Authors
Howard Veregin (State Cartographer’s Office) & Jaime Martindale (Robinson Map Library)
Act 235
Since the passage of 2023 Wisconsin Act 235, data and records managers across the state have been working towards common solutions aimed at shielding personal information of judicial officers from public view. Under the new law, providers of public-facing land records websites — any public website allowing users to search a real estate property database – must establish a process for judicial officers and their immediate family members to opt out of the display and search functions for their names. Website providers will need to establish new procedures and policies to ensure they are complying with these name shielding requests by the time the law goes into effect on April 1, 2025.
The number of affected stakeholders in Wisconsin is substantial. Government agencies, private sector businesses, educational institutions and non-profit organizations are working together via collaborative initiatives like the Wisconsin Land Information Association’s (WLIA) Judicial Privacy Task Force to share ideas for possible workflows that meet the terms of the law, but also protect the public’s right to access valuable property record information.
Providing property record information to the public and other stakeholders is an important governmental function, both to ensure the public’s right to know and as an essential service to citizens. A potential negative consequence of the new legislation is the incremental erosion over time of the public’s access to such information. While it is important to comply with the terms of the new law, loss of the ability to determine and trace property ownership in Wisconsin would have negative implications for the preservation of an accurate historical record of land transfers, management practices, legal issues, and local or family histories. It could hinder the public’s ability to obtain relevant information needed for research or other purposes.
Options
As the primary stewards of parcel data in the state, counties and municipalities must weigh the costs and benefits of balancing Act 235’s requirements against the value of preserving public access to information. A dominant theme arising during the WLIA Judicial Privacy Task Force conversations is the desire to shield individual records, where the only property records impacted are those for individuals who have specifically requested shielding. This targeted approach will require some up-front work, including developing a mechanism to selectively shield names from public view, track which names have been shielded, and prevent inadvertent disclosure. Some stewards will also need to work with vendors to ensure such methods will function properly within the constraints of software tools.
Bulk removal of owner name information – not just those names specifically requested by a judicial officer – has lower up-front costs than a targeted solution, but has other hidden costs. For example, if all names are removed from public-facing websites, county and municipal staff will need to respond to requests from the public, contractors, realtors, appraisers, utilities, and others who require information on property owners’ names to conduct their business. A process will need to be put in place to respond to such requests, and the staff time commitment could be significant. Nor would removing all names from the data eliminate the necessity for separate versions of the data – one with names shielded and one without – due to the need for intra-governmental sharing of shielded names for official governmental purposes.
Shielding of only affected records helps preserve the integrity of the data and the public’s right to know, especially considering the inherent value of owner name information for a large number of data consumers. We believe that providers of public-facing land records websites should consider the potential negative impacts of removing all names as they evaluate the costs and benefits of different options. Our goal is not to dictate what counties and municipalities should do, but rather to illustrate the importance of names for users of parcel data, as part of a broader consideration of governmental responsibility and citizen service that should also be factored into responses to Act 235.
Statewide Parcel Data
The statewide parcel map database, published annually by the State Cartographer’s Office (SCO) under the direction of the Wisconsin Department of Administration’s Land Information Program (DOA-WLIP), represents one example of a publicly accessible online resource impacted by Act 235. The database includes the names and addresses of landowners in Wisconsin and is an aggregation of county and municipal parcel data submitted annually to the state. This heavily utilized resource has been in existence since the first version (V1) was published in 2015, and includes a public website featuring an interactive map and downloadable geospatial data files.
An additional challenge related to the statewide parcel database is that all historical versions of the data are also publicly accessible online. In partnership with the SCO, the Robinson Map Library (RML) has archived all statewide and individual county datasets for versions V1 through V10 of the project. In addition, the RML has archived parcel data for Wisconsin counties in the years prior to V1. As of December, 2024, there are 987 individual downloadable parcel datasets dating back to 2000 that are publicly accessible via the GeoData@Wisconsin geoportal. All of these datasets are impacted by Act 235.
