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Audit finds inconsistent fees, missing policy and monitoring gaps in Santa Clara permitting; city lays out fixes
Summary
An independent audit of the city’s building permit process found fragmented written procedures, inconsistent fee calculations and uneven performance monitoring. City staff told the council they have already deployed new digital tools, an expedited review pilot and a multi‑year roadmap to address the findings.
The Santa Clara City Council on Oct. 7 received an audit that found the city’s building permit process lacked comprehensive written policies, sometimes applied fees inconsistently and did not track performance or customer complaints in a formal, auditable way.
David Knowles, city audit manager, summarized the independent review by Baker Tilly: auditors sampled 45 permits and identified variability in plan‑review timeliness and instances where fee calculations did not consistently match the municipal fee schedule. The audit recommended creating formal policies and procedures, better monitoring of processing times and more training for…
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