City Managers are champions of running tight-staffed building departments. But no matter how skilled or experienced they are, balancing the demands of development projects, ensuring public safety, and keeping budgets under control can feel like a never-ending uphill climb.
When added to the mix, new projects, new community priorities, and the unexpected can take a municipality from overburdened to overwhelmed practically overnight. In these overwhelmed municipalities — with limited resources and fluctuating workloads — it's tricky to keep your balance, even when (nearly) everything is going according to plan.
Let's look more closely at how outsourced building department services can combat building department overwhelm in your municipality.
Building departments aren’t built to scale
One of the biggest challenges when relying solely on an established building department is that you can’t scale staff with your workload. This often results in a lack of staff during busy seasons (requiring an unsustainable amount of overtime) and insufficient work during slow seasons.
Instead of balancing overworked and underutilized employees, third-party building service partners like SAFEbuilt can provide scalable solutions at the right time with the right staff for the services you need most, such as:
- Code enforcement: Outsourcing code enforcement during peak periods ensures consistent application of regulations without overburdening your staff.
- Permitting: Outsourcing permitting services allows you to maintain a steady turnaround time, even during high-volume seasons, to keep projects moving.
- Plan review: Experienced third-party plan reviewers can quickly help meet increased demand, reducing backlogs and ensuring a thorough review process.
- Inspections: Certified inspectors can be quickly deployed to handle increased inspection volumes, ensuring timely and accurate assessments without compromising quality.
- Community planning and design: Outsourced planning and design experts provide additional resources and fresh perspectives on complex projects.
By outsourcing building department services like these, you take a stronger, more consistent, more balanced approach to addressing your broader systemic challenges.
This approach also allows you to onboard temporary specialists to handle the highest pressure points and experts to attack the backlog so you can free up your current staff to focus on their most pressing demands. And in all these areas — and more — SAFEbuilt has you covered.
Hidden costs of recruitment
As fewer people pursue a job in the trades industry, building departments are experiencing an extreme shortage of certified staff. So, if you find a qualified candidate, why wouldn’t you want to hire them full-time to secure them for year-round work?
It’s important to keep in mind that in-house employees come with additional costs, including:
- Health benefits
- Training
- Paid time off
- A pension
- Additional liabilities for your department
- Technology (laptops, phones, iPads, etc.)
- Vehicles (maintenance, insurance, fuel, repairs)
You must also account for recruiting budgets, including the time spent interviewing and onboarding new staff. Once you find the right candidate and get them up to speed, you could discover they aren’t the right fit for the team and have to start over from scratch. With SAFEbuilt, we can adjust to get the right people in place without causing delays in daily operations.
Third-party building services create a safety net
With a third-party building department team on your bench, you can get timely plan reviews and inspections even if your workload surges or your internal team experiences illness or turnover. This safety net helps prevent projects from sitting idle (which ultimately leads to lost revenue, frustrated residents, and unnecessary stress).
But a “one-size” solution definitely doesn’t “fit all.” When vetting potential outsourcing partners, customization is key. With fully customizable service options, you can leverage the expertise of a third-party provider for short-term coverage, project-specific support, and augmentation of your internal team as needed.
At SAFEbuilt, we bring a custom and personalized approach to supporting your building department — complete with the ability to adjust services based on your development workload and needs — to combat overwhelm. In so doing, we provide:
- Budget protection: We stabilize your budget and prevent it from negatively impacting your general fund.
- Right-sized staffing: We provide the right number of staff with the appropriate expertise to fit your precise needs — no more, no less.
- Reduced costs: We help you find efficiencies within your existing operations, reducing overall costs through process improvements and standardizing operational procedures and overhead costs.
- Increased customer service: We take a customer-centric approach to communicating procedures, timelines, and documentation.
Curious what our building department support looks like in real life? Check out this example:
Let's Bring Your Vision to Life
Revitalizing a Small-Sized Building Department
Welcome to Maryville, Georgia, population 12,000, led by City Manager Michelle.
Michelle and the city's building department have been unable to keep up with increasing workloads. Their backlog has only intensified as residents:
- Use insurance money to replace roofs following a spring hailstorm
- Continue to move to the community
- File complaints about the quality of their public spaces
City Manager Michelle:
- Time as city manager: < 6 months
- Platform: Revitalize her small community
Let's see what Michelle accomplishes in the next year:
New High School
With certified inspectors at the ready, Michelle made it possible to:
- Schedule inspections and manage inspectors online
- Streamline inspections with multi-disciplinary staffing
- Receive real-time inspection and project updates
Leading to:
- Less scheduling & administrative logistics
- A faster timeline to ribbon cutting
City Hall
With third-party plan reviewers on stand by, Michelle made it possible to:
- Complete plan reviews electronically
Leading to:
- Same-day inspections, leading to quicker plan review turnaround
- Breaking ground faster on new projects
Updated Public Park
With additional resources, such as planning and landscape architecture, SAFEbuilt helped:
- Design a practical, eco-friendly public space to better suit the neighborhood
- Interpret zone codes for Michelle
- Preserve the historical look and feel of the city
Leading to:
- A healthier, happier community
- A more desirable neighborhood to live in with increased property values
New Housing Development
With a third-party staff member to manage permitting, and SAFEbuilt’s electronic permitting software, Michelle was able to help:
- The department to keep up with the busy season via a permit technician
- Residents to submit, manage, and approve permits online
- The department to reduce their outstanding permits
Leading to:
- Happier residents
- Budget protection
- Speed to revenue
- Reduced calls and complaints to city hall
Do Michelle's experiences as a city manager sound familiar? Let SAFEbuilt bring your vision to life.
Ready to solve overwhelm with a custom outsourcing solution?
Overwhelm happens to every building services department and municipality, but it doesn’t have to stay that way. Outsourcing with SAFEbuilt for one, several, or all of our customizable outsourced services can help get you and your team back to your top priorities and focused on what matters most. For a closer look at what we can do, check out our Electronic Permitting Webinar or contact an expert to get started today.
