Mel Gibson, assistant to the city manager, opened a City of Buckeye workshop presentation by telling the council staff were providing an update and not seeking policy direction.

Dr. Lisa Custer, the process-improvement consultant who reassessed the department’s work, told the council the development services group has shifted culture and produced measurable results after three years of organized continuous-improvement (CI) work. “There is joy in the organization,” Custer said, adding the program has created “limitless possibilities.”

The reassessment highlighted specific tools and outcomes. Custer said staff are using an idea-collection platform (Connexus) that held about “375 ish ideas” as of her November review, with roughly “208 complete.” She reported roughly $1 million in productivity savings and about “2,780 hour save,” which she described as “about 1.4 full time employees” of annual work time. Those figures were presented as program estimates rather than audited accounting.

Custer credited three linked elements for the gains: documented standard operating procedures and checklists that produce consistent reviews; a shift to EnerGov as a single source of truth for permitting workflow; and the deliberate use of technology such as Bluebeam, GIS and Power BI visualizations. “EnerGov drives the workflow,” she said, noting staff moved from avoiding the system to managing most of their daily work from it.

The consultant and staff gave multiple operational examples: a new architect completing substantive review work in about six weeks thanks to checklists and linked tools; QR codes placed on plan sets that take external users directly to relevant records; and virtual inspections conducted with video tools that enabled multiple reviews in a short period. Custer said one inspector’s extra five minutes of clarifying code requirements on a plan likely removed a two-week review cycle.

City staff and Custer identified remaining opportunities, including extending CI beyond development into adjacent departments, building a small internal facilitator program (a light “green belt” model) to run local value-stream sessions, expanding customer self-service in the portal, improving automatic notifications for file uploads, and further leveraging EnerGov modules. “What would we like to do in the next year? What would we like to do in 5 years?” Custer asked the council as she described a technology roadmap approach.

Mel Gibson thanked Custer and staff for the progress and emphasized that the presentation was an update rather than a request for council action. Gibson said the reported decrease in customer escalation calls was an early sign of improved service.

No formal motions, votes or policy decisions were taken during the presentation; presenters and council members confined the session to updates and recommendations for staff follow-up. Custer and staff recommended continuing the CI rollout, adding targeted training for internal facilitators, and pursuing incremental EnerGov improvements tied to a technology roadmap.

The presentation concluded with council members thanking Custer and staff for the reassessment and the work to date. The council did not set deadlines or adopt formal directives during the workshop.