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Building department seeks on‑staff planning director to reduce third‑party costs
Summary
Hampton County’s building department proposed shifting roughly $65,000 into contractual services and requested funding to hire an on‑staff planning director (budgeted around $71,000) to take over planning, floodplain and civil‑engineering tasks now contracted to SafeBuilt.
A representative of the Hampton County Building Department told the council the department is requesting $339,600 for FY27, a decrease from the prior year, and recommended hiring an on‑staff planning director to reduce reliance on third‑party vendors.
The presenter said the department moved $65,000 from a legacy BMP line into contractual services for vendors such as Symbiosis, WTH Technologies and Xerox, and that some services previously billed under a catch‑all line have been reallocated. She told council the department currently uses SafeBuilt for plan reviews, floodplain administration and civil engineering but is "starting to exceed our budget" for those services.
Council members asked whether an on‑staff director would replace SafeBuilt’s planning work and by how much it would reduce invoices; the presenter said a director focused on planning and floodplain approvals — budgeted at about $71,000 — would reduce the county’s need for outside planning work while SafeBuilt would remain for building inspections and plan review on an hourly basis.
Council directed staff to clarify line‑item definitions, provide an RFP if the county opts to recruit a director, and return with refined cost estimates as the administrator prepares a recommendation in May.
Next steps: Finance and administration will review the department’s proposed reallocation and evaluate whether the director position should be included in the FY27 recommended budget.
