council's committee on infrastructure and environmental management should come to order this is the committee's regular meeting of september twenty eighth two thousand and fifteen i will be filling in for every cheer i miss cochran who has some medical issues she needs to address and be sure is a very speedy check six members from prison out of seven so we'll ask for public testimony has anyone requested to provide to someone in the chambers we have no request to provide testimony in the zero of the day i am twenty four under the heading of construction plan review revolving fund this item has been referred to committee by communication dated may twenty eighth two thousand  s of the infrastructure and environmental management committee my name is rowenna dagen diet and i'm the deputy director for public works i also have with me here to my right our assistant administrator of the development services administration and also in the gallery this morning or i'm sorry this afternoon is michael bush our fiscal analyst who joined our team in august of this year so he's been on the job for a little over a month maybe almost two months now and he's been helping us with some of our fiscal analyzing like to thank him for all of his work in the last few  month and a half i just have some comments regarding the construction plan review revolving fund our staff did some research on it and discovered that it was established in  in ordinance number nineteen all for about three years after the plan review permit processing and inspection revolving fund in the economy code the construction plan review revolving fund information is found in section eight point twenty four point zero one zero point the plan review revolving fund takes in fees from subdivision construction plans so whenever there's a subdivision that requires or processes subdivision construction plans for reviews that's where the monies come from whenever an applicant comes in and has construction plans the fee is fifty dollars per lot so whenever they have  improvements tied to their subdivision that's when this this fee is assessed over the years the fund has accumulated about four hundred ten thousand dollars as of june thirtieth two thousand and fifteen annual revenues vary greatly in the last ten years so some years we went as high as thirty seven thousand nine hundred fifty dollars this was back in fiscal year two thousand and seven and then there another year can go as low as one thousand one hundred fifty dollars and this is what we experience in f y thirteen so the annual revenues the very very greatly average revenue for the that period has been twelve thousand three hundred thirty per year so we took an average of the years since the construction plan revolving fund was established funds can be expended on the hiring of persons employed on a fee contract or piecework basis or we can also hire independent contractors to assist us with our plan checking permit processing and our inspections the fees may also be expended for payment of overtime for plan checking permit process proper image processing and inspections of subdivision construction activities expenditures for the most part over the years have been very no only with we've only been using the the fund recently and this was last year fiscal fifteen where we used ten thousand dollars for outside consulting services and looking ahead to possible uses of the fund we see a really great opportunity to pretty much dissolve this fund since it hasn't been used until recently while an increase of fees may be warranted as the cost to process these types of plans is certainly greater than fifty dollars per lot the fact that we have not been using the funds until this year and the great variability in annual revenues tells us that we should probably eliminate this fund altogether and have the fees go in to the general fund and i'll explain a little bit more as to why we think that the department supports that having this fund balance be used to help with the new or the miss for program  currently have in place in the recent months we've been coming before this committee to talk about the m s four municipal separate storm sewer program and one of the questions is always raises how are we going to be able to fund this program so we see an opportunity here with the construction plan review revolving fund to maybe use the monies from this fund to help support activity is consistent with the intent of the construction plan review revolving fund this could be done over time or i mean i'm sorry this could be done one time for the entire four hundred ten thousand dollars that we currently have in the fund or even annually at approximately one hundred five thousand to one hundred fifteen thousand per year for the next four years so we could either dissolve fund in what we're suggesting is if we dissolve the fund and put everything into the general fund that we can use that one hundred or that four hundred ten thousand for the amas for program or we can do it over time where each year we could take from the fund and use that to support them as for program so those are the the notes that i'd like to ask the department so when when you if your plan is to dissolve the fine and then basically transfer the monies into the general fund what then will occur when you do need one is for the exp index called for any emmis for within the subdivision program and i guess the money's would come from general fund correct because right now i mean as i mentioned earlier with the construction plan revolving fund i mean we do have the four hundred ten thousand now but we haven't been to me ever since it was established we haven't been really tapping into those monies for any overtime or processing of permits or inspections so moving forward i guess your question going back to your question if we needed any in terms of checking for b m p and soil erosion control and and that was approximately ten thousand dollars so it was only use one time and then from that since that one time what was the next i guess prior usage activity and that was that was it was just a few months ago that we used it we started to get that we  and that after three years after that the plan review permit process processing and inspection revolving fund was established so the building permit side there was a revolving fund that was  few years later in one nine hundred ninety that's when this construction plan revolving fund was created and you can find it in our subdivision code under section eighteen point two four point  basically created just specifically for subdivision processing it is what we've been dealing with for years which exploit the building permit expediting approvals and as you can hear we here we are twenty five years later still talking