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Matrix Consulting outlines aggressive fee-study timeline; commissioners press for protections that fees fund DBI services
Summary
Matrix Consulting presented a cost-of-service user-fee study for DBI with a fast timeline to feed into the March budget cycle. Commissioners asked that the study account for business process reengineering, interdepartmental cost allocation and potential impacts on small projects; industry representatives urged that fee revenue remain dedicated to department operations.
Matrix Consulting senior consultant Mark Carpenter told the Building Inspection Commission on Jan. 16 that his team's cost-of-service user-fee study will catalog departmental activities, estimate full costs (direct, indirect and cross-departmental), establish time estimates by position and run a comparative survey of peer jurisdictions. The consultant said an aggressive timeline is necessary to incorporate recommendations into the city's budget process: staff expects to present final recommendations between March 3 and March 17.
Carpenter described the methodology: inventory fee-related activities, estimate time and cost by job classification, incorporate overhead and cross-departmental charges, and run a comparative fee survey. He emphasized the study is a cost-of-service analysis (not an efficiency audit), noting the final decision about subsidies and fee levels remains a policy choice for the city.
Commissioners asked whether the study would reflect changes expected from DBI's business process reengineering (BPR). Carpenter said the model can incorporate BPR inputs if staff provides projections of the post-BPR processes; Director Hossein said staff will supply known changes but cautioned that immediate timeline pressures require continuing to use valuation-based fees as the default in the near term while the study examines alternative models (service-based or project-type fees).
Members of the public and industry weighed in. Ken Cleveland of the Building Owners and Managers Association supported the study and urged that collected fees be used to fully fund DBI operations and automation investments (for example, handheld devices for inspectors and improved permit-tracking). Several commissioners stressed the need for transparency and safeguards to prevent general-fund diversion of DBI fee revenue.
Matrix staff said initial intensive meetings with DBI staff would occupy the next two weeks, followed by analysis in February, comparative surveying and revision in late February and March, and a presentation back to the commission in March. The study will identify cost allocation details that can be updated later as BPR outcomes take hold.
