enough plan checkers. mechanical engineers. there was a memo that we should mention that stuff here, and that is great, and i am delighted with that, but i think we can do better. that is what we are saying. >> we have requisitions out now for clerks that have been out now before siw since before thanksgivings. we put the requisitions in. i know the mayor's office understands our extreme insistence we get these approved and are approved at the level we put them in. we are once again trying to get -- trying to continue to get this through. the problem now is two-fold. one full this we a ticket

approval from department of human resources, and the second is a more serious reason, which is some strange reason they continue to hold up the results of the tests that were done for the 1408's. as of yesterday i got a memo from one of my employees saying he was told there is still some delay on the testing. once we get those and add new ones come that we will end up having 17 clerks, which should move things forward. is it enough? i think right now we actually do not know because we never had that money on the flooany on th.

we can put it on the comptroller's reserve or something so we can say we want to make sure funding is available in order to go forward with the positions or port more positions in the budget and see what happens. we have a 2% -- we are projecting a 2% increase in revenues. i would be a little uncomfortable taking that up to three. maybe we can take it up to 2.5 and fund positions. commissioner murphy: i am sure the way you do things of there is to sit down and examine plumbing and permit services and ask them what their wish list is for the next year. i am sure you have done that with electrical and plumbing. have you done that with the people on the fifth floor/

? that is directed at the director. >> yes, the executive team does come in, and it except the actiy director did come in and put in his wish list. on that list there were no engineers. i am the one that added the engineers for the positions that were asked for right now, and i added an engineer to technical services as you see. the problem is right now with the list on the engineers that they have to go through another testing because they expired the previous list, and we have requisitions and four engineers that are not filled. they cannot be filled until the interview and it passed by -- until they are approved by the mayor's budget. but we will be filling

positions in the engineering department this year, and then we are adding it next year. so we do have the right to come back for a supplemental in january if we want to, or we can put -- we can add money to the budget and ask for more decisions if you think we're being too conservative on the estimates of the revenue, but it has to balance. if we add more engineers, we will have to add more revenue. and commissione commissioner murphy: what would be the backup plan if we get a jump in permits? >> we have added temporary salaries, and that is where we would bring in temporary people. we have added quite a lot into temporary salaries. rather than premium full-time

positions, so if the economy does skip again, we can lead the temperatures go and keep permanent staff. that is the problem we had before, we had so many permanent staff, that we had to let permanent staff go. our last inspector off the list is coming back on monday from all of the people we have let go. we also have people in other departments that want to come back to work for dbi, and we're looking to bring them back, and they are already fully trained. we're doing things behind the scenes that you will not see until the end of the fiscal year, until we get the positions approved. we had six clerks on hold now better for the fifth floor, and they will be trained on the first floor before they go up to the fifth floor, so it will be fully staffed at all times. the other part of the problem

is our current consider system takes almost 25 minutes to issue one permits with all of the things they have to go through in the current permit system. it is not just going up and handing someone at check. they have to figure out fees on the permits and that appear again electrical and plumbing permits are little bit faster, and we did at a clerk to help with those. those are going very well. it is the other permits that have to wait until the end of it to see if they need impact fees or other fees. that is what the court is doing. -- what the clerk is doing. the fees are not secured until the end of the permit process, and that is where it is taking time to hold up. and to get your permit issued, it is not the plan check time, it is more on the permit issuance side because of all of the things the clerk has to enter into the computer system

that is manual now that could be on the tape -- automated. i think we have all been concerned about stopping and how quickly we could bring on staff. i think what we have to be clear about is we have had a lot of permanent positions opened and improved -- approved, but we cannot bring them on because servals ocivil service has been slow and human resources has been inadequate in terms of testing and having a good pool of people we can regulate coal from. i think it the department can be more aggressive, i think we can. i think regarding human resources, we can say we have permanent positions. we would always rather hire full-time positions.

if you will not let us fill the positions because you're not up to date, then let us bring back more prop f people and more temporary people. i do not think the answer budget-wise is to add more positions we cannot fill, because other city departments are gridlocked. >what i would like to do is fill every single open division. and if we do not have enough, then let's ask for more? right now clearly we have too many vacancies. i think we can be more aggressive, but it is not a budgetary problem to me. they have been approved by the mayor's office. human-resources cannot move on it. they did not give us list. why is that? that is where it -- i understand the frustration, but part of

thie part of the city. commissioner lee: i am not all that sure of what we can do, but i am thinking if we were a private business and have a lack of employees for staff, i would think i would hire the highest position person first, and they would have the knowledge and skills to be flexible and do more job efficiencies/ . let them do clerking work and inspections. they are qualified to do time check or something like that. i am confused on why we're focusing on the clerk's and not trying to get back to the engineers. >> we have the engineers