about expediting permit approvals by the council that felt that money should and should not be the issue and that is why the were for overtime and get the departments the support he needed to have a timely decision on this specific areas of concern counsel to address it from a financial point of view the rector chair i i was just given information from the budget director that there was approximately four thousand five hundred that was spent in two thousand for overtime so that was used for processing permits at that time but since then our data shows that we have not been utilizing  it so and the recent activity was late last this past fiscal year so for the committee to understand especially your work i'm in d c and that we consider sun guess your recommendations are very pertinent and if the answer is no then how would you have us consider assisting to be permanently given the public timely review and decisions forty five days so for preliminary plans the the department of public works development services administration we are since as the  the i guess the keeper of the the process and we work with the other departments and get their comments in and we provide feedback back to the applicant  days so we've been meeting that that timeline for that requirement in that sense and i think as we we've also set up performance measures that where we track how well we process these applications and so we've been meeting those performance measures on a yearly basis and so it has been we've been able to me t timelines and be able to do plan checking permit processing and inspections within a timely period  chair there are reviews by other agencies so we would have planning department review water department environmental management and we also have state agencies that review and there may be instances where review times are also take a little bit longer for specific items and that in that sense you know we we try to work  with departments to make sure that the timelines are met that forty five day time period is met some agencies we don't have any control over especially with state agencies and but we've been working with different our online system we've also been asked to do process review of our different processes so for building permits subdivision plan reviews all those things those each individual department is now being asked to take a look at their their process for reviewing applications and finding efficiencies seeing if we have any overlapping reviews that can be squeezed in you know that can be eliminated so we are moving forward with that i think things are starting to get a little bit better in terms of review  can also when we talk about building plan review i can speak a little bit about that too but i think that's that's kind of where we are at this point i know play mean departments have their annual in hawaii congress of planning officials we did talk about components that maybe the old share across the street do you have some kind of public works conference that also you folks will come together once a our building code officials i'm not exactly sure if they talk about subdivision processing but there is an annual conference that goes from island to island each year when it relates to building codes now and then my interest something i'm hoping to sharing some of their practices with you so you can say well let's see if it works for molly then again for me i'm just trying to find ways of making it easier than harder and since we all deal with any interesting departments have been made use of this financial resource you get to authorize overtime or to find ways to reduce the length of processing so  can we take it from this committee standpoint that length of the pool has nothing to do with for an inch or resources that the council gives to the department that has an impact is a really to perform because you don't need this money well chair if you know that another thing that we need to also factor into our review and processing times is the quality of the plans  that come in so we can do an initial review within thirty to forty five days but it's the back and forth between the applicants consultant and the divisions or the departments they're reviewing sees that sometimes take a little bit longer as for the construction plan review fund i think there's opportunities in using these monies to assist us with inspections best management practices seeing that all of that is being done with as it relates to some of the subdivision construction plans as we move forward time in enforcement and reviewing and inspections so this would be an opportunity for us to tap into these monies to be able to use that towards them is for i think the language as it is right now it says the fees may be expanded for payment of overtime for plan checking permit processing and inspection of subdivision construction activities  perhaps maybe what we can do is kind of relook at opportunities of expanding the language or making it clear what is it that we really want to be able to do with proposals if you want expansion of parameters that's something we can consider he wanted more tight we can consider that  language or revising that to meet our needs or any needs that we see in the future i think that's something that we'd like to consider but it seems that the the forty five day turnaround requirement in your department has really been what drives the success so are you suggesting the fee still goes into the fund or goes into the debt general fund or some suggesting that the fee goes into the general general fund that the new fees as well i mean future fees ok so the fund would be eliminated and in its entirety are there any other departments that are involved in the review process that are subject to the same forty five day limitation on review time we do have other departments that take part in the subdivision plan review and there's a number of them you mentioned that water health department and others are out of your control was that could you give us a list of have we've been tracking our review times for the building permit building permit review but as far as subdivision plan review within the first for the forty five days that's something that may be what we could track bad and see which agencies are not meeting the the deadlines or the timeline and but at this moment and think we have any you know we don't have any know we can look into the reason i bring that up here is that if the forty five day target is working well for them and i know that they've been they've been doing this for a while maybe that's something that we impose on the other other departments that are under our control because it seems that it's not necessarily the money that drives it of course i'm sure this probably came about when there