Budget Committee
BUILDING INSPECTION COMMISSION (BIC)
Department of Building Inspection (DBI)
BUDGET & ORGANIZATION COMMITTEE
Wednesday, January 30,2002 at 10:00 a.m.
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 408
Adopted March 6, 2002
MINUTES
The meeting of the Budget & Organization Committee was called to order at 10:25 a.m. by Vice President Hood.
1. Roll Call - Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Alfonso Fillon, President Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President
Esther Marks, Commissioner
Ann Aherne, Secretary
D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:
Frank Y. Chiu, Director
Amy Lee, Assistant Director
William Wong, Deputy Director
Taras Madison, Manager Administration & Finance
Sonya Harris, Secretary
2. Public comment: the Committee will take public comment on matters within the Committee's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.
Commissioner Denise D'Anne was present and spoke as a member of the public. Ms. D'Anne thanked the Commission and stated that she did submit a few questions but unfortunately had to the meeting didn't quite remember all the questions. Ms. D'Anne said that she had a question about contracts, and if there was a system in place to monitor contracts to see that the terms of the contracts are complied with. Ms. D'Anne asked who was in charge of contract approval and was that person competent in contract language. Ms. D'Anne stated that she did not want to see a repeat of the mistakes made in the recent contract concerning DBI's computers. Ms. D'Anne said that another question she had was about title profiles regarding staff positions and stated that she wanted a profile and justification of all executive management positions whether temporary or permanent from a salary standpoint. Ms. D'Anne said that she did believe that the department needed the positions that are already in place, but stated that she was concerned about the salary increases that some staff members recently received, whether it's justified or not. Ms. D'Anne asked if those employees could possibly revert back to their old salary positions in order to save other jobs within the Department. Ms. D'Anne said that she questioned if there were proper permit fees and asked how the Department was handling the situation of equity and estimating job costs on building permits. Ms. D'Anne said that the Department should make sure that the job costs and penalties are properly assessed and collected prior to issuance of permits. Ms. D'Anne stated that she had a question about increasing fees on small jobs. Ms. D'Anne said that she agreed with Director Chiu that the Department should examine the fee structure for permit application filings for small jobs, however stated that the Department should make sure that the appropriate and capable staff follows through on restructuring and collection of any increased fees. Ms. D'Anne said that she encouraged a comprehensive study of this suggestion from Director Chiu. Ms. D'Anne stated that she had an interest in a program she developed in the past that could possibly be establish at DBI; this program literally saved millions of dollars and would help to maintain staffing. Ms. D'Anne said that in most departments there is a tremendous amount of waste and people are not particularly conscious of it in the areas of supplies and in the use of copy machines. Ms. D'Anne said that one department she worked with spent almost a million dollars a year just on the use of copy machines, because they allowed every single person in the department to use those machines without restrictions, and people were using them for every imaginable reason, totally unrelated to the job. Ms. D'Anne said that there is a myriad of ways to save without impacting services or personnel, and said that she hoped that DBI could look into ways to do that in an effort to save some jobs. Ms. D'Anne stated that she believed that the Department needed all of the jobs that are currently filled, but said that she hoped DBI would not want to start cutting any of those without first looking at ways to reduce waste. Ms. D'Anne thanked the Commission. Commissioner Hood thanked Commissioner D'Anne for her input and for attending the meeting.
Vice-President Hood asked if there was any further public comment. There was no public comment.
3. Report, discussion and possible action on the proposed budget of the Department of Building Inspection for Fiscal Year 2002-2003.