positions with the clerks. we are asking to fill every vacant engineering position. we just had someone retire in a 52-14 position. we're asking to fill that position. we want more positions, but the 52-41 list, the engineers that do the plan check is the list under concern, because the previous list that we did have approved requisitions for, the people will not -- were not suitable to the hapacting the deputy's list. now we have a new list. we have exhausted all of the engineers we let go before, so actually we are getting more engineers then we have in the

past. we will be filling the 52-14 vacancy. we have asked for that, and i have asked for every 52-41 requisition that i have for this year. we're not leaving the engineers positions vacant for attrition. we're leaving other positions vacant. you have to realize i have to leave at least 25 positions vacant for attrition. that is just something the comptroller's office or board of supervisors does -- excuse me, personnel list, they will take and say you have so many positions and they have to keep this many positions vacant. the will have to take the money out that we programmed in. commissioner walker: i tend to concur with commissioner mar

that we clearly have open positions aimed at most of the opinions expressed by most of the other commissioners. i think rather than adding to something that we are unaware of whether we really need at this point, our focus should be on pressuring the other departments, maybe through the mayor's office. i see the mayor's representative here. to actually free up those positions. i think that sending a message along with the budget that we are continuing to have problems delivering the service needed to run our department if they continue to leave these positions unfilled will result in us adding more positions that may or may not be needed. that is not really how you want to budget. i think that these are all appropriate concerns, but i do think we need to aim them at the open positions and really trying

to get us some help in making sure we run the department right. >> i like what commissioner mar said, giving us a little insight on the human rights and all of the other stuff, but, you know, we -- commissioner walker talks about putting pressure on the mayor's office to get people from other departments -- i mean, we do not need anybody from -- we do not need any gardeners over here at our apartment. we need people that are qualified to work at dbi, and there is a process for that. i do not think we have done a good enough job internally in taking care of the stakeholders, the people that write the checks, the people back keep this department -- the people that pay your salary. i just do not think we have done

a good enough job there. talk about inspectors in the field being busy -- if you do not have the permits approved, the inspectors in the field are not going to be busy. it all starts back essentially on the fifth floor, and that is what we're talking about today. it is great we are having this conversation. it is open, letting everybody know what we want here. commissioner lee: back to that, let's see if we can identify how many building inspector, electrical inspector, and plumbing inspectors will actually be helping out on the fifth floor. >> if you look at page 16 and 17 of the budget, the original, we are going to have one plumbing inspector on the fifth floor. we're going to have one -- well,

that is -- i'm sorry? and then there is one of electrical that is going to be on the fifth floor. commissioner lee: these all say "for field inspection." >> there is an -- the -- there's an error in terms of one of those electrical inspectors online 3. that should have said the fifth floor. we apologize for that. commissioner lee: how about we get this corrected and then let

us review it again? commissioner hechanova: commissioners, additional comments? >> there is a change in the overtime for building inspection. is that related to this discussion, or is this related to the outreach programs? >> it is related to this subject, but basically, if we cannot fulfil the planchette, we have some of them on over time, so you want to make sure. that is also the case when we have inspections that, like, for the high-rises, a lot of the inspections have to be done off

hours. that will help cover -- you know, covered by over time. essentially, the way it works is that the budget comes in. it is managed at the level of salary, so we have budgeted over time, but if we do not use that and we actually are able to higher positions and do not need to have the overtime, the money is still there for that, it is a little bit fungible. >> the other question i had was -- >> one more comment before you pause it. >> sorry, there is one other thing pointed out. the budget reflects a 4.6% increase in salary because at this point in time, we have open contracts with the unions and the furlough days are supposed to expire, so when they expire, it jumps the salaries up, so

some of the incremental is because of that. >> my other question is -- how is it that we are retiring cars at 22,000 miles and 39,000 miles? where are these cars being driven? >> the reason the mileage is low is because these are used by the inspectors. all the inspectors have a car, and they go between short areas because they are located in districts. the problem we are having with our vehicles is one, they are old. two, central shops cannot fix a lot of our cars, the mileage does not mean that much. it is more the fact that some of the cars are not being fixed right because they do not have enough staff or there is something -- it is like having a bad card. eventually, you want to get rid of it. and even though we have the low

mileage, we are not the easiest on our cars. police are the hardest on their cars, but we are not, you know -- it is not like treating your car the way you do your own personal car. we chose these by -- we went to the divisions and asked about the worst cars they had, said the criteria was -- so the criteria was age and mileage, but there were also criteria of whether the cars were operable, they have a lot of problems, you send it to the shop and it comes back broken so we have to send it back. that sort of thing. commissioner murphy: you are saying a 5-year-old car might have only 9,000 miles on it? >> a 5-year-old car might have lower miles on it, then you as an individual might want to have to replace it, but given that the maintenance on them is -- it

