(From Press Release) – Earlier this week, the City of Davis received a report from the Yolo County Grand Jury titled The Looming Crisis of Yolo County City Pension and Retirement Medical Costs. The report outlines the increasing costs for each of the four cities in Yolo County to provide retirement benefits to employees through the California Public Employee Retirement System (CalPERS). Specifically, the report suggests that the four Yolo cities have not been transparent to the public in providing information related to the cost of providing retirement benefits.
While the City of Davis will provide a more thorough formal response to the report, as required by law, once staff and the City Council have had adequate time for review, and while we wholeheartedly concur with the Grand Jury that transparency is critical to the public discussion on this topic, the City does believe that the issue has been a significant part of the public discourse over the past few years. The City is likewise committed to ensuring that the discussion continues into the future.
The City of Davis has taken extra efforts over the past two years to provide information related to pension and other post retirement benefit costs, both short and long term, to the public, and we will continue to do so over the coming months and years. Below is a brief accounting of outreach where City representatives have discussed pension and other post-employment benefit (OPEB) costs:
- City’s Finance and Budget Commission has made this a central theme of many of its publicly noticed discussions over the past two years. The City’s actuarial consultant, John Bartel, has presented to the commission at public meetings in 2016 and 2017, walking the commission and the public through the City’s pension issues.
- The City developed a long-term fiscal model to show the effect of all General Fund obligations, including pension and retiree medical costs, over the next twenty years. This model was
rolled out during multiple public meetings with the City Council and the Finance and Budget Commission. It has been widely referred to over the course of public discussion, and an abbreviated version of the model is available for the public to use. The City Council utilizes the model in planning for the annual budget, during labor negotiations and in other fiscal decisions. - As part of the fiscal forecast model, starting with Fiscal Year 2017-18, the City added an entire chapter to its annual budget document specifically on forecasting. The chapter details the issues surrounding increased costs related to pensions. Pension issues are highlighted in the City Manager’s Transmittal letter and in the public presentations to the City Council.
- Both city staff and city councilmembers have spoken about pension costs at organizational meetings, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary, and the Kiwanis.
- Mayor Robb Davis penned several articles over the past four years addressing pensions and post-employment benefit costs. These articles appeared in the Davis Enterprise, on the Davis Vanguard, and on social media outlets.
- The City Council has been working to educate and inform employee groups during labor negotiations and has reached cost-share agreements with several groups.
“As Mayor, I have written and spoken frequently about these issues and they have been dealt with openly in at least 10 publicly noticed meetings in the last two years alone,” said Mayor Robb Davis in response to the report. “Starting in 2016, in several articles published in local news sources and public presentations to the Chamber of Commerce’s State of the City event and local service clubs, I laid out the challenges Davis is facing vis-a-vis pensions. I used actuarial analysis done by Bartel to communicate the probable increases in pension costs over the next 10-15 years. Bartel, himself, in 2016 and 2017, at the City Council’s request, discussed the same data with our Finance and Budget Commission in publicly noticed meetings. Over the course of three additional meetings in 2017 and 2018 our fiscal consultant Bob Leland revealed the same data in the City’s new fiscal model. We discussed pension and OPEB liabilities during public meetings on Council Goal setting and budget decisions in 2016 and 2017. All this to say that we have been transparent and forthcoming about the challenges related to pension and OPEB liabilities.”
In addition to outreach, the City Council has been making efforts to reduce City obligations. The City made a $2 million payment from General Fund reserves in 2017 to pay down a portion of its unfunded liability for retiree medical costs. The Council has negotiated with labor groups so that employees pay a larger percentage of costs than is typical for other California cities. Both Fire and Police employees contribute 12% of salary to cover their shares of retirement costs, 3% more than is required by CalPERS. Two other labor groups have just agreed to pay in excess of the required 8% of salary if PERS costs increase beyond what is currently expected over the next few years. And, of course, employees new to the PERS system since 2013, receive reduced retirement benefits, as per the requirements laid out in the California Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act of 2013, also known as “PEPRA”. Each of these actions serves to address the City’s ongoing pension liabilities.