Vice President Hood said just for the clarity she wanted to understand exactly where the Department and Commission were in the budget process and how many required meetings had been held. Vice-President Hood asked when the next meeting would be with the entire Commission. Vice-President Hood asked at what point the Commission needed to approve or recommend for approval the budget to the Mayor's office. Ms. Taras Madison, Manager of Administration & Finance, said that she thought this was the fourth meeting and the Commission is only required to have two. Ms. Madison stated that the Department was doing well because of the budget was first presented at the Commission meeting of January 16th. Ms. Madison stated that the budget was actually discussed at that meeting and was open and available to public comment at that time. Ms. Madison reported that since then there have been two Committee meetings, so if the Committee came to an agreement of what they would like to forward at today's meeting the final recommendation could be forwarded to the full Commission. Ms. Madison said that at the full Commission meeting on the 6th, the Commission could decide whether to accept or reject it and then go from there. Ms. Madison said that as far as required meetings, the Department had actually done more than what is actually required. Vice-President Hood asked if there would have to be another meeting before the regular February 6th meeting when the full Commission would review the recommendations of the Budget Committee. Ms Madison said that it would depend on what came out of the committee; if the Commissioners came to an agreement that they are comfortable with the budget and ready to forward it, then there would not have to be another meeting. Ms. Madison stated that if there are still some questions and the Committee did not want to forward the budget as is to the Commission then the Committee would have to try to schedule a meeting before February 6th. Ms. Madison said that she wanted to caution the Committee that the budget is due to the Mayor's Office on February 20th, and a variety of things have to be done such as actually entering the budget into the computerized budget system. Ms. Madison stated the Department has to make sure that all deadlines are met. Vice-President Hood said given the time requirements, it would be better to finalize the budget today to have it passed at the February 6th Commission meeting, and then get it to the Mayor by the 20th as it would be hard to have another special meeting of the Commission between the 6th and the 20th. Ms. Madison said that would be best. Vice-President Hood said she just wanted to be clear of where the Committee was in the process.
Vice-President Hood said that she wanted to start by asking Commissioner Marks if she had any questions that she wanted the Committee to address today. Commissioner Marks said that she did not have any questions, but perhaps Director Chiu or another staff person could address Ms. D'Anne's questions. Ms. Madison said that she would address the first question on contracts. Ms. Madison stated that there is actually a City process that is established for contracts, and there are a variety of contracts within DBI. Ms. Madison reported that there is the Code Enforcement Outreach Program contract, CAPSS and MIS contracts and basically what happens is that for almost all contracts there is a level of review by the Department, by the City Attorney, and also by the Purchasing Department. Ms. Madison said that, for instance with the Code Enforcement Outreach Program, Administration and Finance acts as the go-between, between the department or division that needs the service and all the other City departments that are actually involved in putting together the contracts. Ms. Madison said that she would use the Code Enforcement Outreach Program as an example; the Housing Inspection Division actually administers that contract, and Administration and Finance works with Housing. Ms. Madison stated that Housing will decide to look for people to help mediate landlord /tenant disputes and those types of things. Ms. Madison said that then the Department would send out a Request For Proposal (RFP) that is actually reviewed by the Civil Service Commission and by outside City Attorneys. Ms. Madison said that there are actually different boilerplate contracts for these RFPs that the Department uses; these boilerplates are something that has already been developed and designed by the City Attorney for all agencies to use to make sure that the City is being represented fairly. Ms. Madison stated that Ms. D'Anne had asked if someone who knows about contracts is actually looking at the contract and the answer is yes because the Department has the City Attorney's office that actually reviews all contracts. Ms. Madison said that DBI could not develop its own contract, but has to use a citywide contract to make sure that the same language is used in all contracts ant the City's interests are protected. Vice-President Hood that she thought that the e earlier question that Commissioner D'Anne, or public member D'Anne, was asking was about the determination of the amount of the contract. Vice-President Hood said that she knew there existed a very heavy bureaucracy, and very stringent rules regarding contracts, but said there is also the element of the amount and. if the amount of is money appropriate for what is being purchased. Vice-President Hood said, not in the way of goods and services, or bids and so forth but in the sense of providing professional services and a big one is the computers, which are very difficult to have a handle on because the Department is required to go through one company in the City, and that is a determination outside of DBI's purview. Vice-President Hood said that she was wondering if the Department could have protested at the time that the computer system was set up. Vice-President Hood stated that the Department should have protested because that was the only opportunity to say that there was not going to be any competition and it is unfortunate that DBI is relying on one program and it is a done deal. Ms. Madison said that she could address some of this concern because as she stated previously these are two separate issues.