was heavy pressure as there was heavy heavy desire to construct maybe someday we'll get back to that level of construction but i don't i don't see it happening in that they're trying to do though mr wade is will send a letter to the department asking for the information what other agencies are deep by means are part of the process review and if you could also ask the department of provide which agencies seem to take the longest  department to help other departments expedite by providing an outside outside consultant to help expedite or possibly covering overtime for reviewers in other departments be considered as when i to help our county departments use that money to hire or promote the state for their a pool and i'm talking more about ship  had archeological surveyed done where we dug eight plots eight feet square five feet deep found absolutely nothing two years to get approval from having consideration that we for certain key state agencies hire a license historian archaeologist to be able to sign off on our permits if you don't mind adding to that corp council is going to look into eighteen state agencies with expediting it might also be worth looking into whether you mean whether or not it's possible in some way to to allow projects to move forward if ship doesn't meet a certain deadline within which to respond whether if the if the archaeological survey finds no significant concerns that project will be allowed to move move forward into future steps on a provisional basis and i'm mr hopper good to hopefully deal with some of these issues now because i think we do have some experience with those issues a couple of things one is that the review at least in my experience which is not  huge amount but a bit with this fund i think the intention in addition to overtime for county staff members is for outside parties to review plans that maybe the county would not have the expertise to review to assist the county in reviewing the plans for compliance with the county subdivision code not with not with the with compliance with other state or other even other departmental codes it's for  compliance with the county subdivision code and you know state law and case law specify that the responsibility for compliance with the county code rests with the developer meaning that the developer is responsible for hiring the qualified other consultants consultants and in years and architects to provide the county with with the information that complies with the requirements of the code and so that responsibility would rest with the with the applicant the count sole responsibility at least with respect to the subdivision code is to review compliance with the subdivision code is not the county's responsibility to determine compliance with other state laws now a lot of times a subdivision ordinance gets used for that because in a lot of cases subdivisions the developer is required to comply with a variety of of laws and so the subdivision is used as sort of a starting point to provide that to the other agencies but the department of public works itself it may send information to the other agencies and ask for a response from those agencies but the department itself is going to be reviewing the compliance with the subdivision code which is t eighteen and the subdivision requirements there in the department itself will not be reviewing state historic preservation division compliance or compliance from any other state agency so using money from this fun do that i don't think would be would be possible the county would use this money as it's listed in the code to either give overtime to its own employees to review compliance with the subdivision code or to hire an outside consultant to kind of give a second check having your own consultant to review plans prepared by another engineer to say if if the county employee might not have the level of expertise required to give  a thorough review of that of that particular issue because it may involve you know some may be highly specialized issues it could be used for an outside engineering firm to consult provide review for that and say yes this is in compliance with  the county code including subdivision and there's other county ordinances involved like grading ordinances usually and maybe building code as well so that's generally with those funds are used for and i think i think using that fund to give give assistance to the state historic preservation division is something that's most likely outside of the scope certainly of the wording of this i think ordinance and  you know normally this would be for the county to hire its own consultants to do to assist the county reviewing personnel with their review of the subdivision code so that's just to give some of that background because certainly some of this was i think with the overtime provisions it was most likely intended to assist with you know a thorough review of these plans but not necessarily the main purpose being to expedite the plants because certainly going to an outside agency for review would probably would necessarily expedite review of the plants it could actually be a more thorough review that it may take a bit more time to contract with the outside agency get that contract he executed wait for their review and it's generally going to probably take a bit longer than it would take for the county itself to do that review i think it's there because of the expertise required in certain cases to do that type of review  just some some background in kind of my limited experience with that but again it is it is the the owner the property owner that is has the primary responsibility for compliance here and from hiring outside consultants to comply with the code mr hopper makes a very good point made you know it applied to this this ordinance but it is one of the great frustrations of the process and maybe to apply to the next ordinance plan review permit process in an inspection revolving fund that we have have i understand his concern about trying to get the state to comply with with county fund but again you look at the ordinances look at the time and what the county was practicing in doing it's a review and approves of this definitely not what we do today back in one thousand nine hundred so i would say appropriate for this time two thousand and fifteen director so we're very open to your comments and suggestions discover yes they're at the like i mentioned earlier we're going through this process review  of our all of our processes so it's very it's very timely that this matter comes before the committee saw as we do that process review we can kind of horn in on  maybe some recommendations and changes and and you're correct back in one thousand nine hundred different way we process process permits and applications