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Hermiston creates separate building-inspections fund; city seeks a commercial electrical inspector to replace costly contracted inspections
Summary
The budget creates a new building-inspections fund to keep permit fees and costs aligned with state law; staff said accumulated fees of about $2.7 million will seed the $4.3 million operational budget and the city hopes to hire a commercial electrical inspector to replace expensive monthly contract payments to the state.
City Manager Byron Smith told the committee the proposed 2025-26 budget establishes a separate building-inspections fund to make permit and inspection revenues and expenses more transparent and to align with state law that restricts permit-fee usage to building-department activities.
Smith said the new fund will have an operational budget of about $4.3 million and carries roughly $2.7 million in fees accumulated over several years. "Permit and inspection fees are only to be used for the building department," Smith said; he added the fund will still pay allocated overhead to the general fund and IT for shared services.
On staffing, Smith explained the city currently contracts out commercial electrical inspections after its former in-house inspector left for another position and the city has been paying the state about $70,000 to $80,000 per month for those services. "We hope to find one (a commercial electrical inspector). They're tough to find," Smith said, adding that a potential hire could be a retiring journeyman electrician interested in the position.
Committee members asked whether the city would add an electrical inspector or continue contracting. Smith said hiring is the goal to reduce ongoing contract costs; staff noted the position is challenging to recruit because commercial electrical inspectors must be licensed journeyman electricians.
The committee reviewed the building-inspections fund presentation as part of the budget review; no separate committee vote was required beyond the overall budget approval.
