Building a Fire
Under the
Building
Department

As city manager of Zenith City, you are under pressure from the city council to do something about the growing backlog in the Building Department. Each month, the division receives more requests for building permits than it issues. And so the backlog grows.

During last fall’s campaign for the city council, the candidates—both challengers and incumbents—were bombarded by complaints from homeowners, contractors and developers. They couldn’t get the department to complete the necessary plan reviews and, thus, to provide them with the necessary building permits. None of the new members of the council were elected on this issue, but all of them think that the backlog is something that your administration should fix—and fix soon.

Nobody knows exactly how big the backlog is. This is part of the problem. The department’s tracking system is antiquated. No one can log onto the city’s intranet and download the key pieces of data: how many building permits were requested or issued last month, last year, so far this year.

You can get some data of course. In fact, Juan Reyes, the director of the department, gives you a quarterly report, and more frequent updates when you ask for them. But to every such report, he attaches a cover memo with the boilerplate caveat: “Until the Building Department gets its computerized tracking system working, these data may be subject to errors.” Indeed, both you and Reyes accept that the quarterly data are not accurate.

Nevertheless, Reyes, together with Regina Jefferson, the city’s information technology chief, and Computer Gurus Inc., a consulting firm that has provided the city with excellent work in the past, are making progress. They are committed to having the computerized tracking system fully working by the beginning of the next fiscal year. You are confident that they can meet this deadline.

But an accurate tracking system won’t repair the department’s productivity breakdown. It will tell you how well—or how badly—the division is doing. But it won’t fix the fundamental problem. And it certainly won’t assuage the concerns of citizens or members of the city council.

So once Reyes has solved the technology piece, you and he have to go to work on the human dimension. You have to improve significantly the department’s plan review process.

Not that the Building Department should review each request for a building permit on precisely the same time schedule. Some building plans are simple; some are complex. It doesn’t take as much time to review the plans for a homeowner’s new garage as it does for a new office building. Still, for both, the department needs to reduce the time it takes to issue the permit.

In general, Reyes’ work force seems competent enough. When people complain about the Building Department, they focus on how long the plan review process takes; they don’t complain about the quality of the review. Indeed, when one of the department’s decisions is challenged, that judgment is usually upheld.

The staff members of Zenith City’s Building Department are friendly and competent—just slow. Thus, Reyes’ challenge is to improve the inadequate speed of his work force without sacrificing its excellent quality.

But can he do it? Can you do it?

After all, once the tracking system is working, and once you and Reyes begin the push to increase productivity, you can expect to hear some griping about the quantity-quality trade-off. And you can expect some resistance. Indeed, the leadership of the local public employees’ union has already asked to meet with Reyes about the rumors of a “speed-up.”

Nevertheless, Zenith City does provide the department with adequate resources: the size of its budget, the number of experienced people assigned to conduct plan reviews, the technological and human support available to these employees, and the training of these personnel. On all of these input dimensions, Zenith City compares quite well with municipalities of similar size. But on the output side, your city doesn’t measure up. All of your department heads would like to have more money and people, and Reyes is no exception. But once the Building Department gets its new computerized tracking system working, more resources won’t fix its core problems.

Reyes is quite a competent manager. He isn’t particularly imaginative. He lacks the personal flair that gets people’s attention or the public charisma that convinces people they can do the impossible. But he can get the job done. He definitely has in the past.

Zenith City has lots of these dedicated, solid public managers. So does every city in the country. So does every business. Indeed, although it was only last summer that you promoted Reyes to run the Building Department, he has (you are convinced) developed the technology needed to create a state-of-the-art tracking system.

But it is one thing to get the technology working. It is quite another to get the people working. And, here, you think, Reyes needs a little of your help.

For Bob Behn's approach to this month's public management dilemma — or to post your own ideas — click here.

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