2015-194-Minutes for Meeting March 10,2015 Recorded 5/14/2015 DESCHUTES COUNTY OFFICIAL RECORDS 1Q15.194
NANCY BLANKENSHIP, COUNTY CLERK
BOCC Meeting Minutes COMMISSIONERS' JOURNAL 05/14/2015 08:21:07 AM
CDD Department Update ippiptimilono
3
March 10, 2015
Attendees:
Commissioners Baney, DeBone, Unger
Staff:Tom Anderson, Eric Kropp, Dave Givans, Nick Lelack, Randy Scheid, Lori Furlong, Chris Gracia,Tim
Berg,Tracy Griffin
Convened at 2:00 p.m.
Adjourned at 3:30 p.m.
Annual Meeting with the Community Development Department (CDD)
Permit Technician Tracy Griffin provided an overview of the "front-counter services," including:
• The permit experience starts at reception upon entering CDD
• "Community Development" means reception and permit technicians field all questions about
the "community" and attempt to direct every inquiry to the right department or agency, etc.
• Six permit techs plus the manager equals 110 years of combined permit tech experience
• Nearly every property is unique,therefore, permit techs aim to research and guide applicants
through the land use, septic and building divisions and processes, and always in that order, and
from start to finish in the permitting process
• Permit techs perform document review, intake, and coordinate with all divisions through permit
issuance
• Permit techs interact with code enforcement, addressing and GIS services, and perform a variety
of related duties, including the following: preparation and maintenance of forms, payroll, septic
programs, document scanning, document archiving, financial tasks, inter-governmental tasks,
acquire certifications, "Permit Technician", and "Simple Plan Review"
Building Official Randy Scheid and Assistant Building Official Chris Gracia summarized the evolution of
CDD building permit processes from the note cards to Accuterm to Accela. They also summarized the
benefits of cross training to maximize efficiencies, reduce plan review and inspection times, and save
resources from sending multiple specialists to the same property to perform separate reviews to
sending one cross-trained building inspector to perform multiple reviews. Specifically, they summarized
the following:
• The Oregon Building Codes Division's use of the Deschutes County Building Safety Division as an
example for cross training efficiencies
• Proposal to use LNG vehicle fleet in the future to save time and money
• Investments in tablets and vehicle thermal printers provide building inspectors access to many
forms of information on site and opportunities to provide customers with immediate
corrections or approvals
• The Building Safety Division will experience several retirements in the near future, which will
require time to ramp up inspector training for to maintain a staff of multi certified inspectors
• The reduced FTE from 2006 allowed the department to reduce driving time by individually
certified inspectors and lower productivity to cross training alI inspectors to significantly
improve productivity
• The Division's philosophy is to use codes to help customers achieve their desired products
rather than as road blocks or hurdles to get over.
Administrative Manager Lori Furlong and GIS Analyst Tim Berg discussed the future of e-permitting and
the State's software program Accela, including benefits to CDD and customers:
• Lori and Tim serve on the State Advisory Group in order to help shape the future of the building
module.
• Permit Techs have converted from using all paper processes,forms, documents,and plans to
nearly all online and digital capabilities for their tasks.
• Civic data is a new tool just about to be launched by the State and Deschutes County will be one
of the first jurisdictions to use it. It will enable the public to conduct their own custom queries of
County data. Staff will build and manage the Accela Civic Data portal for customer data
consumption (charts/graphs, etc.). In sum,the result will be a significant savings of staff time.
• The biggest challenge in Coordinated Services is effectively managing the high volume of work
and keeping up with customer expectations, which were very high during the downturn with
lower volumes of activity.
• CDD will develop custom reports and dashboards for measuring workloads and efficiency with
Accela's new tools.
• CDD will convert addressing program to a new purely digital system (GIS delivered application in
the works).
• CDD will continue to enhance Dial with additional permit data, and is now assisting with adding
City of Bend permit data to Dial.
• Plan to unveil a new county designed custom permit query application in the very near future.
• In the process of converting the Onsite System Operation and Maintenance program from
AccuTerm to a web based application.
DATED this ° � day of 2015 for the
Deschutes County Board of Commissioners.
LOC./
ANTHONY DEBONE, Chair
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ALAN UNGER, Vice Chair
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TAMMY BA , Commi s ner
ATTEST:
(8-09/1AL
Recording Secretary