In support of the State of Arizona's operational drought plan, the Arizona Department of Water Resources in cooperation with University of Arizona Cooperative Extension and the Climate Assessment for the Southwest (CLIMAS) is currently organizing county level drought monitoring groups. These County Drought Impact Groups (CDIGs) are comprised of volunteer citizens within each county and are tasked with developing plans to collect information on local drought impacts ranging from changes in agricultural productivity to impacts on local water resources. This impact information is collected by the CDIGs on a monthly to quarterly basis and reported directly to the Arizona Governor's Drought Task Force-Monitoring Technical Committee (MTC). The MTC meets on a monthly basis to analyze recent climatological data and evaluate current drought conditions. Local drought impacts information is a critical part of this drought status evaluation process in that it provides feedback on whether or not impacts are being observed given the current drought status which is calculated using sparsely observed climate data (precipitation and streamflow). This presentation will recount the development of several county-level LAIAGs that formed in Arizona over the period of 2005-2006 and put forth preliminary lessons learned from the process.