Ms. Madison said that for computer contracts there is also another way that things are handled. Ms. Madison stated that COIT, the Committee on Information and Technology for the City, is a separate entity that has been established to look at all of the City computer contracts. Ms. Madison said that the Department has to go through what is called a city store, and for the most part while there may not be one vendor there's normally maybe only two or three vendors so there is a little bit less competition. Ms. Madison said that the Department is pretty much required to go through that, and cannot just go to an outside source and get a contract from someone else; the Department is required to go with the City sponsored ones. Vice-President Hood said that she understood that, but presumed that the Department had some recourse about who gets on that list. Assistant Director Amy Lee stepped forward and said that the Department did not have any influence as the list is created by COIT and they determine which vendors are going to be approved as a City store vendor. Ms. Lee said that the Department did have control over who is on the committee. Vice President Hood asked who was on the committee? Ms. Lee said that Controller Ed Harrington, Suzanne Lee, City Attorneys, and certain department heads are on the committee. Vice President Hood asked if the Department could inform the Mayor that this wasn't working and say that this Committee wanted to have people who actually do computer work be on COIT. Vice-President Hood said that Ed Harrington doesn't do this kind of work and the Department has people who know what the problems are. Ms. Lee said that this could be explained in a letter from the Commission; however, right now this is a City problem where COIT and the City Attorney did not realize that certain companies on the list went bankrupt and this is not just a DBI problem. Vice-President Hood said that obviously the Committee was not qualified. Ms. Lee said exactly, and right now the entire system is being revamped. Ms. Lee stated that COIT understands that and as a result of DBI and herself pushing for changes this Committee and the Controller's Office Special Projects Team is in the process of changing the way that the City does contracts regarding IS projects. Ms Lee stated that they are meeting with the different departments and Ms. Lee reported that she had a meeting scheduled for the following week with some of DBI's staff members to discuss some of the concerns regarding the whole process. Ms. Lee said that she intended to discuss some of the potential improvements that can be made in the whole citywide process. Vice-President said that she wanted this process to be proactive and stated that the Department needed to say that it wants somebody on the committee or whoever is making the decisions to be qualified. Assistant Director Lee said that she could send a message when meeting with these people that the BIC feels strongly about the qualifications of the people on this committee. Vice-President Hood said that there should be some technical people on the committee. Vice-President Hood stated that this had become a big problem in every single company, in every single business, and in every single profession and everyone really needs an expert in this area. Vice-President Hood said that there are people out there that do this well, but there are so many instances of where it's been done badly.
Commissioner Esther Marks said another issue is contract compliance and stated that there was one contract that she felt no one in the Department kept track of to make sure actual outreach was being done. Ms. Madison said the Commissioner Marks was probably talking about the Code Enforcement Outreach Program. Commissioner Marks said that she was speaking in general about how compliance was monitored. Ms. Madison said that the division that is administering the program, for instance for Code Enforcement Outreach, is actually monitored by the Housing Inspection Division; the Finance and Administration Division reviews the invoices to make sure that they are paid, but there is actually someone on the Housing Inspection staff that is getting reports on what has been done. The Housing Inspection Division will know that there were five outreach meetings in the community or if there were five advertisements in the news media. Ms. Madison said that written in the in the contracts is a description of what types of reports the outreach contractor will have to supply to show that they are meeting what the contract states. Ms. Madison stated that, if for instance for the CAPSS program which is overseen by Technical Services Division, has a contract there is actually a section in the contract that outlines the reporting requirements; Technical Services will know if the contractor is meeting the goals of the contract, and that is how contract compliance is supposed to be handled. Vice-President Hood said that she was surprised that the Department relies on the person with the contract to report how they are doing. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that there would be some kind of field checks on those contracts. Vice-President Hood said that when DBI is doing outreach the Department should ask people if they were reached. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that there needed to be more field checking on that. Ms. Madison said that she would pass that along to the divisions, and stated that she could not say that there weren't field checks, but could report that there are requirements that are in the contracts, and then the division establishes how they get those requirements. Ms. Madison said that if the contract is actually meeting the requirements, and many times that is verifies by getting reports, however there are probably some instances when staff in housing actually go out and visit with some of the contractors to see what they are doing. Vice President Hood said she thought it would be better to rely more on inspections than on a report because the money, the grant, gets spent on writing the report not on doing the outreach work. Ms. Madison said that she would pass that request to the different contract administrators, but stated that she did not want to stress that she was saying that the inspections did not happen. Vice-President Hood said that contract performance should be agendized for a future meeting.
