Powering Public Services With Accurate Addresses
Washington’s growing population means more addresses to manage—and more opportunities for address errors. When left unchecked, these mistakes can cost the state money, delay services, and impact lives.
That’s why accurate address data matters. It improves:
- Voter communication
- Tax boundary enforcement
- Sex offender placement
- Jury selection accuracy
- State employee lookup efficiency
And most importantly, it helps agencies deliver services faster, more fairly, and at a lower cost.
Meet WAMAS: Washington Managed Addressing Services
WAMAS is a powerful API toolbox available to local and state agencies. It helps:
- Standardize addresses using USPS formatting
- Add coordinates for easy mapping
- Place addresses within exact district boundaries (like tax zones or voting districts)
Even a small typo in an address can have big consequences. In Washington, one error once delayed education funding, distorted tax bills, and slowed emergency response. WAMAS fixes these issues by treating address data as vital infrastructure.
What WAMAS Delivers
Built for government use, WAMAS now serves as a single, authoritative address reference used across Washington’s secure government network (SGN). More than 40 agencies rely on it to clean and unify address records. That integration leads to:
- Better collaboration
- Lower costs
- Faster, more accurate public services
WAMAS stands out because it connects state and local data. Local agencies, especially dispatch centers, feed accurate, ground-level information into the system. That means every address correction benefits the entire network.
Real Results, Real Impact
WAMAS is more than a data cleanup tool—it’s behind-the-scenes infrastructure making real-world improvements:
- $306 million in Title I federal funds went to the right school districts, supporting students in need.
- Faster COVID-19 coordination between agencies, without sharing personal data.
- Fairer property taxes, by correcting address-based boundary errors.
- Less IT waste, by eliminating the need for duplicate address services.
- Shared improvements—a fix made by one agency benefits them all.
WAMAS ensures Washington agencies start with clean, standardized data—building smarter, stronger, and more connected public services from the ground up.
Use Cases
WAMAS is used by well over a dozen state, local, and Tribal entities.
- Both the Department of Ecology and the Department of Fish and Wildlife have integrated WAMAS into their permitting system, which handles 2,400-2,800 applications per year. The WAMAS API is also used to trach the X, Y coordinates of facility locations, environmental monitoring locations, hatcheries, and water access sites.
- The Office of Finance Management is using WAMAS to facilitate the 2020 Census.
- The Department of Revenue has implemented WAMAS into tax calculation systems, ensuring accurate liabilities within appropriate boundaries.
- The Thurston Regional Planning Council uses WAMAS to format and remove duplicate addresses for large mailings
- Washington Legislative Services and Washington State Courts use WAMAS to connect constituents with their representatives and determine jury pools.
- The Washington Department of Health uses WAMAS to ensure accurate addresses for medical license renewal, birth and death records, WIC resources, and epidemiological research.