January 24, 2008

Cities outsource building departments to cut costs

Photo courtesy of Cory Burnett/Crowerks [enlarge]

Safebuilt Washington performed a plan review and inspection of this restaurant for the city of Pasco.

You've known for years that customer service and clothes manufacturing have been outsourced, but what about your city's building department? It turns out 17 cities east of the Cascades have done just that.

Those cities have relied upon Safebuilt Washington, a Richland company operating as The Building Department since 1997 before being recently acquired by Safebuilt, a Colorado-based company. Safebuilt provides building department programs, building code plan reviews, project support and building code inspections for cities, towns, counties and state agencies.

Dick Mumma, founder of The Building Department, is staying on as chief building officer for Safebuilt Washington. He said outsourcing a city's building department mostly comes down to saving money.

“Small jurisdictions can't afford to hire an $80,000-to-$100,000 a year guy so we timeshare these guys out. We work on a percentage,” Mumma said.

Safebuilt gets hired onto a specific project and then gets a portion of the permitting fee.

Mumma said the relationship works with smaller jurisdictions because they don't have funds to pay for an entire building department. They also can't afford the training required to keep reviewers up to date with comprehensive code changes.

For larger jurisdictions, the relationship works when cities have an influx of projects. Instead of hiring more people, they contract with Safebuilt for temporary support.

“They don't have to pay for a person that's not being used,” Mumma said. “It's a much easier process than going through the normal channels of hiring and laying off of government employees.”

For example, the city of Walla Walla's building department needed a full-time employee for a two-year prison project. Safebuilt took over the project and acted as the contact so the city's building department wasn't overloaded.

But for some cities — such as George, Roslyn, Cle Elum and Soap Lake — Safebuilt acts as the entire building department. Isabelle Stigall, Soap Lake city clerk, said the company has done “an excellent job” reviewing building permits, approving them and doing building inspections over four years.

Some Soap Lake citizens worry about outsourcing their building department.

“(They) don't like working with someone who's outside, but once the process starts they realize it's nothing different than if we had somebody here,” Stigall said. A Safebuilt representative usually shows up the day after she issues a request, Stigall added.

Using a consultant for building department needs has also helped Soap Lake keep track of building permits, she said.

Stigall said the city of 1,760 doesn't have the funds to finance a building department, so if it hadn't outsourced to a company, it would have outsourced to the county.

One of Safebuilt's largest Washington customers is the city of Pasco, population 49,000. Pasco has been a customer for more than 10 years.

Mitch Nickolds, Pasco's inspections services manager, said the relationship has been fantastic. He said he is especially happy with how Safebuilt has complied with the city's policy of processing permits in 10 working days.

Nickolds said using a contractor gives a city more flexibility in dealing with real estate cycles.

“Working with a contractor, you can work with the changes a little bit better than you would otherwise with staff people where you'd be looking for things to do,” he said.

The only difficulty in using an outside company to do the work, he said, is that it “adds another layer if problems crop up.”

Nickolds said Safebuilt employees go out of their way to educate and explain their process to contractors, which has earned them respect.

“It's hard to find even employees that are that cognizant of their responsibility to the customer,” he said. “It's hard to say there's a downside because everything that we've needed, I've gotten.”

Using a consultant also could reduce a city's liability risk, as the consultant is responsible for its work. Nickolds said this type of contract also demands a much higher level of responsibility from the consultant for its staff's decisions and actions — similar to what one would expect from architects and engineers.

Mumma, who has been looking to retire, said the merger gives Safebuilt access to Washington and gives The Building Department more experienced staff, a wider range of services and the ability to contract with larger cities.

Safebuilt has offices in Colorado and Georgia, and has some clients whose populations approach 100,000. In Washington, Mumma said his office could support the needs of a similar-sized city, though it would have to hire more staff.

Mumma said the field is growing, especially in new cities or jurisdictions where there is some sort of a crisis. “This is becoming a very popular trend,” Mumma said. “We walk in, we have the experience, the knowledge, the resources (and say) ‘Here you go!'?”

But Nickolds of Pasco has some advice for cities that consider outsourcing their building department.

“I would make sure that you need to do it,” he said. “Make sure that you are doing it for the benefit of your community, not as a reaction to something but as pro-action. It's a way to make things better and as long as you're doing it for that, that's fine.”

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• Survey: More owners try BIM, but some still wary, 01-17-2008
• Don't let change orders bite you, 01-10-2008
• Snohomish flooring contractor pours it on, 01-03-2008
• Ikea's big warehouse with a small footprint, 12-20-2007
• Lumberyards, material suppliers get green, 12-13-2007
• Contractors hit hard by shrinking aggregate supply, 12-06-2007
• A cool solution to messy problems, 11-29-2007
• Expert framer recalls a lifetime of carpentry, 11-15-2007