Vice-President Hood said that the next item for discussion was proper permit fees. Vice-President Hood stated that this was addressed by the Commission this past summer when the Department made a proposal to increase fees. Vice-President Hood said that the Department was concerned about this for a number of years. Vice-President Hood said that she felt that the Commission has had a policy since its inception in 1995 not to increase fees and said that any fee increases are supposed to be based on the actual cost of doing the work. Vice-President Hood said that before any fee increases are put on a future agenda she would like to request that the Department do a breakdown by project type, because some projects get a lot more attention than others and said that she thought that the BIC would want to make sure that those projects that require high staff use should be charged appropriately. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to have is a comparison of fees with other jurisdictions in the Bay Area. Vice-President Hood stated that she knew that this would be difficult because other jurisdictions don't exactly review the permits in the same way. Vice-President Hood said that the Department needed to show that there has been an increase in construction costs over the past few years that has been significant and yet DBI has deferred any increase for some time. Vice-President Hood said that people have not complained about the fees, but the Commission or the Department might hear from the public when they go up. Vice-President Hood asked if Commissioner Marks had anything to add.
Commissioner Marks said that she did not have anything to add, but again asked if staff could speak to Ms. D'Anne's questions about the executive management profile. Ms. Lee said that she would speak to question number two regarding the executive management profile as well as salaries. Ms. Lee stated that she was not aware of any salary increase, except for the cost of living adjustments that were applied pretty much citywide. Ms. Lee said that she thought that some union members got an increase in December or January, and depending on the union that amount was one to three percent. Ms. Lee said that some unions even got five percent and those were the only increases in salaries that she was aware of. Ms. Lee said that maybe with the MEAs it might have happened on January 1st and said that she thought there was a slight 1.5% increase with another1.5% due in June. Ms. Lee stated that this is set by the City and that is another issue where even if DBI were to maintain existing staff there will be an increase of at least 1 to 3 million dollars of salary expenses over the next few years because of the cost of living adjustments that are inherent to the contracts and MOUs. Ms. Lee said that in terms of profile, she was not quite sure if Ms. D'Anne wanted management's backgrounds by each department or by each executive manager. Vice President Hood said that she thought that was meant by profile was the job description, but that would not be within the Commission's jurisdiction as the Commission did not check out the resume of each position because it gets into employee records and that is not a public item. Vice-President Hood stated that the Commission could not talk about this issued in closed session unless there is a problem that came up. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission could not look at specific hiring decisions from any department. Ms. Lee said in terms of salary increases, she was not aware of any aside from the cost of living increases. Vice President Hood asked if those were in the union contracts. Ms. Lee said absolutely, they are automatic and the Department has no control over these increases.