is difficult management of maintenance, and they agree that they are having problems fulfilling everybody's need for maintenance. i mean, we have engines blowup. cars that are not very old, we have had engines blow up. >> in the department we went to and talked about our plan to buy new cars, and they were satisfied with our selection, where they the same ones who advise us on buying these, do you know? probably before your time, but it they are lemons -- the priuses should be more reliable. i do not know that the chevy, but anyway, a lot of money. >> the city has a list of approved cars. the department selects the cars they want. they get approved. but to the extent that you would

call it approval that those are the right cars to buy, it is more -- they look at it more now than they used to in years past, and, there is the green, clean air, all that, so we get even more scrutiny than we have in the past. we came to a consensus, which had to happen prior to the mayor's office agreeing to build the budget. they always question us on why we are not using these -- you know, a longer time, but we have explained that our need for the vehicles makes it low mileage but reliable cars. commissioner hechanova: commissioners? commissioner mar: -- commissioner murphy: just one more thing. in fairness, our director tweaks this budget, and she was -- i

believe she is definitely on the right track as far as some of the changes she is talking about making, and i appreciate that. i just want to say that. >> thank you. commissioner hechanova: commissioners? >> let me add my comment also before we put it to action. the category being that we are trying to propose this year's budget, but also, coincident with that is for the second year, given one, operating and one being a project that will be adjustable relative to what we will perform this year. dbi as an enterprise department has also the category by which we are kind of lagging if we do not have the personnel or at least the budget in place necessary to address the issues relative to categories that we

could almost fill those vacancies by virtue of what is the pool of technical talent that will not only need now, but also a pool that basically is being impeded by the ability to hire and bring them on. effectively staff to meet the current needs. and if we are a year away from getting these people on board, we are at risk for not only this coming year, the balance of this coming year, but for -- but the categories that we seem to be trying to play catch-up when we almost have to be ahead of the curve, by virtue of the least financially and monetarily burying the budget as opposed to trying to go back there to ask.

and so, the economic impact here is where we are trying to process the permits in the most efficient way by having personnel there because that really has the ripple effect by bringing on board sooner instead of trying to play catch up on the economic side of both construction jobs and the ripple effect associated with that. so it seems like we need more adjustment in the category of information on the material content and some of the strong concerns here by all the commissioners are really a reflection that maybe there is additional information that we can provide or want to see.

commissioner walker: i think this budget lays out the appropriate level of staffing. the issue is that there are and the positions that have not been filled, so the results have not been experienced at the level of the fifth floor, etc. i do not think it is a problem with the budget. i think it is a problem with our ability to fill positions. very different. i think that in talking about deficiencies of staff, we really have to look at how many open positions there are. that is really the key here. otherwise, we are spending in the wind. we do not even know. when you have this many positions open, it is really difficult to tell what the effects are. i think the budget is fine. it adds sufficient personnel for next year and the following year. we also, like you said, can come back if we have a huge uptick of

business. we have that capacity. i am sure we would be supported in adding service positions, but we also have next year's budget to amend as we get to next year. i think that what we see here is we have been adding staff to address the issues, to do the kind of reforming we are doing. we have added positions, and they are in the process of being killed. if we could speed that up, it would be helpful for us to see if these issues of concern are really issues of understaffing or just under filling. right now, i think it is under filling. commissioner lee: i will tell everybody where i'm coming from. i have been getting comments from the public, concerns that

the process will make things we fear for them to get permits, and i do not believe so. i truly hope we do not make it link here linklengthie -- lengthier. i was hoping it would be up and running three or four months ago, and unfortunately, it is not, so we do not have any numbers to justify saying that it is not working well or we need to solve something. but i will say let's give it the benefit of the doubt that it is working with the number of staff that we have appropriated, meaning of the vacancies get filled and stuff, and i appreciate that, but also, we are looking at next year's budget and saying that if workers permitting, it is going to increase, we need to act fast. to me, it felt confusing that we would add more inspectors on the

back then, but not plan checkers on the front end. today, i hear that some of the inspectors will become plan checkers, but i do not see that in the documents here today. i would like to may be asked staff to make that change in the documents, reflect that some of these inspectors will be called up to the fifth floor said that the fifth floor will be able to run. that is my suggestion. commissioner hechanova: additional comments? >> yes, that is just a clerical error in the budget. the money is the same, whether we put the staff on the fifth floor or the inspectors. why they are saying there are electrical inspectors is because they will work out of the electrical division and will not work out of the over-the-

counter fifth floor division. they will be assigned upstairs, just as the engineers are assigned upstairs and the clerks are assigned upstairs. the clerks we are getting will be trained on the first floor and will be available for the fifth floor if the fifth floor does not have enough clerks to service the public that is coming in. same thing with the engineers and the electrical inspectors. the problem being now we have to check plans for solar. we have to check the mechanical plans and the gray water for the plumbing. everything that has been put in the codes, they have been planned checking on the third floor right now without any revenue. that is why they are going up to the fifth floor, and we are going to track it. if we find that it is not if we find that it is not speeding up the process as it is