ID, parent site ID, class	Can staff find the old record and the new one?
Location	Geometry, coordinate system, address, parcel reference	Does the object land on the correct site?
Responsibility	Parcel owner, maintaining department, agreement reference	Who approves the next action?
Evidence	Observation date, dated view reference, observed facts	Can a reviewer trace the finding?
Review	Fits, rejects or unresolved; reason; rule version	Can the department reproduce the decision?
Field work	Specific question, assigned team, verification date	What must the next visit settle?
History	Edition, prior asset reference, change reason	Can staff distinguish a change from a renamed record?

Use the agreed geometry type for each feature. A site point can locate a campus while a surface polygon describes the maintained area within it, with both connected to the same parent site so staff can retain the work boundaries without counting the campus twice.

Specify measurement units and the coordinate reference system in the delivery notes. Ask the receiving GIS team how it wants empty fields represented and which class names it accepts. Agree on how multipart features and assets crossing parcels will be handled.

Return every reviewed disposition. Fits enter the relevant working layer. Rejected candidates retain their reason in the review file. Unresolved candidates carry the field check needed to decide. The city should be able to reconcile the investigation total with all three outcomes rather than receiving only a sheet of successful matches.

I would test one join to facilities and another to stormwater during the pilot. Check that dated views remain accessible to the authorized city reviewers, that department IDs survive export, and that an unresolved record reaches the field-work queue. The test should use the same receiving system and permissions planned for production.

Name a city steward for the accepted edition. Give departments a documented correction path, with the evidence supporting each change. That keeps a corrected parcel reference or field finding from living only in an employee’s private spreadsheet.

Test the evidence before accepting the file

Approve the pilot using known assets alongside independently checked areas, testing classification separately from omissions and checking responsibility assignments against the city’s records.

Start with examples the city can explain. Include a known dry basin, a roof section that is easy to confuse with its neighbor, and a shared facility with a documented maintenance agreement. Add locations outside the existing lists so the test does not merely reproduce the city’s current omissions.

Have department experts approve the search rules, with written inclusions and exclusions that identify which edge cases need a field answer before they can enter the accepted inventory. Asset Search runs a recall-first search beyond existing directories. People review every candidate before delivery.

Test missed assets separately from wrong classifications. Inspecting only the delivered matches can show that those matches fit; it cannot establish what was left out. Choose independent review areas and compare their visible assets with the delivery. Keep the checked area boundaries in the acceptance record.

Responsibility needs its own review. A correctly located basin with the wrong maintaining department can still send the work order to the wrong queue. Check those assignments against the documents supplied for the project, and leave unresolved ownership or maintenance questions visible.

For the pilot acceptance meeting, I would bring four counts:

• Candidates investigated, reconciled to all returned dispositions.
• Accepted assets by class and department.
• Unresolved questions, grouped by the record or field action needed.
• Corrections found during the city’s independent review.

Agree on the class-specific correction and escalation process before ordering production. A mistaken class label needs a different fix from an asset obscured in all available views. Record the reason so the second edition does not repeat the first edition’s ambiguity.

Ask the city reviewer to trace several records from location through evidence to disposition and responsibility. Then try the same exercise using an older departmental ID. Acceptance should show that staff can use the inventory for an assigned task, with the remaining field questions visible and someone responsible for settling them.

Choose a refresh schedule by decision

Use an annual accepted edition for budget preparation, add quarterly reviews where activity warrants them, and send urgent changes to a separate verification queue.

Those are planning choices for the city to approve. Asset Search supports one-time searches and scheduled refreshes, including annual, quarterly, monthly or weekly editions. Monitoring can flag removed assets or cleared lots as well as new installations and buildings. Near-real-time alerts are available where daily satellite coverage exists; choose that service around a decision that needs that speed.

For a municipal scope, I would start here:

Decision	Suggested cadence	What staff review
Capital planning	Annual edition before departmental budget requests	Additions, removals and records needing an assessment
Active development areas	Quarterly review	New surfaces, structures and candidate facilities
Facilities maintenance coverage	Quarterly review plus project closeout updates	Equipment additions and changed work boundaries
Parks service packages	Annual review before renewal	Added courts, fields and revised maintained areas
Storm or urgent construction watch	Event-driven review or near-real-time coverage where available	Dated visible changes needing verification

Keep separate dates for the observation, staff review and edition acceptance. A record reviewed this week might rely on imagery captured much earlier. Staff issuing work need to see the age of that evidence; review does not reset the observation date.