so i mean just as a side note i mean both lance and i were still i was still in high school unless college i think so but times have changed technology has changed and ordinances change if so but we do welcome the opportunity to know when you think about it we're talking about one thousand nine hundred ninety this was established and this is twenty five years later so i'm going to be taking a look at it i like when we find pots of money you know it's always nice to find pots of money and apparently you have a recommendation about you know where you would like to see the money go brings up a question for me that i probably shouldn't ask but i'm going to anyway i can't resist you know when you have a part of money and one of the things we could use it for was apparently we didn't need to use it for is it because we choose not to do it or do we have enough of some response or if mr boss would care to respond or were open to it and if you force me time so we can get accurate information we're happy to  sandy we did spend about about three thousand in overtime last year and most of the the reason why we did some overtime was because of the vacancies that we were experiencing so in order for us to catch up with the work that was that would have been typically done by another employee we used overtime but we do i mean if you have any if you'd like  to ask us that question in a letter we can research it well i really i just i just think it's important that the department have money to take your ability because obviously there will be times when there is something that we really want to get through you guys in fact today mike and i were just working on some numbers and looking at our historical and the historical actual numbers and china you know to see where we can make it more efficient but yeah and this is one fund if again we in our authorization gave appropriation authority in advance so once the monies goes in this pot that he partly needs it for the specific purpose of the ordinance they can draw the money out of that since we prefer appropriated or approval from that fund that's good it seems to me that this is perfectly in line with what we're trying to do you know we're all talking about how can we move things how can we make it faster or whatever and that makes perfect sense thank you thank you mr carroll any questions or comments or mr way you know that the purpose of the fun is to make sure that what's coming in this game processed on a timely basis and so i think that the big question in my mind is what was the volume back then versus what the volume is now and what what tools have the department's been afforded that are making the review much more much easier or at least a little easier is it are we being more timely because of improvements in the system plus you know a lower level of of applications or is it are we able to produce more reviews now because we've got better tools and i think that would be a an important thing for us to consider if we were to continue to keep this fund in place will send me a letter i would like to give the please join us and share your thoughts with us general fund which is what's paying for them as for projects right now either one i you know i guess my question would probably be to court coun about the collection of the fees under the auspices of what you know the current ordinance and then disposal of those fees you know it would take council action to do that i'm not sure you know or if we have to refund all those who have no idea but i'm not sure if mr hopper could look at that or need further review but that be my only concern about the current funds and use of the current funds for other than what the code was created that allows us to charge that fee thank you very much because i know you have a unique perspective because you do with the actually doing it you know we talk about it what was that you do with the mechanics of making things  i was interested in your thoughts thank you yeah i'm positive that there's no way that this fee could cover the costs of an m s for him as for a project in its entirety so i think the directors directors recommendation of a going to the general fund is probably the best ok thank you thank you thank you mr white i would i would agree with that because it is a mess for doesn't deal just with subdivisions so be real tough to use this fee on an ongoing basis for m s for without looking at how we charge some other fee to people who are going to benefit or need the improvements that are going to conditions of the court parameters so i would say they can make a great argument if we using those fees for things outside of what they paid for the purpose of why they beat the fees i can see us getting legal arguments over that potentially everything else under construction plan review revolving fund under i am twenty four members anything else you'd like to add the rector or permit process seen an inspection revolving fund this is also through a communication of may twenty eighth to this committee and this is also a special inspection revolving fund was initiated in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven under ordinance sixteen thirteen and amended what was then county code sixteen twenty four that's our building code and the bill was intended to make efficient building plan reviews as recommended by permit process permit improvement process committee back at that time essentially what the bill did was to make sure that a plan review fee was collected upon the submittal of the permit in an amount of this in an amount estimated to be twenty five percent of the final building permit fee that upfront fee would then go into the fund and then could be used for overtime and any outside consultants to assist when plan reviews got backed up over the years this provision has been amended many times and we actually did some research by looking into committee reports through the county clerk's office sometimes the the code was amended on its own sometimes it was in conjunction with the new building code requirements and most times it was part of the annual budget process today the permit processing plan review and inspection revolving fund falls under a specific number it's called sixteen point twenty six b point one zero point two point one and may be expended for a number of things this includes salaries training contract contracts most recently there was language put in for rent payments fixtures materials supplies and equipment that facilitate planned review and also for payment of any overtime plan checking permit processing and inspections looking at our ability to process building permits under the building code provisions our performance measures indicate that the fund is doing its job india say as the the building