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CITY COUNCIL AGENDA ITEM BRIEFING SHEET Submittal Date: Originating Department: Presented By: Agenda Item No.: O 1 /20/09 Council Date: City Council Kevin Carruth 22. O 1 /26/09 RECOMMENDED MOTION: Not an action item POLICY ISSUE(S): Budget BACKGROUND: During the council meeting of January 12, Council Member Brown asked for a discussion item on the positions and funding of the building and electrical inspector and chief building official. In February 2008 the Chief Building Official (CBO), Rick Hundley, retired. Building and Electrical Inspector (BEI) Jason Browning was temporarily promoted to CBO and the BEI position was left vacant. At the time staff was working on a departmental reorganization plan to handle the additional work brought on from the ordinance changes recommended by the Code Enforcement Task Force and to improve overall efficiency and responsiveness. The reorganization was delayed to become part of the FY 2008-2009 budget process. Council declined to include the reorganization in the budget and by this time Mr. Browning had been promoted to permanent CBO. In November the Director of Community Development requested permission to post the BEI position and it was posted at the end of December with the same title, pay grade, and description it has had for many years. After ten days only one application was received (from a current employee). Since the BEI position was posted, Council Member Brown has publicly commented that he thinks that the Council was "duped" or otherwise mislead by staff because his understanding was that the October pay increase for the CBO position was to be accomplished by eliminating the BEI position. This has never been the understanding of the City Manager, Director of Community Development, Director of Finance and Human Resources, or any other staff inember. A review of the video recording of the October 13 and October 27 council meetings where the budget amendment required to fund the CBO's salary increase was acted upon shows no discussion whatsoever about eliminating the BEI position, nor does a review of the meeting minutes. Also, none of the packet materials for these meetings discuss eliminating the BEI. On the contrary, in the ordinance amending the budget several line items were reduced to offset the increases in the other line items, such as the CBO's higher salary. Had the BEI position been eliminated, none of the other reductions throughout the ordinance would have been necessary because the BEI salary savings would have been enough to compensate. While there may have been a misunderstanding or miscommunication regarding the Building and Electrical Inspector position, there certainly was no attempt to deceive Council. If there is discussion that the BEI position is not needed and should be eliminated, staff still maintains that the position is critical to the functioning of the department because the inspection and plan review volume in Paris is too great for a single person. Coincidental to the discussion of this issue, staff has been conducting the most comprehensive survey of Texas Cities regarding fire and building plan review and inspections that has been done. One of the questions in the survey is how many building inspectors/plan reviewers (non-fire) the city has. For the 25 Texas cities with populations approximately 10,000 of the Paris population, the average number of inspectors is 3.08 and the average for the 11 cities with populations in the 20,000's, the average number of inspectors is 2.7. City of Paris - 000105 Revised 2/04/08