Desktop work station
Desktop work station

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 has led to a cascade of difficult financial decisions. As tax and other revenues dropped off a cliff due to business closures, mass furloughs, and layoffs, state and local governments have likewise had to juggle budget shortfalls, employee furloughs, and meeting the ongoing needs of their communities.

Fortunately, there is a way to address these situations, turn fixed costs into variable costs, and provide the community much needed services. That solution is to partner with a third-party community development provider, like SAFEbuilt. In fact, many municipalities have utilized this method long before COVID-19 hit, and it’s becoming even more effective given today’s circumstances.

As your trusted partner, we don’t just turn fixed costs into variable costs. We also help streamline processes to maximize efficiencies and identify and plan for trends that impact your department revenue streams.

For instance, it’s no secret that building departments already experience busy and slow seasons due to weather and construction cycles. Costs for an in-house building department remain fixed despite fluctuating building activity. Add in a global pandemic and budgets can explode, causing many projects and municipal developments to shut down completely. Partnering with SAFEbuilt is one way you can mitigate the burden of staffing and fortify your workforce as needed to avoid such situations.

Partnering with SAFEbuilt is an extremely cost-effective way to:

  • Reduce risk of over- or under-staffing
  • Only pay for resources you need
  • Ensure costs aren’t exceeding revenue
  • Ensure project timelines are met
  • Work with a team that fully understands your local regulations and the challenges you face
  • Gain access to specialized experts without adding to your full-time staff
  • Maintain the highest levels of community satisfaction with fast, responsive, helpful, and courteous professionals

Our team includes subject matter experts, building officials, plan reviewers, inspectors, business managers, problem solvers, and customer relationship managers. We understand building department services and develop an operational and staffing solution that best fits the needs of your community. In addition, SAFEbuilt has technology solutions for managing inspections and plan review that streamline the processes and provide better visibility and management of the work.

In one, real-world example, we helped the City of Centennial, Colorado, streamline their processes and reduce costs through many of the items we cover in this article.

No matter the challenges you or your municipality face, remember that SAFEbuilt is here, willing, and able to help meet your project needs during this difficult and uncertain time. We’re ready to support building departments with a complete range of building and safety services for municipalities and contractors across the country including:

  • Plan review
  • Inspection services
  • Permitting software and support

We have in-person and virtual options to safely suit your needs.

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SAFEbuilt is a community development services company. We provide comprehensive building department, private provider, and other professional services with the goal of helping our customers build better, safer communities.