Development Services Review. Final Report. Zucker July 2016

Currently Building Division staff scans plans and permits only after the project has received all required inspections and has been completed. Ideally with the implementation of the TRAKiT system to help locate permit records and the full utilization of the recently upgraded I Pad tablet computers by field inspectors, the Building Official should consider having staff begin the scanning process as soon as the plans have been approved by plan check. This type of operational change will afford the Inspector in the field the ability to directly retrieve the approved plans on his field computer. Additionally, the space currently reserved to store plans and permits for active projects could be repurposed for more beneficial use. While we are aware that some plan revisions can take place while the project is under construction, we don’t believe the quantity of these changes, nor the process needed to quickly update the plans, would seriously jeopardize the program. Once the electronic plan check and process is in place, it will not be necessary to scan plans except in isolated cases. 51. Recommendation: The Building Official should establish a program to scan plans immediately upon plan review approval in order to make the digital copies available to Inspectors in the field during construction. Scanning will not be necessary once electronic plan process is in place. Staffing/Activity Levels We believe that a variety of activities should be measured in order to evaluate appropriate staffing levels. For the Building Division one of the key indicators is staff’s ability to consistently meet established performance standards for plan review turnaround times and inspections. While we are aware the Building Official has created some basic performance standards for plan review turnaround times, the existence of those standards is not well known and no method currently exists to routinely report on compliance with these performance standards. We believe one of the greatest benefits that will be achieved from the implementation of the new TRAKiT system will be the ability to track this type of information not only for the Building Division but also for the other Departments and Division that participate in the review process. Regarding staffing for building inspection, we generally find that trained inspectors can complete between 12 and 15 inspections per day per Inspector. These numbers can fluctuate based on excessive travel times or the complexity of projects. The projects in Morgan Hill are confined to a small geographic area and frequently multiple inspections are requested at the same location. In addition, most commercial projects are not highly complex. Though not confirmed through reports generated by their inspection tracking system, staff advised that their daily inspection workload falls within our recommended range. Information included in the current budget transmittal indicates that the number of inspections per day per Inspector has increased from an average of 14.3 in FY 13-14 to 15.4 in FY 15-16. Considering these

Morgan Hill, California

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Zucker Systems