The City has placed a great deal of effort in developing a long range forecast model to include projected PERS costs, along with other City needs, costs and revenues. The model is intended to be both realistic and robust to allow staff, the City Council and the public to see the costs and effects of rising costs. The graph below illustrates the increasing pension costs, which are estimated to reach a peak by 2026 before starting to subside.
Rising pension costs are a real issue. It is also a complicated issue statewide that takes time to address. The City of Davis and its City Council agree that transparency and outreach are crucial and look forward to continuing and intensifying our engagement efforts with the broader community, amongst other leaders throughout Yolo County and across the state.
What a hoot! Don’t you just love irony?
It was only last Tuesday that I was before Council complaining that the Employee MOUs (with employee raises and impacts on future pension costs) should not be on the Consent Calendar but a regular agendized item for transparency. (See Vanguard article on 6/21 – “Council approved new employee MOUs after pushback against criticism“).
After my comments I was basically called a liar by Brett (“I just take personal offense that somebody’s going to come to public comment and basically make a bunch of false accusations, when the reality is quite different.”) and demonized by Lucas (“There is, unfortunately, this rush to demonize city employees”) who was clearly attempting to deflect my criticism of the Council’s non-tranparent shenanigans by falsely claiming I was critical of the employees.
And now here we find out that the City was sitting on a Grand Jury report essentially accusing them of non-transparency regarding employee compensation just as I had done.
Like I said, Don’t you just love irony!
The goal of most public employees is to make it as hard as possible for the public to find out what the “total comp” for anyone is. It is amazing how at first you see that someone has a low “salary” but find out that they get a free car, $6K a year for using their wife’s insurance, a housing allowance or a per diem. Years ago due to budget cuts the city my cousin worked for put a cap on “OT” (that would be paid out in the next paycheck) but let people earn “vacation” when working overtime (that would not be paid out until they retired). He was was paid more than the President of the United States the year he retired (at 51) thanks to the over $200K in “vacation” he earned working OT. He is back working full time in his late 50’s as a Sheriff making a six figure salary plus the six figure pension he gets for the police force he “retired” from and will soon “retire” again with two pensions (but no big vacation cash out this time since the new department does not allow people to earn vacation working OT)
https://www.mercurynews.com/2012/10/13/californias-retiring-state-workers-cash-in-vacation-for-big-bucks/
There is no irony. As the press release makes clear, we have talked about, met about, discussed, disclosed, and debated the pension and OPEB costs often over the past 2+ years. The fact that 1) people chose not to read what I wrote; or 2) were not present when it was discussed in Chambers or in the FBC meetings, cannot take away from the fact that this has been dealt with in publicly noticed meetings at least a dozen times since I got on the City Council. Even the MOU issue that you seem to want to create a scandal over was previewed in our budget, which was discussed twice before Tuesday night, and in an article that Rochelle and I published in the VG and Enterprise two weeks ago.
I would defy you or anyone to find another City Council or Mayor that has spoken about, written, or discussed the issue of pensions and OPEB as much as this Council or me.
Robb – I agree that you have been very upfront about this issue and the problems that we face in the future – the rest of the Council not so much so. I also agree that you have raised the issue of cost containment repeatedly but failed to get a 2nd from the other Council members or any support from Staff to pursue any real change.
And therein lies the problem – you raised these issues on a number of occasions but nothing ever got done because there was not the will on the Council or Staff to make tough decisions to get our finances in order. So who on the Council will not only spearhead this discussion in the future but also demand that something be done about these problems?…Dan, Gloria?
It is simply false to say nothing has been done. Read the press release. Read the MOUs. Ask how many other cities are taking real steps to negotiate give-backs on pension or medical. Ask how many took steps in good years to pay down OPEB. How many are putting money away each year to pay down other liablites.