plan review time always meets the thirty day review limit and average a fraction of  that what we've done recently was track building permit reviews of all agencies that are involved in the building permit review process and we have some data about it a little over a year's worth of data so we can identify where we need some additional help but so far we've been meeting our performance measures inspections again that i mentioned generally going very well  there's also a lot of back and forth with applicants and making changes and so we have to take that into the into consideration as well but in looking what we currently have we feel that we are right size for the current permit application levels that we experience each year to day to day the fund has approximately three point six six million that's the balance that we show as of june thirtieth two thousand and fifteen revenues for the last ten years have varied from a high of one point two seven million in fiscal zero seven to as low as just only six hundred thousand dollars in fiscal year two thousand and ten expenditures varied from four hundred seven thousand in f y two thousand and six to nine hundred thousand in f y fiscal year two thousand and thirteen we wanted to note that in fiscal year eleven expenditures did increase about two hundred fifty thousand per year going forward because we moved into our building on  no so we've been using the fund to pay for rent for the building at that that location i was looking at some of the historical committee the committee reports from back then and there was language that was put in i think it was to say two thousand and six by i might be mistaken where rent and different kinds of fixtures are fixtures were included into that section of the ordinance for that the plan review permit processing and and specs in revolving fund since fiscal year two thousand and ten with the rent payments the fund has only grown by one hundred forty four thousand dollars meaning that it's been largely a break so we of break even at the end of the year in terms of any revenues that come in and our expenditures and this has been so for the last five school years the fun currently pays for the salaries of fourteen employees india say that you process and inspect on permits this number of employees has however grown over the years so for example in fiscal year nineteen ninety three on private sector construction activity we feel with the current balance we feel that another position in d s a could be funded our move from the general fund what we use in our general fun we can take that position and have it be paid through by the building permit review or revolving fund and that we hope could free up a general fund position that we could use towards the emmis for program so that's one recommendation that we have for this fund and we are very welcome to any other recommendations that the the committee and the rest of the co in a position where the fund is growing by hundred forty four thousand dollars a year on a base that's already is about four or five times what we spend every year at what point do we adjust the fee to match the need chair there and that's something that we've started kind of looking into for this fiscal year  you know once this item came before the committee and was placed on the master agenda that's we started kind of thinking ok you know what kind of changes can we me and that's whatever what the construction costs would be for somebody who's building a three bedroom two bath house and  stand in the ordinance it's twenty five percent of the permit fees so we take the valuation so it can vary like a three bedroom home i mean it varies from each additional thousand dollars you know my kids would love to see a little reduction if they were able to build a house mr mr baez had his hand up just yet it's no you're not used to looking over here for comments and i was  speak historically to county a push it this way miss it way the bigger the pot or and ask for more positions to be funded eat peas to fund so you look historically what the final has been paying for continues to grow as the fund grew and that's why we never did reduce the fun or the fees because it kept paying for more positions from that component than the general fund that was up and i understand the approach the desire to keep moving in that direction but at the same time this is a cost that our new home buyers are being burdened with that i don't as someone who with a little bit more in property tax as opposed to making them pay it as part of their mortgage so it's just a difference in philosophy in that i think a lot of our building i know that if you had more people  g like you well you know that but we had this discussion last year with respect to the planning department's review fees and for me it's a question of where does the public's because of the public is who benefits from having planning involved in the decision making process and the review process that's the public that benefits by having the department review  building plans and and subdivision plans make sure that the codes are being followed so that the subsequent buyer is not going to get burned so to me it's a question of how much is the public pay for it versus how much that that new homeowners going to be saddled with i don't we we may have it right but i think it's i think it's important that we keep keep looking out and if we're going to if we're sitting here with a three point six million dollar or three point seven million dollar fund that is grown by seven hundred twenty thousand in the last five years so anyway now i think you on is building as a city council again fights time to do its appropriate reviews act outside of budget revolving funds as you know there's a lot of them with a lot of money in various spots intended to meet a specific goal or mission and my thing is if we're not doing it then we need to ask why and if we've done it is it time to allocate those funds to another priority mr baez we'd be open to your comments or not is this thank you mr chair is going to add actually to mr white's not only is this feed you know twenty five percent of the building perm is an additional twelve and a half percent that goes to the fire department for their plan review of the building permits so it is additional tacked on to that as well does this mean i mean no and thank you for bringing up because in the same chapter of the code this is sixteen point zero four b members it is also under the same title plan review process seen inspection revolving file that is specifically fire analysis of our fund from two thousand and six on i think what we'll do is look at those numbers again and and see where let me continue to analyze them s business before this committee this meeting