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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12-16-2014 B3 Building and Safety Staffing ResourcesCity of San Luis Obispo, Council Agenda Report, Meeting Date, Item Number FROM: Derek Johnson, Director of Community Development Prepared By: Cori Ryan, Supervising Administrative Assistant SUBJECT: REALLOCATION OF BUILDING & SAFETY TEMPORARY STAFFING RESOURCES FOR FULL TIME REGULAR STAFFING RECOMMENDATION Approve the addition of a regular full-time Building Inspector and a regular full-time Plans Examiner in the Building and Safety Division of the Community Development Department. DISCUSSION On September 3, 2013 Council approved the appropriation and carryover of development services revenues to pay for temporary contract staff and consultant services to assist staff with the processing of a substantial increase in development applications. For the last year, the Community Development Department has been utilizing temporary staff and consultants to keep up with permit activities that have remained consistently high throughout the year. Temporary staff and consultants have helped the department meet required statutory permit processing deadlines, department objectives and Major City Goals. However, the recovery of the building and construction industry has meant that cities and counties throughout the state are all turning to these same consultant firms. The City has found that collectively, these firms have struggled to keep up with workload. The City’s customers have offered constructive feedback that while outside plan check is an acceptable alternative to City staff, smaller projects should be reviewed in house to speed up processing and provide a more accessible and local personal touch. It is the intention of the Building and Safety division to only use consultants on larger projects; however, small project permit activity has steadily surpassed on-site resource capacity since early September 2013. The following graph shows the trends of workload by division over the past few years with a projection over the next two years. This information suggests that the upward trend will be 12/16/2014 B3 B3-1 CDD Reallocation of Building & Safety Temporary Staffing Resources Page 2 sustained and that additional permanent staff can be funded through permit revenue specifically collected to process permits. Building Permit activity for 2014-2015 is expected to exceed permit activity in 2013-2014. Last year, planning activity hit near record highs. Planning applications, which are a good predictor of future building permits, remain at elevated activity levels. Community Development revenue trends typically trend upward following a year of high planning activity. The Beacon Economics Report that was prepared as part of the five year forecast in December 2012 forecasted an increase in development activity. Thus far, actual development activity has exceeded the Beacon Economics’ forecast estimates and this forecast had development peaking in 2018, the last year of the five year forecast. This forecast generally indicates that there will be sustained levels of permit activity that will produce revenues that can support the two requested permanent positions. The use of consultants for plan examining has resulted in more plan check comments per project, which has generated some frustration with local design and building professionals and more time spent by staff managing the consultants and translating reviews back to applicants. Moreover, customers have been frustrated that they don’t have the ability to meet in person with plan checkers to discuss comments. Attempts to use temporary staff as plans examiners has not been successful as there is a competitive job market and qualified applicants have many permanent job opportunities and generally prefer full-time benefited positions over temporary part-time positions. As the number of permits being processed increases, so does the need for inspections, particularly when there are complex commercial and residential projects where a single inspection demands more time. There are currently two Building Inspectors for the City. Each inspector visits an average of 14 sites per day. Since early June, average daily site visits per day has risen to 20 and roughly 200 inspections had to be postponed due to unavailability of inspectors. Consultant Inspectors are on very high demand and have regularly been unavailable. Between September 2013 and July 2014, the City has done two recruitments for a temporary Building Inspector and both were unsuccessful at attracting qualified candidates. Historically, permanent FTE have only been added as part of the Financial Plan process. The 2015-2017 Financial Plan process begins in December 2014 and will wrap up in June 2015. Considering the predicted continuance of high development activity, Community Development will likely need to consider additional staffing during the financial planning process but it is not recommended that the City wait to add the two requested positions until June 2015 because 1) permit revenue is available to fund the positions, 2) the positions are needed now to address workload and to shift the type of resources needed to process permits, respond to customer feedback and improve efficiency, 3) delaying the recruitment for permanent positions will likely mean that the limited pool of qualified applicants will find employment at other agencies, hiring staff with full benefits is less costly on a fully utilized hourly rate than compared to a consultant with overhead and profit, and 4) doing things differently to respond to business needs is a hallmark of an organization that is open and adaptable to making critical and timely decisions for the purpose of improving and delivering services. B3-2 CDD Reallocation of Building & Safety Temporary Staffing Resources Page 3 FISCAL IMPACT The Building Inspector I position would cost $57,727 to fund for the remainder of FY 14/15 and require an ongoing cost of $100,060 annually. The Plans Examiner position would cost $66,013 to fund for the remainder of FY 14/15 and require an ongoing cost of $114,422 annually. The total FY 14/15 cost for the two positions would be $123,740. This cost will be paid from the contract services budget appropriation which was increased through the SOPC submitted with the Supplemental Budget for 2014-15 to cover the cost of additional contract and part-time staff positions. After deducting these costs, $537,260 would remain in the contract services line item for any needed Consultant support and no increase in appropriations will result from this action. From February 2014 to September 2014 $286,790 was paid out to consultants for plans examining and building inspections. A slight cost savings in 2014 should occur from using full- time regular staffing. The ongoing annual cost of $214,482 will be offset by the anticipated increase in revenue from continued high permit activity predicated through 2018. These costs will be covered by ongoing revenue rather than one time revenue carried over from previous fiscal year permit fees. While these ongoing costs were not included in the five year forecast, neither was the projected increase in revenue associated with permit fees, hence the additional staff will not impact the General Fund projections. Finance Staff in coordination with the Community Development Department will adjust revenue forecasts as part of the mid-year report and 2015-2017 Financial Planning effort. In the unlikely event that there is a need to adjust resources in light of a downturn in permit activity, it is anticipated that natural employee attrition would provide opportunities to realign employee resources with permit activity. Fleet The Building Inspector I position requires a vehicle to perform its duties. After a careful review of existing fleet resources available to the Building and Safety Division, it was determined that the inspector could utilize an existing resource currently allocated to the Chief Building Official (CBO). The CBO’s vehicle usage is consistent with the need to access one of the pool vehicles parked at 919 Palm Street. As a result, no addition to the City’s fleet is necessary to accommodate the new inspector position. T:\Council Agenda Reports\2014\2014-12-16\Reallocation of Building & Safety Temporary Staffing Resources for Regular Staffing (Johnson-Ryan)\Reallocation of Building & Safety Temporary Staffing Resources for Regular Staffing.docx B3-3 Page intentionally left blank.