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<DIV STYLE="text-align:Left;"><DIV><DIV><P><SPAN>This feature layer provides digital tax parcels for the Organized Towns of the State of Maine. Within Maine, real property data is maintained by the government organization responsible for assessing and collecting property tax for a given location. Organized towns and townships maintain authoritative data for their communities and may voluntarily submit these data to the Maine GeoLibrary Parcel Project. "Maine Parcels Organized Towns Feature" and "Maine Parcels Organized Towns ADB" are the product of these voluntary submissions. Communities provide updates to the Maine GeoLibrary on a non-regular basis, which affects the currency of Maine GeoLibrary parcels data. Another resource for real property transaction data is the County Registry of Deeds, although organized town data should very closely match registry information, except in the case of in-process property conveyance transactions. </SPAN></P><P><SPAN>In Unorganized Territories (defined as those regions of the state without a local government that assesses real property and collects property tax), the Maine Revenue Service is the authoritative source for parcel data. "Maine Parcels Unorganized Territory Feature" is the authoritative GIS data layer for the Unorganized Territories. However, it must always be used with auxiliary data obtained from the online resources of Maine Revenue Services (https://www.maine.gov/revenue/taxes/property-tax) to compile up-to-date parcel ownership information. </SPAN></P><P><SPAN>Property maps are a fundamental base for many municipal activities. Although GIS parcel data cannot replace detailed ground surveys, the data can assist municipal officials with functions such as accurate property tax assessment, planning and zoning. Towns can link maps to an assessor's database and display local information, while town officials can show taxpayers how proposed development or changes in municipal services and regulations may affect the community. In many towns, parcel data also helps to provide public notices, plan bus routes, and carry out other municipal services. This dataset contains municipality-submitted parcel data along with previously developed parcel data acquired through the Municipal Grants Project supported by the Maine Library of Geographic Information (Maine GeoLibrary). Grant recipient parcel data submissions were guided by standards presented to the Maine GeoLibrary Board on May 21, 2005, which are outlined in the "Standards for Digital Parcel Files" document available on the Maine GeoLibrary publications page (https://www.maine.gov/geolib/policies/standards.html). </SPAN></P><P><SPAN>This dataset also contains municipal parcel data acquired through other sources; the data sources are identified (where available) by the field “FMSCORG”. Note: Join this feature layer with the "Maine Parcels Organized Towns ADB" table (https://maine.hub.arcgis.com/maps/maine::maine-parcels-organized-towns-feature/about?layer=1) for available ownership information. A date field, “FMUPDAT”, is attributed with the most recent update date for each individual parcel if available. The "FMUPDAT" field will not match the "Updated" value shown for the layer. "FMUPDAT" corresponds with the date of update for the individual data, while "Updated" corresponds with the date of update for the ArcGIS Online layer as a whole. Many parcels have not been updated in several years; use the "FMUPDAT" field to verify currency.</SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></DIV> |