The Grand Jury report claims a lack of transparency on our part. That is wrong. They are wrong. And any person who blithely quotes the report without honestly acknowledging what WE, I say WE, because it was not just me, have done is bent on projecting a tired narrative that may have been true a decade ago but no longer is.
I sometimes wonder why are the newly minted budget hawks were 10 and 15 years ago when zero money was being put into pensions, lavish pension plans were being approved, and large salary increases offered. Where were all the people who, today, scream for action when the table was being set for the fix we find ourselves in.
I will own the errors I have made but I will not own that which was handed to me, and I and my colleagues are left to deal with the consequences. . To say we have done nothing is simply not true. As I said the other night–people who are making these claims either have selective memory or are simply not paying attention.
Re: Pension Problems – Paying down a few million in pensioners’ medical obligations and making the employees “maybe” pay 1% more of their salary while handing them 6 to 10% raises are not real fixes to our pension problems and you know it. Any real solution requires a dramatic shift in how our employees are compensated. It is not enough to just say, “We’ve started the conversation”, This conversation was started 8 years ago when Joe Krovoza was first made mayor but some of our same City Council members then also resisted addressing the problem. When Joe left the Council the conversation stopped until you started trying to get movement again a few years ago
But I fear our next Council will not up to the task either because it takes real guts to not only raise the issue but actually do something about it. Otherwise we foist these pension problems on our children and new employees in the future. And when a big recession eventually does come, the millenials will simply say, “Screw it! You old people made these outlandish pension promises to yourselves. We are not going to be bound by them”…and then the train wreck comes. It is incumbent on our generation to fix the pension problems we made before handing the reins of power over to our kids and future generations.
And I am hardly a “night person” on this issue of employee compensation and cost-containment as you infer. I vocally supported Joe Krovoza’s efforts years ago. And I have been before the Council at least 4 times in the past two years pleading with the Council to do the City-wide Staff efficiency study matching employee skills and compensation vs the needs of the City. This was a recommendation in the Mayer report when Dirk Brazil first became City Manager and the need was reaffirmed by the Finance and Budget Commission twice in following years. The F&B Commission even went so far as to say (paraphrased) “You better do it before you have a parcel tax”. Yet when I spoke to this specific need before Council, each time I got a polite, “Thank you for your comments” and then NOTHING happened.
Until the Council all agrees there is a real need to do this enterprise efficiency study and fundamentally change how the City is run and commands Staff to carry out their bidding, NOTHING will happen in the future either…and the train keeps barreling towards the bridge with the broken trestle.
This comment seems to underscore the root of the problem. When I first read about the “one percent contribution” (which isn’t even certain), I found it difficult to believe that this was being put forth. Seemed like a joke.
Ummm… one percentage point, not one percent. And, actually, it is a pretty important step.
Maybe the incoming mayor should appoint the outgoing mayor to head up a small commission, perhaps comprised of other former mayors (we have dozens!) who could devise a package of long-term fiscal solvency proposals. Ad hoc commission, short-term duration, with Dan Carson as council liaison.
Like the situation with global trade, the lack of sufficient action means the problem keeps snowballing and ends up rolling downhill and destroying the community.
Each year that we keep talking about it but fail to take necessary action, the more difficult it will be for the next successive leader to deal with.
The human psyche generally needs to feel forward progress. It is probably some biological and/or evolutionary trait to help ensure survival. We have an itch to not be stagnate and it motivates us to take risks to achieve the next thing. It is a growth-mindset. It is the stuff of Americans as our history of immigration required immigrants that were wired this way and required them to be constantly seeking forward progress of self.
In private business we say we either grow or die. It is a truth. It is probably a truth for individual humans too.
However, some people are wired more risk-averse. They don’t like change. It upsets them. They seek a life of consistency, security and stasis… where performance expectations are clear and unwavering. They are more often fixed-mindset people… preferring to get to a place of mastery of something and then perch on top of the hill to defend what they feel they have accomplished. For a fixed-mindset person they will become the most defensive, even hostile, when their sense of subject matter dominance is threatened. They dig in their heels and fight to block any change that would require re-invention.