Uses of Owner Name Information
The importance of owner name is illustrated in user feedback submitted via the statewide parcel database website and maintained by the WI DOA-WLIP. The feedback covers statewide parcel data from V1 (2015) to V9 (2023), and includes 1,481 unique entries that offer insights into how users apply parcel data to their various needs and why owner name information is particularly valuable.
User feedback entries are organized into groups that include federal, state, and local government; private sector; non-profit organizations; educational institutions; and private citizens. This grouping aligns with the various entities across the state that have designated representatives to address how Act 235 affects information within their purview.
The feedback examples below are intended to illustrate the importance of owner name to different users of parcel data:
State Government
- Wisconsin Department of Revenue: Determine properties owned by specific entity or owner.
- Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Environmental Analysis: Essential for assisting in permit compliance reviews in an efficient manner. Owner names allow for quick determination of land ownership and property boundaries.
- Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Division of Transportation System Development/Innovation Section: Used for real estate needs, including synching right-of-way and other assets with the parcel layer.
Federal Government
- US Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Easements Team: Track owners of land encumbered by USDA NRCS easements.
- US Department of Justice, US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin: Find federal defendants’ property values to secure federal tax liens and enforce judgments.
Local Government
- Dane County Drainage Board: Identify owners of particular parcels in drainage districts that extend into a neighboring county.
- City of Fountain City: Create a database of parcel data and land owners for mailing and other governmental updates.
Private Sector
- Spectrum construction department: Obtain landowner information when working on road rights-of-way.
- Applied Ecological Services: Used for project boundaries for projects based on parcels (e.g., wetland delineations, solar projects, restoration projects). Also used to Identify public/private land, highlight potential protected lands, confirm correct locations via owner name, and determine land that is publicly owned that may be protected to help identify areas to expand.
- Vernon Electric Co-op: Used to obtain utility easements, allowing access for right-of-way clearing, no-spray parcels, and other land owner information for power outages.
- Stuettgen Farms LLC: Identify absentee property owner addresses to rent farmland for cropping.
Non-Profit
- Ice Age Trail Alliance: Identify properties within the approved Ice Age Trail corridor, to match up with other layers to confirm contact information.
- Silver Lake Preservation Association: Update database of landowners and confirm current landowners.
- Aldo Leopold Foundation/My Wisconsin Woods: Manage a statewide database of all woodland owners in Wisconsin and update parcel information for landowners who recently purchased property, in order to connect them with forestry professionals and track forest management on the ground.
- Golden Sands Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) Council Inc.: Find contact information for landowners who own land where invasive plant species have been reported.
- Landmark Conservancy: Target proactive outreach to landowners for land conservation.
Educational Institutions
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Cultural Resource Management: Determine property ownership information as well as property boundaries on project mapping.
- St. Anthony School: Verify addresses for students for state reports.
- St. Paul’s Evangelic Lutheran Church and School: Used it to determine ownership of parcels and their value for parcels located in the school district for Choice program. Helps narrow down options for building an early childhood learning center and daycare.
Private Citizens
- Identify property owned by ancestors for family history.
- Used for genealogy research. By comparing parcels to old county plat maps, able to find present-day locations of old family farms and create custom genealogy-related maps.
- Understand what land is public versus private in surrounding counties.
- Determine which property owners to ask for permission to hunt and fish or cross into private land.
- Find contact information for landowners when looking to purchase and build homes.
Moving Forward
After April 1, 2025, purveyors of public land records data and websites will be required by law to shield the names of judicial officers and family members who request this information to be shielded. As illustrated in the examples above, owner name information is important across a spectrum of users. As such, many stakeholders have been working to develop procedures that preserve as much information as possible within the limits of the new law.
At the RML and SCO, we are developing solutions to allow us to quickly respond to shielding requests while preserving the integrity of statewide parcel data as a whole. While the success of these methods will depend on the volume and timing of requests received, our goals – to the degree possible under the terms of the law – are to protect the public’s right to access property record information and preserve the ability of users to employ this data in support of their professional and private needs.
This article is intended to be the first installment in a series, with future articles touching on other aspects of the new law. We would love to hear your feedback.