Retain the previous geometry and disposition when a record changes. For a paved extension, identify the added area beside the earlier boundary; for a department’s revised counting rule, document the reclassification so staff can distinguish a different way of counting from a physical addition to the site.

Asset Search can also re-answer previously searched sites when the requirement changes, often without waiting for new imagery. A revised maintenance scope can therefore trigger a review of the evidence already collected. Unresolved cases still carry the field question that settles them.

The municipal asset monitoring workflow should connect change notices to a city steward, then to the affected department. Decide who can approve each update and which operational system receives it, and require enough edition context in the notice for staff to assign the next action without first researching which accepted record it changes.

Buying a municipal inventory under current purchasing rules

Have purchasing classify the service and funding source, then choose the authorized method using the city’s current rules and the full anticipated scope.

There is no nationwide municipal small-purchase threshold. For a specific 2026 example, Texas Local Government Code section 252.021 sets competitive procurement requirements for municipal expenditures exceeding $100,000, subject to applicable provisions and exemptions. The amendment took effect September 1, 2025. Section 252.0215 requires contacting at least two historically underutilized businesses on a rotating basis for expenditures above $3,000 and below $100,000. The municipality is exempt from that section if the comptroller’s list identifies none in its county.

An old threshold can send staff down the wrong purchasing route. Ask the city’s purchasing officer to identify the applicable authority and funding conditions before selecting the method, particularly when a reused scope sheet still cites procedures from an earlier budget cycle. For background on smaller opportunities, the government contracts under $50,000 guide explains why contract value and buying procedure need separate attention.

For EPA assistance agreements, the agency’s procurement threshold notice describes changes effective October 1, 2025 and generally places micro-purchases at $15,000 or less. That figure does not create permission for every city-funded purchase. Purchasing should document which rules govern the proposed inventory and how the chosen method satisfies them.

Give prospective providers the same scope sheet, specifying the boundary and the counting rule for each asset class alongside its required evidence, receiving schema and treatment of unresolved cases. That lets purchasing compare reviewed records with reviewed records. A sheet of candidate locations is a different deliverable.

Ask each bidder to identify what the city must supply and which decisions remain with staff, then compare the research and review work included in its quote against the same deliverables and refresh obligations. Define the unit before comparing unit rates.

For the procurement file, I would include a short acceptance schedule: pilot review, correction round, production delivery and final import check. Connect payment milestones to the agreed deliverables. Keep optional refresh editions separately described so purchasing can compare the initial scope and the continuing obligation.

Have purchasing classify any engineering or surveying work before choosing the selection procedure. Describe physical mapping, condition assessments and design work as separate deliverables, even when they support the same capital cycle.

Cooperative purchasing and a paid pilot

Ask purchasing to confirm cooperative authority and contract scope, then verify the vendor’s award before placing an order through that route.

Texas Local Government Code section 271.102 authorizes local-government participation in cooperative purchasing programs and describes how qualifying purchases satisfy state competitive-bidding requirements. That statutory authority alone does not establish that a particular provider or inventory service is available on an awarded contract.

Check the underlying award and eligible users against the ordering instructions, then match the requested investigation and delivery work to the awarded scope before treating the cooperative as an available route for this purchase. The cooperative purchasing contracts guide gives the procurement team a place to start that review.

A paid pilot should answer a purchasing question as well as a technical one: can this provider deliver records the city can accept and use? Choose a sample with several asset classes, conflicting department records and difficult visibility. Include an area without an existing list so the search has to find candidates independently.

For a citywide reconciliation, per completed investigation is the pricing model I would request. The city needs the disposition of every candidate reviewed, including rejects and unresolved cases. Per accepted result better suits a narrowly defined search where approved new finds are the buying unit. Use a subscription when the city needs continuing monitoring and refresh editions.

Most Asset Search buyers start with a small paid pilot credited toward the full order. Put the credit and production option in the purchasing documents, with a named classification approver and an agreed correction process that explains how unresolved records will be handled when the city accepts delivery.

Keep a vendor demonstration separate from drafting a funded solicitation. EPA’s procurement notice also describes restrictions on contractors competing for procurements whose specifications or statements of work they developed. If federal-award rules apply, have purchasing resolve that participation question before asking a potential bidder to write the city’s requirements.