Vice-President Hood said that the next question was about increased fees on small jobs. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that this was covered previously in permit fees, and said that she thought that the Committee would want to make sure that inspection fees were also covered. Vice-President Hood said that it was a shame that there is no way to reward people for doing a good job, and said that the only way that staff are rewarded when they do a good job is when the time comes and there's a higher paying position management could promote that person. Vice-President Hood said that she had one question, just for clarification, that she would ask Ms. Lee to address as she got a call from a member of the public last Friday who was very concerned about some people who were being laid off in Customer Service. Ms. Lee said that on Friday the Department issued several notifications to people that their temporary requisitions would not be renewed. Ms. Lee said that she mentioned that the Department has temporary salaried staff that was hired based on a temporary volume of activity. Ms. Lee said that every six months these employees were called into the personnel office and reminded that they were in a temporary position and were told whether their position was going to renewed or not. Ms. Lee stated that on Friday the Department that it could no longer keep renewing these requisitions and that these people would have to be notified that their hours would no longer be available to them. Ms. Lee said that with temporary salary staffing the Department because it's based on seasonal volume of work, could have given notice on Friday and told staff that there were no longer needed, however the department even though it is currently already overspent in temporary salary dollars, chose to give them at least up to February 15th. Ms. Lee said that the decision on which temporary salaried employees would be not renewed and which would be reduced in hours was based purely on activity of work, whether or not there was a justification in terms of the volume of work and whether the position was needed. Ms Lee said that the layoffs were across the board between three programs: the Administration Program, the Permit Program and Inspectors. Ms. Lee said that she understood that there was a little confusion and some people thought it was just geared at clerical staffing, but in fact there were also some engineers as well as inspectors that were also decided not to be renewed, in terms of their requisitions. Ms. Lee stated that the decision was based purely on the workload and said that perhaps the Department could combine some of the different divisions to optimize the staff load and the work load of the currently existing permanent staff. Vice President Hood thanked Ms. Lee for the information. Vice-President Hood said that initially she was concerned because she thought it was only customer service staff and said she thought that has been one of the things that had a very good public presence. Vice-President Hood asked if Ms. Lee give a short synopsis of the people that were left in customer service. Ms. Lee that there are about six or seven existing permanent customer service employees and there were an additional three temporary employees. Vice-President asked when the temps were added. Ms. Lee said within the past two years, on and off. Ms. Lee said that sometimes those positions were not always filled so over the past years or most recently in the past six months, the Department has had three additional temporary staff. Ms. Lee reported that two positions were not renewed based on the workload or because there were not as that many people coming into the Department doing applications. Ms. Lee stated that there were times when some of the pathfinders were just standing around because customers weren't coming in to be greeted. Ms. Lee said that as she mentioned before, this hasn't been finalized, but said she was looking to optimize and add to the current staff of customer service with existing permanent staff, so that's another reason why the Department chose to not renew two positions in customer service. Vice President Hood said that she would like to see people from customer service call someone from upstairs to come down when the line gets long at DBI. Vice-President Hood said she thought that this would be extremely helpful. Ms. Lee said that was an excellent suggestion and stated that she was trying to incorporate a full customer service approach on a department wide level. Vice President Hood said there are two places where there are always long waits; one is to pay, and one is to make a copy. Vice-President Hood said that one naïve person could really delay everyone for an hour.