Now, all organizations need a mix of growth and fixed-mindset people. There is ying-yang balance when both mindsets are engaged to optimize organizational decisions.
However, government employment attracts fixed-mindset people and detracts growth-mindset people. It has always been that way. If you have an entrepreneurial drive it would likely kill your spirit to take a government job. You won’t take that job… or if you do, you won’t be happy and eventually you will slide into a fixed-mindset waiting for your pension.
This gets me back to the point I want to make. No city leader is going to be able to be well-liked by city employees and also do the right things to stop the snowball of fiscal destruction. City business requires more growth-mindset… more solutions for forward progress. It needs to re-engineer and disrupt all city services and functions to get to greater value. The fixed-mindset employees of city government are going to resist like their lives depend on blocking change.
Frankly, if a city council member is well-liked by the city employees it is a clear sign that he/she did not do enough to try and enact the change the city requires.
I have no idea what this all means but will ask you 1) do you watch the City Council meetings (I have never seen you in Chambers); 2) do you actually read the articles I wriet and the press releases provided by the City that show what we are doing. You have decided on your narrative, it appears, and anything that does not fit it seems to be systematically rejected. We have taken action on these issues.
And as long as we are talking about “growth” (of the economic variety I assume), let’s talk about what is going on in Davis right now. I was at HM Clause for a speech on Thursday. Do you realize that the seed companies of the world are coming to Davis and Yolo County? Do you realize that we are seeing the rapid evolution of two economic “clusters” in our city and backyard? Do you see that now 4 firms on Drew are attracting international talent to study enzymes and their application, to creating more robust seeds and more resilient plants? All of this is happening in real time. Yes, despite the rhetoric to the contrary, businesses are coming to Davis for all the reasons we knew they would: proximity to the Bay but not the Bay; great schools; the University; talented workforce; safe community; friendly people…
None of this fits your rhetoric but it is happening and we have reached an inflection point at which success of these firms will attract others and breed success…
But go ahead and continue with your mindless drivel about destruction and the problem of elected officials being “well-liked.” I suppose that in your world a true leader can only be one who is reviled, detested and rebuked (apparently).
Robb – Not disputing any of this about economic development. But it is all for naught if our Council does not get its employee compensation house in order. Every bit of any new revenue derived from these ventures (sales tax or property tax) will still go for rising employee salaries and spiraling unfunded pension obligations and we will still have unpaved roads. Without compensation moderation and city-wide efficiency and cost containment efforts, we are spinning our wheels in the mud.
Alan – A few questions:
1) Can the City unilaterally impose an alternate pension approach on bargaining groups/union?
2) What would be the approximate upfront cost to the City of exiting CALPers?
3) Can the City unilaterally require bargaining groups to contribute more to pensions?
4) Can the City unilaterally require new employees to accept a defined contribution rather than a defined benefit pension program?
5) What is the current CALPers assumption about annual percent change in city employee salaries, and what does a 2% COLA each year lead to in terms of increases/decreases in projected CALPers requirements from the City? In other words, if we stick to 2% COLAs would our projected payments go up or down over the next 15-20 years (ceteris paribus) compared to what CALPers is projecting?
6) Besides road/bikepath/ sidewalk maintenance and upgrades, most park/greenbelt maintenance, and tree maintenance, what other core City services would you recommend outsourcing?
7) If you had to recommend one City program/process to be cut significantly in the budget, what would it be?
And finally, I want to be very careful in what I am about to say and do not want it to be misunderstood. When Joe and Rochelle came on to the City Council the state and the nation were in the worst recession since the Great Depression (I don’t think that is an overstatement). Cutting budgets, staff, and salaries were the only choices available to them. Besides those “recession era” councils, how many in the past 30 years have attempted any sort of fiscal constraint, laid out the reality of unsustainable pensions/OPEB, and taken steps to curb spending/address unfunded liabilities? The Krovoza/Swanson et al Councils began the process of laying out the fiscal and other unfunded liability realities of the city. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. The last two Councils have continued that task and charted a course forward. Though these efforts are not enough (I will grant you that), the Grand Jury report is wrong to characterize our actions as non-transparent or imply we have done nothing.
