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4) Bnilding Inspections & Permits <br /> <br />City Administrator Norman stated that City staff has been studying permits and inspections since <br />the fall of last year. Curt Boganey, who has served in a variety of roles with the City until <br />recently, has been facilitating most of the internal analysis efforts. His study has encompassed <br />areas of building permits and inspections that include revenues expectations and obstacles, State <br />Building Code rule changes, and building permit software. The 2003 Minnesota State Building <br />Code is in the final stages of the rule process and is expected to be published and effective early <br />in March 2003. The Code will become effective five working days after publication. <br />Municipalities that enforce the State Building Code will need to update their building code <br />ordinance to reflect the new building code in order to enforce it properly. Mr. Boganey has <br />reviewed the rule-making process and has provided his analysis and recommendation in a <br />memorandum dated February 27, 2003, which the Council received. Staff has been studying <br />building permit software, which has included Permit Works, and a permit program through <br />Logis, and the expenditure has been budgeted. <br /> <br />Councihnember Cook inquired if all the information would be stored off-site with the Logis <br />program. <br /> <br />Assistant City Administrator Nelson explained that presently, the information would be stored <br />within the P1MS system at Logis, but they are moving towards not having the connection to <br />Logis in the near future. <br /> <br />Councihnember Cook inquired if staff felt that it would be a problem with the City's current <br />computer system to store the information at City Hall. <br /> <br />Assistant City Administrator Nelson explained that they have recently upgraded the system at <br />City Hall so she did believe that there would be a problem with storing the information locally. <br /> <br />City Administrator Norman explained that currently the City handles all of their permits on hard <br />copy, which has brought forward many concerns. The hard copies are difficult to manage and do <br />not provide beneficial information. They hope that by implementing the system and having a <br />few internal auditing systems in place there will be more checks and balances on the permitting <br />process. During Mr. Boganey's review he discovered that the City was not charging for certain <br />categories or were charging less than they should be. <br /> <br />Councilmember Elvig stated that in reviewing the permit fees the City has charged there does not <br />seem to be any commonality on any of the valuations. <br /> <br />City Administrator Norman replied that that is his serious concern because the City could be <br />loosing short of $80,000. He noted that there has recently been some tough employee <br />evaluations completed because of the issue. <br /> <br />City Council Work Session/March 4, 2003 <br /> Page 10 of 16 <br /> <br /> <br />