Agenda Packets - 2009/06/09 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Code Enforcement Staff Report June 1, 2009 Page 2 The City also uses the PSO position in the Police Department to help with code enforcement. The Council budgeted this position for 30 hours a week (20 hours for Police and 10 hours for code enforcement) for nine months a year and for 40 hours a week (20 hours for each) for three months of the year (typically for June, July and August). Unfortunately, Tyler Martin, the current PSO, because of other commitments, is not available to work the additional 10 hours a week this summer as allowed by the budget. He would have been spending those extra 10 hours per week on code enforcement. As such, we do not now expect to use the additional 10 hours per week (120 total hours) for the summer for the PSO. According to Jeremiah, the City has opened 156 code enforcement cases to date in 2009 compared to 42 cases for the same period in 2008. Of the 156 cases so far this year, staff has closed 80 of them. Based on the large number of cases and strong public interest in code enforcement, does the City Council want City staff to devote more staff time to code enforcement? If the Council does want to dedicate more city staff to code enforcement, then we would need to formulate a plan to make that happen. That could involve: 1. Making the PSO position full-time (40 hours per week) for six or months a year. The City would have to increase the budget for the additional hours and we would advertise the position as such the next time there is a need to fill the PSO position. This change, however, would not help the City in the short term. 2. Using the part time building inspector for some of the cases and inspections. This would require adding 8 hours a week to his 16 hour a week schedule, as he is staying busy with inspections and answering questions on the two days per week that he is now working. 3. Having Planning Associate Heller take on some code enforcement cases (including inspection, report writing and follow up) as her time allows. This will vary based on the number of planning cases that come into the City and on the special planning projects that the City may choose to have staff do. In addition, might there be other staff in the Police Department available to help with code enforcement? The City does not typically train police officers to do code enforcement activities so this option would require education and training of officers about city codes, as they would relate to code enforcement matters. Given an officer’s workload, this may not be a feasible alternative. Fines and Abatements The City currently uses a system of increasing fines ($150, $300 and $450) for administrative offenses (AO). Staff only issues an AO after giving the property owner or responsible party a warning and time (usually 10 to 14 days) to correct a code violation. If the property continues to have repeat occurrences of the same offense, then the fine for