I started getting interested in the California pension system over ten years ago when a multi-millionaire friend who has done real well investing in real estate told me that his older brother a firefighter with a net worth of about half million (home equity not yet “cashed out for toys”, car, truck, ski boat, fishing boat, jet skis, snowmobiles, etc.) was blowing every penny of his $150K pension and not investing anything since it was “guaranteed”. He turned me on to this site that I have been checking out every month or so for years:
http://www.pensiontsunami.com/
Almost every public pension in America is in trouble and the only things that are going to save them is a miracle. The massive exponential growth has kept them solvent over the past 60 years has just hid the problem pushing it in to the future. Davis had a population of about 7K people 60 years ago and we are almost 10x bigger today. The state of CA has grown by about ~3x in the last 60 years. If Davis grows to 700K people in the next 60 years or CA grows to close to 120 million it won’t “fix the pension problem it will just hide it for longer as more people pay in to the funds taking longer for them to run out of money.
I know most people on pensions are not making a ton of money and it is the lower paid working class people with modest pensions that are going to get hit the hardest when the funds run out of money, the little changes that I have seen over the last ten years like the recent change in Davis are nice, but they just slow things down and can’t hide the fact that in the world today with low interest rates and a stock makete hittle bubble top pricing by very objective measure it takes a MASSIVE amount of invested money to pay even a modest pension every single month. Other than Warren Buffett there are not many people who can invest the pension contributions of an average teacher or firefighter and have the cash flow to pay them 50-90% of what they made their last year working until they die.
Rob is correct that the city really can’t do much since almost everyone making the rules in CA is going to get a big pension and they are all hoping that they will die before the S hits the fan/the pension funds run out of money. Rob has done more than any elected official I can think of to warn people of the problem and since none of us can really do anything to change the problem (there are not many judges or elected officials in CA that will do anything to cut their own pensions) we can just warn people retiring in good health at 50 to “save for a rainy day” since Bernie Madoff also “guaranteed” that his investors would get paid…
P.S. To Rob most people capitalize all the letters in PERS not CAL (CalPERS vs CALPers)
https://www.calpers.ca.gov/
1) Can the City unilaterally impose an alternate pension approach on bargaining groups/union?
Outsource.
2) What would be the approximate upfront cost to the City of exiting CALPers?
Could have done a bond when rates were low. There would be significant long-term cost savings to the city.
3) Can the City unilaterally require bargaining groups to contribute more to pensions?
Outsource.
4) Can the City unilaterally require new employees to accept a defined contribution rather than a defined benefit pension program?
Outsource.
5) What is the current CALPers assumption about annual percent change in city employee salaries, and what does a 2% COLA each year lead to in terms of increases/decreases in projected CALPers requirements from the City? In other words, if we stick to 2% COLAs would our projected payments go up or down over the next 15-20 years (ceteris paribus) compared to what CALPers is projecting?
Don’t know. But a 2% raise results in an increase of thousands of dollars present value in employee pension benefits. Either the raises need to be decoupled from the pension benefits, or the raises should be stopped in recognition of the present value of the pension benefits.
6) Besides road/bikepath/ sidewalk maintenance and upgrades, most park/greenbelt maintenance, and tree maintenance, what other core City services would you recommend outsourcing?
In addition to what you listed… city planning and development. Finance and accounting. Fire. To name a few.
7) If you had to recommend one City program/process to be cut significantly in the budget, what would it be?
Management. Needs to be a flatter organization with fewer managers.
Rob – as a leader of an organization with full responsibility and accountability for the financial health of that organization, I would have been fired long ago if I ran my business like the city runs its business.