Vice-President Hood said that she would like the record to show that the Committee was now being joined by President Fillon who asked that Vice-President Hood continue to chair the meeting. Vice-President Hood said that she felt that the Department could have been facing permanent layoffs, but management handled a very, very difficult situation in a professional manner. Ms. Lee said that she had forgotten to mention one point in terms of temporary staffing. Ms. Lee said that as the Committee knew the Department just recently, in the past few years, received the ability to hire temporary staff, and that approval was received from the Board of Supervisors, and the Mayor's Budget Office. Ms. Lee said that at that time, the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor's Budget Office were hesitant to give DBI more permanent staffing because they knew that there would be a downturn and then they would ultimately want layoffs of employees. Ms. Lee said that the best idea, because the Department needed staffing to respond to the volume, would be to use temporary staffing, and so when the volume of activity was no longer there, the temporary staffing people would be able to be let go. Ms. Lee stated that now the volume of work is down and that is why DBI did not renew these requisitions. Ms. Lee stated that if DBI had not done this the Board of Supervisors and the Mayor's Budget Office would be questioning why the Department still had all of these employees when the reason given for hiring them was the high volume of work. Vice President Hood said that this was just logically consistent. Ms. Lee said that she just wanted to emphasize that. Ms. Lee said that she did understand that there were employees that were upset, but they were hired as temporary employees. Vice-President Hood said it was like building up the Department's credibility with the Mayor's office. Vice-President said that she knew that President Fillon did not want to lay off any permanent employees, but the Department made this difficult decision to lay off only temporary employees. President Fillon said that he wanted to say that he agreed with the Department's decision on this, regarding the temporary employees. President Fillon said that he thought that if the Department got to the point where it was considering letting go permanent employees, the Commission might have to look at that a lot more closely. President Fillon said that he did not want to see it get to that point. President Fillon said that he felt sorry for the temporary employees, because it's a hard time to get laid off, but it's also hard decision making for management.
Vice President Hood said she wanted to get to the bottom line of where the budget was. Vice-President Hood referred to a summary page that compares 2000-2001, which was almost $32M, and then the Department budgeted $34.7M for 2001-2002 and the proposed budget for 2002-2003 is $30.6 million, which is below 2000-2001, so the Department is basically going back to the 1999-2000 budget. Vice-President Hood said that this was an 11% reduction over the budget for this year. Vice-President Hood said that there is a $30.6M budget, and asked what are projected revenues. Ms. Madison said that the projected revenues are $28.2M, so the Department would still need to use surplus funds and actually would have to go over that $30.6M figure. Ms. Madison said that at the last meeting the budget was based on cutting some vacant positions and seeing if the Department could capture the savings that way, but stated that she had spoken with the Mayor's Office, so there needs to be a few adjustments to that. Vice-President Hood asked what was the approximate bottom line for next year's budget. Ms. Madison said that the figure was $32M because it could not be brought down to $30.6M and said that she would explain why. Vice-President said that the Department was at $32M, but was only projecting $28M. Ms. Madison said it was actually $28.2 M. Vice-President Hood said that would mean a shortfall of $4M. Ms. Madison said that was correct. Vice-President Hood asked how the Department proposed to close that gap. Ms. Madison said that the Department would make up that gap by actually using surplus funds. Vice President Hood said that the Department has $18M in surplus funds and now $4 million will be taken away. Vice-President Hood asked if there was a projection on how many years it might be sort of down and said that the Department might need to do other things. Ms. Madison said that it looked like it would be at least a three or four year decline. Ms. Madison stated that the Department was projecting that this year would be the largest decline from $34M to $28M. Ms. Madison said that next year the Department was going to say it would be steady at $28M, which is still a decline, and then possibly about 10% afterwards. Ms. Madison said that it looked like if DBI could hold everything steady, but as Amy Lee said earlier, salaries will always go up by at least a million, because of the COLAs that have already been negotiated. Ms. Madison said that it looks like every year the Department would need about $3M or $4M, unless the revenues come in a little bit more from surplus funds, until the economy rebounds or unless there is some significant increases in fees. Ms Madison said that given that most of the Department's money comes from the large projects, really what is needed are those large projects to bring in the revenue. Vice-President Hood said that it looked like management had a plan in place, where it would anticipate usage of some of those fees to meet the gap for three or four years. Ms. Madison said that there are still funds reserved, but the Department would have to work on this each year. Ms. Madison said that the Department is going to be basically not filling any positions