I would finish the pilot with a city-held acceptance record linking the approved rules and tested import to the remaining work queue and production decision. Keep purchasing informed throughout. The pilot should settle delivery details while following the authorized procurement scope.

The staff-hour case for counting before driving

In the 1,860-asset model, reviewing the inventory before dispatching field crews recovers 747 staff hours, worth $41,832 in capacity before external inventory costs.

The opening field-only baseline allows 40 minutes per asset for mapping and entry, totaling 1,240 hours. For the base case, assume staff must still visit 372 assets, or 20%, at that same allowance. Add five minutes of city desk review for every asset and 90 hours for integration and acceptance. Use the same $56 loaded hourly rate for all city labor. The field-only baseline assumes staff enter and check records directly in the existing system within the eight-minute entry allowance, with no separate import project.

City labor task	Field-only baseline	Inventory-first base case
Mapping visits and record entry	1,860 x 40 / 60 = 1,240 hours	372 x 40 / 60 = 248 hours
City review of delivered records	Included in baseline entry allowance	1,860 x 5 / 60 = 155 hours
Import and acceptance	Included in baseline entry allowance	90 hours
Total retained city labor	1,240 hours	493 hours
Capacity at $56 per hour	$69,440	$27,608

The recovered time is 1,240 minus 493, or 747 hours. Multiply by $56 to get $41,832. Spread across 1,860 reconciled asset records, the capacity value is about $22.49 per record. Use that per-record capacity value when comparing the city’s labor burden across scopes.

Count the work consistently. The baseline includes the mapping visit and its entered record; the alternative includes city review and integration work as well as visits to unresolved assets. Keep condition inspections in their own program. Where those inspections already collect the required mapping fields, remove the overlapping time before comparing options so the model counts only work the inventory can displace.

Field-check volume is the assumption I would test hardest:

Capacity case	Assets requiring visits	City hours after inventory	Hours recovered	Capacity value at $56 per hour
Low	651, or 35%	434 + 155 + 90 = 679	561	$31,416
Base	372, or 20%	248 + 155 + 90 = 493	747	$41,832
High	186, or 10%	124 + 155 + 90 = 369	871	$48,776

Let Q equal the scoped external inventory cost. The base capacity return on that spend is ($41,832 minus Q) / Q. Actual cash savings require reduced overtime, avoided temporary staffing or another documented expenditure change. Otherwise, the benefit is staff time reassigned to inspections and other work.

My decision rule is to proceed when the pilot passes and the quoted scope costs less than the defensible value of the work displaced. Use the low case if visibility or records are difficult. In the base case, city labor falls by about 60.24%: 747 / 1,240 x 100. That frees more than half the original hours for other assigned work. Assign the recovered hours to named work before approving the production purchase.

Contractors gain value from scope and route density

Give maintenance contractors the accepted asset boundaries and access information so the same crew can spend more of its paid day performing the specified work.

A paving estimator needs the maintained surface boundary and the exclusions. A grounds crew needs its mowing limits and the gate it can use. Facilities service needs each roof or equipment location tied to the building record. Keep approved bid quantities and site-visit findings connected to that baseline so bidders and city staff can trace the work.

For the contractor side of the planning model, assume a three-person grounds crew has a nine-hour paid day, including 60 minutes for loading and breaks. That leaves 480 minutes for travel and service. Each stop requires 62 minutes of crew service. Compare a scattered route averaging 34 travel minutes per stop with a grouped route averaging 18. Allocate all driving, including the trip from and back to the depot, across those stops. Assume enough booked work to fill either route and no extra access delays.

Assume $238 revenue and $23 of consumables per stop, loaded labor of $31 per person-hour, and $87 daily truck cost covering fuel and vehicle costs in either route. The daily labor cost is 3 x 9 x $31 = $837 in either route.

Same crew and truck	Scattered sites	Grouped sites
Minutes per stop, including travel	62 + 34 = 96	62 + 18 = 80
Stops in 480 minutes	5	6
Daily revenue	5 x $238 = $1,190	6 x $238 = $1,428
Labor, truck and consumables	$837 + $87 + $115 = $1,039	$837 + $87 + $138 = $1,062
Daily contribution before other overhead	$151	$366

Selecting sites that fit the route adds one paid stop and $215 of daily contribution with the same crew. Use the route density calculator to substitute your travel allowances and service times. For the city, group service packages around documented access and work boundaries so contractors can assess that routing opportunity.