And trust me, the remedies that I would need to implement (and that I have had to implement in my career) would result in unhappy employees.
If the city had to report its financials based on GAAP, the balance sheet would be so far underwater that some other government agency would need to step in and take over.
Except that the entire state is in the same position.
Jeff & Robb,
Echoing Robb’s comments, I give full credit to Rochelle and Joe for the cost reductions implemented under their watch. The County, itself, would have done well to follow their lead.
Davis’ lead in these fiscal reform movements, as carried forward under the past two Councils, have been as transparent as the system minders will allow (i.e. those that set the rules at GASB and their enforcers – the auditors and actuaries).
What has been missing from this conversation, and what particularly seems to irk Jeff, is any expectation that these various entities – i.e. cities, counties or states – would have any obligations or expectations of creating new revenue streams at the same time as costs were being trimmed. And just to clarify – imposing new taxes is not a form of revenue generation.
That very few in the the community live and work within the constraints of open market dynamics of increasing revenues through product development, new product introductions, transformative marketing campaigns, pursuit of new markets, and pursuit of new customers makes it a much more difficult task for our elected leaders – and the community as a whole – to grasp, discuss or explore the potential revenue opportunities available from such activities and how such strategies might be employed to enhance and improve the community and its finances.
The last time Council set the pursuit of revenue generation on par with its priority for cost containment was in 2011 – with dissolution of the City’s Business & Economic Development Commission, followed by appointment of the City’s Chief Innovation Officer. These were strategic moves, recognizing the ineffectiveness of the commission, while acknowledging the need for a recognized and experienced director to lead discussions about economic development and economic revitalization. When that strategy was terminated – then was the time to revisit the issues associated with economic development.
So, while our last several councils and what remains of the city’s core management staff have done yeoman’s work in terms of cost containment, transparency and maintenance of essential services, we are now entering a new era – an era focused on how best to grow our economic base without compromising Davis values and essential character.
How the new council proposes to move forward in developing a viable, future oriented strategy to re-position the city’s economic and employment base, and municipal revenues, on a sustainable footing will be the challenge for this and all future councils.
Based on events subsequent to GASB’s pronouncements in 2007, this Grand Jury’s recommendation are now a decade past due. Transparency is essential to trust, and that reality cannot be minimized. But there is a time for everything, and now is the time for Davis, and the County, to begin looking forward rather than casting blame on a problem that is now part of ancient history.
Well said.
Robb – As I said in my post to David’s earlier article about the MOUs, the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole over your head is “STOP DIGGING”. Granting 4 years COLAs (one retroactively) immediately after a failed tax measure is simply digging the hole deeper and passing the buck to future Councils and the next generation. I know you have sounded the alarm but the pension drawbridge is still down. “STOP DIGGING”!
Truth be told (might be a new concept for some, who have not-so-‘inherent biases’), ‘retroactive’ is a spurious term when considering that the City did not come to terms [whatever they might have been] before the end of the term of the then-existing MOU’s…
[moderator: edited]
DCEA has had no agreement (MOU) since the one imposed late in 2013… maybe we need a new HR director to deal with that…
Perhaps the City should impose a new one, for consistency’s sake?
This seems like a very useful conversation. I’ve edited and pulled some comments that seemed unnecessarily personal. Please stick to the topic.
Robb – Can’t answer your questions above about what changes in City programs are advisable. But what I can say is a darn good start in terms of defining what our City can do well and what it cannot would be to demand the top to bottom efficiency study recommended by the Mayer report and requested by the F&B Commission. I would additionally demand that performance metrics be established for every single job in the City with an independent oversight evaluation committee to review performance against these metrics every single year. Poor performers get booted out instead of being given routine raises every single year whether they are doing a good job or not. We have to stop rewarding people for just showing up and need to demand accountability. This requires an entirely new culture and mindset which I am convinced is beyond the capabilities of existing City management to implement.
