Development Services Review. Final Report. Zucker July 2016

former practices and philosophies, which is adversely changing the culture in some instances.

In an earlier part of this report we recommend that all functions set aside 2% of the personnel budget and 5% of employees’ time for training.

A review of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2015/16 budget showed total personnel salaries at $1,044,857 for the Division. The total training allocations, which include training, conferences, meetings, memberships, and subscriptions, totals $25,567. Zucker’s general rule of thumb is to set aside at least 2% of the Division’s Personnel Budget for annual training of employees, which equates to $20,897 (e.g., 2% of $1,044,857). The training budget that has been allocated is likely sufficient to provide needed supervisory and training for staff. However, it appears that more time needs to be allocated for internal and external training of professional staff. We typically suggest that about 5% of staff’s time be devoted to annual training. The new TRAKiT system will also add to training needs. See also our recommendations under “Policy & Procedures Manual” regarding creating/completing a Policy Manual to assist with training of new employees and cross training of existing employees. The Division offers an expedited development review process for an additional fee that is open and available to any developer that elects to pay for the service, whether residential or non-residential or economically important or not that is intended to provide a quicker review service to customers, without compromising project quality and city policies and regulations. We are advocates of these types of services as long as the fees charged for the service are transparent and the City is able to demonstrate added value to justify the added cost. See our discussion and recommendation under the “Fees” heading of this section regarding using a labor based methodology to update fees and showing expedited fees on the updated fee schedule. To demonstrate the value of the expedited review service, as well as justify the additional fees to customers, best practice communities establish Performance Standards for expedited review services that are tracked, monitored and compared D. P OLICY I SSUES Expedited Review

Morgan Hill, California

114

Zucker Systems