Development Services Review. Final Report. Zucker July 2016

case. Building the reserve should be part of the fee study and we suggest that a target be to build the reserve to 12 months over a 10-year time frame. This means that the fee study should include $373,870 per year to be designated for the reserve fund. 9. Recommendation: The City should pursue developing a reserve of 100% of the normal operating budget for the Community Development Fund over the next ten years. D. O FFICE S PACE The City’s original plan called for the development services related departments to be collocated within the building currently designated as the Development Services Building. Through a number of decisions made in response to the severe economic downturn the City experienced starting in 2008, the Development Services Building became the location for virtually all City Hall offices. This allowed the City to save money by “mothballing” the main City Hall building. Since the City has been experiencing a general economic recovery and an explosive increase in residential construction, the space in the Development Services Building has become very crowded. Development Services personnel have frequently been forced to use the floor space in an exit aisle way as a workspace to prepare plans for permit issuance. In addition, the benefits to be gained by closing the original City Hall building have been minimized due to renovations and the relocation of housing staff from an off-site location into that building. We believe the City Manager should consider relocating those staff members that are unrelated to the development services mission back to the original City Hall Building. 10. Recommendation: The City Manager should consider moving staff unrelated to the development services mission back to the original City Hall Building. If the City Manager determines that this is not the appropriate time to relocate staff back to the City Hall Building, then steps should be taken to improve the physical environment in the Development Services Building. Our walking tour through the office space in the Development Services Building provided abundant evidence of a lack of organization in those spaces presumably intended to be used by multiple staff. Nearly every horizontal surface was cluttered with plans, documents or files with no evidence of organization. We also observed that the overfilled file cabinets are now beginning to be replaced by file boxes in exit aisle ways. This arrangement not only makes it difficult for employees to work, but also contributes to the frustration staff experiences when attempting to retrieve files. The City needs to aggressively implement a formal records management system that includes digitizing and indexing all pertinent documents. Currently the Building Division is engaged in a program of

Morgan Hill, California

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