That would be “Meyer”… guess am not allowed to correct your use of a person’s name. That correction previously disappeared, and I have a 50% certainty that this will be, as well…
For thinkers, (all four of you)
http://www.yolocounty.org/home/showdocument?id=50570
Interestingly, the Grand Jury is NOT transparent, as far as their website, as who there members are/were…
I’m wondering if Howard would want his real name on a document that talks about cutting pay and benefits to public employees?
I thought it was funny that the report Howard linked to said:
“Many city councils seem to have found it politically unpalatable or fiscally difficult to find adequate funding resources to make high enough payments to reduce unfunded pension and other post-employment benefit liabilities beyond the required payments.”
I would have written “EVERY city council in the county seem to have found it politically unpalatable or fiscally difficult to find adequate funding resources to make high enough payments to reduce unfunded pension and other post-employment benefit liabilities beyond the required payments.”…
Then, you should have applied to be on the Grand Jury… the link was to their report…
Perhaps the CC wouldn’t want their real names on anything…
[moderator: edited. Please stop the personal attacks.]
Apparently, my comment that “Yes, if I served on the Grand Jury, I’d want may name out there…” was considered a personal attack, or otherwise inappropriate… whatever…
I’d like to see a grand jury report regarding the city’s transparency in reference to the fiscal costs of various development proposals (and perhaps health concerns, for those living at any proposed site).
Ron… here’s the link to initiate that…
http://www.yolocounty.org/business/community/grand-jury#Requesting%20a%20Grand%20Jury%20Investigation
[moderator: edited]
Feel free to use the ‘tool’, Ron… if you don’t, don’t be surprised if the Grand Jury doesn’t take that up…
Question for Jeff:
Can the City unilaterally outsource all positions without meet and confer and negotiations with bargaining/union groups?
Methinks he is either/both “off-line” or knows not… there is an answer… then the question becomes, if it is “possible”, is it wise, is it what we want?…
Can anyone imagine the problems (just one of many City functions) involved in “outsourcing” the Community Development/Planning function? With perhaps a call center/staff in Madras, if they are the low bidders? San Bernadino? Cheyenne? Vegas? Bet those options would lower costs…
Happens all the time Howard. In fact a lot of cities outsource projects to outside plan-checkers and make the building permit applicant pay for it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/business/20maywood.html
Duh, Davis has been doing a lot of that for years… you just want to make it ALL, right?
And the applicants have always payed for the outside costs… ask any developer/home builder…
So, the planning applications for Trackside, Lincoln 40, Nishi, Sterling, should have been outsourced? OK… let try that… will be interesting… both cost and “benefits”…
You can take all the credit for the results…
The planning and development process is 90% code compliance. The planning commissions does the bulk of the upfront recommendations for the city council. There can be one staffer… an analyst… who works with the planning commissions and supports the council with respect to actually planning and city ordinances. However, the entire code compliance, inspections, etc… they can all be outsources.
Building permit applicants pay most if not all of the cost for this work anyway. The city is underwater with the employee pension obligations and has kept increasing fees… including impact fees.
Any cities you know of that have actually done this?
Then, let’s try that… one planning analyst… (at that level, they probably don’t have a degree in ‘planning’). And leave to “professionals” (Planning Commission, appointed by the Council, politically) the recommendations…
Implement immediately… so we can reap the benefits of less costs for the West Davis project… let’s reap that savings (to City and to the developer) ASAP!
Let’s go a step further… let’s eliminate all City employed engineers, except one with maybe an EIT, and handle all street maintenance functions, utility functions as all those would be out-sourced… gotta’ trust the judgement of the private sector, right? They’ll just be handling the invoices, after all… and “rubber stamping” them…
Let’s go for that as well, ASAP…
Just take full responsibility for those ideas and actions… that’s all I ask…
Bedminster Township has done it and so have others:
https://efficientgov.com/blog/2015/12/16/what-is-the-future-of-code-enforcement/
Did it with the tree maintenance folks about a decade ago.
https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/business/20maywood.html