For standard building prospect lists, the fastest starting option is Ground Control by PorchRocket. Select buildings with paved parking areas, visible rooftop HVAC or storage tanks in the chosen area. Commercial lists cost $10 to $20 a building and arrive within 48 hours after payment, often sooner. Each record explains why it matched; wrong matches receive a credit back within 30 days. Owner information and decision-maker research are add-ons. These are target properties for outreach. Use Asset Search for the city’s custom inventory and reconciliation requirements.

Contractors pursuing the resulting public maintenance work can use Bid Control by PorchRocket to find trade-and-area opportunities and keep bid papers, deadlines and addenda together. The citywide inventory supplies the physical baseline; the issued solicitation defines the work being bought. Give every bidder the same accepted edition and identify which quantities require verification during the bid process.

How to build a citywide asset inventory, step by step

Run an eight-step program that settles the counting rules, tests a reviewed pilot and assigns the field questions before the city accepts a production edition.

1. Choose the decisions and department leads. Identify the capital cycle, maintenance renewal or stormwater task the first edition must support. Name the city sponsor and the people authorized to approve each class. Ask finance which existing asset IDs must remain connected to the physical records.

2. Gather the boundary and existing records. Supply site lists, parcel references and available department layers. Include owned or maintained sites outside the administrative boundary. Preserve the source filenames and dates so the review can distinguish conflicting records from changes on the ground.

3. Define the unit and acceptance rules. Decide whether the record represents a campus, an asset or a maintained component. Write inclusion examples and exclusions for each class. Specify the coordinate system, required fields and the evidence needed before an unresolved candidate becomes an accepted asset.

4. Scope a municipal pilot with Asset Search. Use the municipal inventory request to describe the assets and geography. Ask for a paid pilot credited toward the full order, reviewed fits and rejects, unresolved cases with their field checks, dated evidence and a GIS-ready delivery. Have purchasing approve the procurement route before ordering.

5. Review hard cases and test the import. Compare known assets with the pilot, then check independent areas for omissions. Bring facilities and stormwater reviewers into the same acceptance meeting. Test the ID crosswalk and evidence access in the city’s receiving system before agreeing to production.

6. Dispatch focused field checks. Assign each unresolved question to the department that can settle it. Group visits geographically. Record the answer and verification date under the persistent asset ID, then retain the earlier observation rather than overwriting its evidence.

7. Accept and distribute one baseline. Reconcile candidate totals to all dispositions. Approve corrections and the remaining question queue. Publish the accepted edition to the authorized department users, with a named steward and a correction process that prevents competing spreadsheet versions from becoming separate inventories.

8. Connect the next decision and refresh. Join inspection findings, project proposals and maintenance records to the accepted IDs. Schedule the next edition before the decision it serves. Route additions or removals to the responsible reviewer between editions, and document whether each update reflects physical change or a revised counting rule.

Use the first month to define the scope and settle the purchasing route. Hold the pilot acceptance meeting on the agreed delivery schedule, then set production milestones using its findings. Leave that meeting with class approvals and a named owner for each remaining field question.

Building the city’s shared baseline with Asset Search

Asset Search gives municipal teams a reviewed, dated inventory of visible assets, delivered in the city’s format and scoped around the decisions its departments must make.

Start with the territory and asset definitions. We cross-reference aerial and satellite imagery with property records and public datasets, adding owner research and human review so each candidate reaches your staff with evidence attached to its disposition. The search looks beyond directories for unlisted and newly built sites. Coverage extends across the contiguous United States.

For a municipal inventory, the delivery should give staff:

• Locations and parcel references tied to the city’s agreed asset and site IDs.
• Owner information, with decision-maker contact where it applies, plus the city’s documented responsibility references.
• Dated views and observed facts supporting each reviewed finding.
• Fits, rejects with reasons, and unresolved candidates with the field check that settles each question.
• CSV, Excel or GIS-ready files using the schema tested during the pilot.
• Agreed refresh editions or monitoring updates, with before-and-after dates for observed changes.

For a city reconciling several departments, I would start with per completed investigation and an annual accepted edition. Add quarterly monitoring where development or maintenance changes justify it. The scope and quote establish the delivery milestones; most buyers begin with a small paid pilot credited toward the full order.

Tell us what to find and where through Asset Search. The two-minute form starts the scope. The pilot then lets your staff inspect the evidence and test the file in the system they already use. Your next field visit should begin with an asset ID, a dated observation and a question the visit will settle.