Suggestions made for Grant County planning

EPHRATA - An audit of Grant County's building and planning department provided 20 suggestions to improve performance.

The audit was conducted by Darryl Piercy, president of Plan It Consulting, after commissioners received complaints about delays for permits and plan approvals, Commissioner Cindy Carter said.

Piercy reviewed the department's procedures, processes and training program, sought input from stakeholders and reviewed department performance measures, according to the report.

"One of the things I tried not to do was make it controversial," he told the commissioners during a recent meeting. "I really think there are some positive aspects that I point out then some real changes I think that could happen."

The first recommendation Piercy made was sharing front counter staff between the building and planning department, saying the disconnect between the two areas in the same department was confusing.

Commissioner Carolann Swartz said the two areas used to be two separate departments, but were combined to save money on rent for a separate area.

"I think you could even take that a step further and at least consolidate that front counter staff, so they would be cross-trained among the department, so when somebody walked up to the counter they saw it as a department rather than these two separate entities," Piercy said.

He suggested training the front counter positions, so they can determine whether applications are complete before turning them over to plan reviewers.

"We'd be fielding all of these complaints, but part of the story that we weren't getting was the fact that those were incomplete plans," Swartz said. "They were slowing themselves down. Some of the contractors were their own worst enemy."

People have a perception that when they turn plans in they must be complete, and the review is taking place at that time.

"As it waits in line and it finally gets in front of some person, then they determine it's missing information, then you have to send a note out ... Now all of a sudden these people see it as, 'I've waited for two weeks, this is going to take another two weeks. Now my review is a month, when in fact, once they have all of the information, the review is probably only four or five days."

As part of the change in the staff, Piercy suggested creating a daily process where applications are put into categories for what type of review. As part of the suggestion, he said the county should work on a way for plans to be submitted and reviewed electronically.

"This ties into the idea of using the Web site, so somebody on a daily basis, if they want, can go and type their number into the Web site and get an update on the status," he said.

The change lets applicants know where their plans are in the process, and cuts down on phone calls, saving the staff time, Piercy said, adding the information on the Web site presently is about two years out of date.

"We were actually working towards that, then (the software company) pulled out," Commissioner Richard Stevens said. "So we switched over to TerraScan."

Piercy said he received a lot of positive feedback on the county's inspectors. He did suggest creating a written process, saying the department relies on some people who have been with the department for a long time.

"It's all based on this historical knowledge of how things are done and how we're going to do them tomorrow," he said. "I really believe that is a bad way to operate in any kind of department. It's really good to have some sort of written policies."

He said the policies can't anticipate every situation, but it helps to have some basic guidelines for how certain applications are reviewed.

"If it's done by a licensed engineer, here's the guidelines of how you do the review. If it's done by a design professional ... it's done kind of in this way," Piercy said. "It's not a difficult thing to put those together because they're all inside of people's heads. They do it every day. It's just a matter of taking that and writing it down."

Piercy recommended a customer feedback survey, allowing the commissioners and administrators to know how the department is performing.

"The way we set this up in the past was our customer feedback forms did not go back to the department, they went to the commissioners' office," he said. "Then the commissioners would share those with the director and others in the department as warranted."

Swartz questioned whether people only would submit comments about bad experiences.

"It's human nature to respond to those when we have a gripe, as opposed to a compliment," she said.

When Piercy was initially faced with feedback forms, he was initially afraid of the responses, but found the majority were positive, he said.

Community Development Director Dave Nelson is expected to submit a written response to the commissioners in March.