Wisconsin Real Property Listers Association

About the Office: The Columbia County Real Property Listing duties are a function of the Land Information Office. The Land Information Office is a central player in supporting all land records activities in Columbia County and is a coordinating office for land records. It serves as the office of the County Surveyor and performs the county’s property listing functions and is responsible for all GIS and mapping initiatives, as well as coordination and implementation of the Land Records Modernization Plan. The Land Information Office functions as the receiving office of the County Surveyor’s records related to land information and is responsible for the indexing of surveys and corner recordation information of the County Surveyor. Currently, office staff includes three full-time employees including the Director of Land Information, Real Property Lister and GIS Specialist. In addition, our staff includes one part-time clerical employee and one GIS project employee. Real Property Lister duties serve to update tax parcel maps for assessment purposes and parcel mapping. Duties include numbering, changing, deleting and adding parcels as well as recording land transfers. Each land transaction is reviewed by the Real Property Lister and new parcels are plotted on the tax map with parcel identifiers being assigned during the mapping process. The tax parcel maps used and updated by the Real Property Lister form the basis for the parcel map of Columbia County. In addition, the Real Property Lister keys special assessments and changes valuations and consults with other county staff, local assessors, tax payers and real estate professionals.

About the City/ County: Columbia County is located in south-central Wisconsin. Lake Wisconsin is the largest lake in the county and the 17th largest lake in the state occupying nearly 5,328 acres. With approximately 1,685 miles of roads, Columbia County has excellent highway connections. Combined US Interstate 90 and 94 runs through the county in the north-south direction in the western part of the county and is paralleled by US Highway 51, a major route of transportation in the state. Columbia County is also bisected by several other US Highways in the east-west direction. The population of Columbia County has continually increased since the county was established in 1846 to approximately 50,000 people in 1997 and continues to grow at a rate of 1% per year. Columbia County is comprised of 21 townships, 10 villages and four cities.