of employees who are leaving due to retirement or whatever attrition, unless there is a division that can not perform. Vice-President Hood said that it seemed to her that there is a really good strategic plan on how to deal with this economic situation, and said that she would feel comfortable moving this budget to the full Commission at the Wednesday, February the 6th meeting for them to review and approve. Commissioner Esther Marks said in the memo that just came out today, it does point out that the Department does have to look at other means for generating revenue. Vice President Hood said she agreed and stated that she thought that the Department was also taking a look at how to make things more efficient. President Fillon said there were a lot of things that cannot be done by this budget that could be done by next year or the second year. Ms. Madison said that actually every single line item had gone down, except for salaries, because everything had been cut except permanent salaries. Ms. Madison stated that the Department did not want to get to the point of having to cut permanent salaries and lay people off, so everything else has been reduced; travel, training, professional services, and everything had been reduced drastically. Ms. Madison stated that salaries make up about 80% of DBI's budget and that is why the Department has gone to cut every other non-salary expenditure and that's why the decision was mad to use deferred credit, and those surplus funds. Ms. Madison said that the Department would still have to look at some other savings too. Ms. Madison said that for now everything that could possibly be cut was cut, excluding the salaries and just keeping salaries current. Ms. Lee said that she wanted to add that the Department is looking at a comprehensive approach, not just cutting expenditures; that's not going to be the only way to carry this department through this economic time. Ms. Lee said that the Department was still looking at the revenue fee increase, however as mentioned in the memo and in response to some of the questions that Vice-President Hood had asked, the Department will be looking at increasing fees. Ms. Lee stated that it takes time to get fee increases through legislation and most of the Department's revenue for projects valued under $300 is only $6M; projects over $300,000 bring in about $19,000 to $20,000 per project. Ms. Lee said that even if fees were increased across the board, if large projects just aren't going to come in for the next two or three years, the Department would not even see the fee revenue increase because of the lack of large projects. Ms Lee said that an increase in fees would probably result in $1Mor so in actual increased revenue, and that still would not get be enough. Ms. Lee stated that she mentioned a comprehensive approach in looking at fees and how to run this department better. Ms. Lee said that she thought this was a great opportunity for the Department to take this challenge and look at the existing operations to see where efficiencies could be made by joining divisions, by joining some work loads, sharing the work load and making more of a team effort Department-wide. Ms. Lee said that in the past three years DBI was very lucky in that when there were problems or services needs, the Department could just threw people at it as a solution. Ms. Lee said that now management would have to think more innovatively to address this problem because throwing people at it is not a solution and certainly perhaps wasn't that prudent on management's part in the past three years of keep on adding new staff without demanding more efficiency from existing staff. Ms. Lee stated that this is a challenging time, but said that it an opportunity for the Department to make some improvements and still continue the service levels. Ms. Lee said that she felt that the Department could still achieve some of its strategic goals without additional costs of money.
Vice President Hood thanked Ms. Lee and said that the comparison of permit fees was very interesting. Vice-President Hood said that it was interesting to look at the analysis of how much it costs the department to process permits that are less $300 as opposed to the ones that are more than $300. Amy Lee said that the Department was currently looking into that Vice- President Hood said that the she would look forward to dealing with that when the topic came before the full Commission.
Vice-President Hood asked for a motion to approve the budget or rather that the Committee recommend that this budget be forwarded to the full Commission for consideration.
Vice-President Hood asked for any public comment. There was no public comment.
President Fillon made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Marks, to recommend the budget that was presented by staff to the full Commission.
The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC 002-02 BUDGET
Vice-President Hood thanked the staff for their meticulous analysis and for answering all of the questions. Vice-President Hood said that that a very complex and difficult topic was now much clearer. President Fillon also thanked DBI staff.
4. Discussion and possible action to set a meeting and identify items that could be placed on the agenda of future meetings of the Committee.
Vice-President Hood said that no further meetings had to be scheduled because it was decided that the budget would go to the full Commission.
5. Adjournment.
President Fillon made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Marks, that the meeting be adjourned.
The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC 003-02 BUDGET
The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 a.m.
_______________________
Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary
Prepared by Sonya Harris
Edited by Ann Aherne