Development Services Review. Final Report. Zucker July 2016

the centralized phone receptionist chronically routes calls erroneously, which frustrates and overburdens staff. Additionally, calls are generally filtered through a central receptionist, which does not routinely perform adequate screening in order to route callers to the correct staff person. 118. Recommendation: The City Manager should ensure that the Central Receptionist function receives adequate training to filter incoming calls so that they are routed to the appropriate staff. Also see our above recommendation to front provide reception staff with additional training to filter calls more effectively. A formal return email and phone call policy should be included in the Division’s Policy & Procedures Manual that requires all staff to return all phone calls and emails before the end of the day to further the City’s overall goal of providing excellent customer service. This was included in an earlier recommendation. Staff indicated that some training has occurred outside of the office in recent years, however, staffing constraints have left staff with little time to attend outside training. In addition, some staff and focus group interviewees reported that additional supervisory training appears to be necessary for managers and supervisors, as well as development review processing training for some contract planners and newly hired planners. For example, it was widely reported that some contract planners are not adequately supervised and are not properly trained on the City’s development review process, code interpretation practices, policies, philosophies and file maintenance requirements. As a result, development review processing and file maintenance varies significantly among planners. These differences have created frustration for developers and regular full time planning staff. For example, regular full time staff must take over contract planners’ projects at the implementation stage (e.g., building and engineering permit processes) because Contract Planners only process current planning projects through the decision-making stage (e.g., Director, Planning Commission and/or Council approval). Processing and file maintenance differences among contract planners and regular full time staff often prevents a seamless transition, which slows processing. Training/Cross Training

In addition, there is a perception by some that newer planners are not being appropriately integrated into the City’s system and instead have been inserting their

Morgan Hill, California

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