BRADENTON BEACH – The city of Bradenton Beach hopes to hire a full-time in-house building official.
On April 16, the city commission reached consensus to advertise the full-time city employee position.
Since in-house official Bill Palmer resigned on Jan. 21, the city has utilized the contracted building official and building department services provided by Rob Perry and the Tew & Taylor firm that employs him.
“Right now, we have consultants,” Mayor John Chappie said during the April 16 meeting. “I’ve talked to Rob about it. In talking with staff, we think it’s best to just go ahead and advertise for a building official who would be an employee of the city; and by being an employee of the city, would also be the department head.”
As department head, the building official would oversee the building department staff, including the code enforcement officer and the permit clerks. The in-house building official would also be responsible for the building department’s annual budget.
“We have a smart guy here. Why are you trying to get rid of him?” Commissioner Robert Talham said.
“You’re misconstruing what I’m saying,” Chappie replied.
“The first option I see is go ahead and put it out and advertise for someone,” Perry told the commission.
“I’ll be here when that building official goes on vacation. I can bring inspectors here. I can help with plan review and assist the city. I want the best for the city,” Perry said.
Perry said Tew & Taylor would, or could, remain under contract to provide the city with additional building department-related services.
Perry said the second option would be Tew & Taylor taking over the city’s building department on a fee-sharing basis. Perry said Tew & Taylor would staff the building department and retain 85% of the permit fees paid to the city. The remaining 15% would go to the city.
“The city would have no expenditures. We’re paying for our own insurance. The city doesn’t have to worry about a thing,” Perry said.
“You’re doing a great job, but just looking at your invoices from January 1 until March 30, we’ve spent $71,000. That’s one quarter (of the year),” Commissioner Scott Bear said. “Not that we didn’t get good work, but I think we have to explore looking for a building official. We will still need some of your resources for plans review, but we can’t sustain $280,000 for the building department.”
Police Chief and Public Works Director John Cosby expressed his concerns about continuing to contract the building official’s duties, and with Perry’s revenue sharing proposal.
“Let’s say we get to the end of the contract and he pulls out, or we pull out. Then there’s nobody in that department,” Cosby said. “We need to have our own staff so we can maintain the quality work that’s being done and make sure the citizens and the businesses get the service they need. And the only way you’re going to do that is if you control it.
“The other problem is at some point the city’s going to be built out,” Cosby said. “There may not be enough building fees coming in to support the full staff that Rob’s talking about. We may see that the building department has to be reduced in size in order to meet the fact that the major developments are no longer with us.”
Commissioner Ralph Cole said he favored the city attempting to hire an in-house building official.
“The consensus is we want to throw the line out and see what we can catch as far as a building official who would be an employee of the city,” Chappie said.
If an in-house building official isn’t found, it’s expected that Perry would continue serving as a contracted building official employed by Tew & Taylor.
The city also recently issued a request for proposals seeking the services of an in-house city planner who would replace former city planner Luis Serna.
