A drift in another thread sparked this article. A discussion about the future of building officials turned to third-party agencies and what they actually bring to the table. Instead of letting this stay scattered across a long conversation, I decided to take the entire subject and put it into a single, complete explanation based on what I have experienced firsthand.
My background with third-party agencies is not theoretical. I owned one. My company served as the building department for several small municipalities at the same time. I was the building official for seven or eight jurisdictions at once, each of them too small to support its own staff. We handled plan review, inspections, code enforcement, and administration. That experience showed me the real benefits of third-party agencies, but it also showed me the structural problems that many people never see.
There is a misconception that small municipalities rely on third-party agencies because they lack tax revenue. That is not the issue. In many states, a building department is structured to operate like an enterprise fund, meaning permit fees support the operation. The real problem is that these towns do not have enough building permit activity to justify hiring someone with the full range of certifications required by law. Even if they hired such a person, there would not be enough daily work to keep them busy. Staff would spend long stretches of the day with nothing to do, while the municipality continues to pay full-time wages and benefits.
This is where a third-party agency becomes practical. As an owner, I could combine the work from several small towns and keep a full-time staff busy. Each municipality received access to a functional, competent building department that operated every business day. They could call during normal hours, schedule inspections daily, get a timely plan review, and speak to a qualified building official. They received the same level of service that a much larger city would provide without having to support that staffing level themselves. That is the true value of the model for very small jurisdictions.
The model only works when the agency is run with discipline. I made deliberate decisions to avoid overextending my company. I turned down contracts because accepting them would have lowered the quality of service or forced me to hire people who were not the right fit. Many agencies do the opposite. They chase every contract they can find and hire anyone who manages to pass a test. They send them into the field with minimal oversight and hope that problems do not surface. Others take a more political route. They do whatever elected officials want, even when it violates state law, just to keep their contract. That approach destroys enforcement and damages public safety.
My company did not operate like that. I refused to break the law or ignore state requirements to keep local officials happy. I lost contracts because of those decisions. I accepted that outcome. Equal enforcement creates friction, and integrity comes with a price, but compromising the law was never an option.
Where I work now, we use a hybrid system. I maintain a core group of in-house staff, and we use a third-party agency as an adjunct. They help when the workload spikes, they perform inspections when needed, and they assist with plan review. For the past few years, we have also used two of their employees on a full-time basis under our contract. Others come in on an as needed basis. Some days they perform four inspections, other days eighteen, then they leave. It gives us the flexibility we would not have otherwise.
Turnover is the biggest weakness of third-party agencies. When a good inspector shows up and proves themselves competent, they often leave for a municipal job because the benefits are better and the pay is competitive or even higher. Others leave for competing agencies offering a slightly better deal. That creates an expensive cycle of retraining. Every new person needs to learn our software, our procedures, and our expectations. After enough cycles of that, the cost adds up quickly.
It reached the point where we had to contract with a second third-party agency because the first one could no longer provide consistent staffing. That is a sign of the pressure agencies are under and the instability that comes with rapid turnover.
Today, based strictly on workload and budget, I could likely justify running an entirely in-house department. The one thing that keeps me from eliminating third-party assistance is long-term coverage gaps. When one of my key staff members was out for two and a half months with an illness, I had to do my job and his job because the agency did not have a full-time replacement available. Third parties are excellent for short-term needs, but they do not always have the depth to cover extended absences.
The town where I currently work also shows the consequences of relying exclusively on third-party agencies without proper oversight. For almost twenty years, the town outsourced nearly everything. The agencies provided the minimum and often operated with too few people. Contractors became accustomed to almost no enforcement. When the town finally hired an in-house building official and inspectors with the proper discipline-specific certifications, enforcement returned to normal, and the construction community was stunned. They had been working in an environment that had felt like an unregulated frontier. That is the result of poor oversight and low expectations.
It is important to acknowledge that a lack of integrity is not limited to third-party agencies. There are municipal building departments that fail to provide competent service, either through indifference, politics, or lack of leadership. There are municipal building officials who are not qualified to manage the department they oversee. In those cases a well managed third-party agency is not a downgrade. It is an improvement. When the local culture or leadership is the problem, bringing in an outside agency with competent staff and clear procedures can elevate the quality of enforcement and restore professionalism.
None of this means that third-party agencies are inherently good or bad. They are a tool. Whether they improve or damage a municipality depends entirely on how they are used. A third-party agency works when it operates under strong leadership, clear expectations, and real oversight from a competent building official or municipal manager who understands the code and insists on enforcement. A third-party agency fails when it is left to run itself, when elected officials try to micromanage enforcement, or when the agency prioritizes contract retention over public safety.
The financial argument is often exaggerated. Agencies advertise cost savings, but when you compare a full-service building department to a full-service contract, the savings rarely survive an honest analysis. Contract administration, software integration, management time, repeated training, and the hidden cost of inconsistent enforcement all reduce or eliminate the supposed savings. The only time a third party clearly saves money is when a municipality would otherwise be paying in-house staff to sit idle due to low permit volume.
Third-party agencies absolutely have a place in this profession. They serve small towns that cannot justify their own staff, they provide coverage when workload spikes, they help when a department loses an employee, and they bring technical depth that some municipalities simply cannot maintain internally. They are an important option. But they are not the future of building departments on their own, and they are not a substitute for professional leadership.
My experience on both sides taught me that the deciding factor is integrity. With it, a third-party agency can strengthen a municipality. Without it, the damage spreads quickly. A contract cannot replace a conscience. When integrity exists and when oversight exists, third-party agencies can serve the public well. When they are used to avoid accountability or to replace competent leadership, the results speak for themselves.
My background with third-party agencies is not theoretical. I owned one. My company served as the building department for several small municipalities at the same time. I was the building official for seven or eight jurisdictions at once, each of them too small to support its own staff. We handled plan review, inspections, code enforcement, and administration. That experience showed me the real benefits of third-party agencies, but it also showed me the structural problems that many people never see.
There is a misconception that small municipalities rely on third-party agencies because they lack tax revenue. That is not the issue. In many states, a building department is structured to operate like an enterprise fund, meaning permit fees support the operation. The real problem is that these towns do not have enough building permit activity to justify hiring someone with the full range of certifications required by law. Even if they hired such a person, there would not be enough daily work to keep them busy. Staff would spend long stretches of the day with nothing to do, while the municipality continues to pay full-time wages and benefits.
This is where a third-party agency becomes practical. As an owner, I could combine the work from several small towns and keep a full-time staff busy. Each municipality received access to a functional, competent building department that operated every business day. They could call during normal hours, schedule inspections daily, get a timely plan review, and speak to a qualified building official. They received the same level of service that a much larger city would provide without having to support that staffing level themselves. That is the true value of the model for very small jurisdictions.
The model only works when the agency is run with discipline. I made deliberate decisions to avoid overextending my company. I turned down contracts because accepting them would have lowered the quality of service or forced me to hire people who were not the right fit. Many agencies do the opposite. They chase every contract they can find and hire anyone who manages to pass a test. They send them into the field with minimal oversight and hope that problems do not surface. Others take a more political route. They do whatever elected officials want, even when it violates state law, just to keep their contract. That approach destroys enforcement and damages public safety.
My company did not operate like that. I refused to break the law or ignore state requirements to keep local officials happy. I lost contracts because of those decisions. I accepted that outcome. Equal enforcement creates friction, and integrity comes with a price, but compromising the law was never an option.
Where I work now, we use a hybrid system. I maintain a core group of in-house staff, and we use a third-party agency as an adjunct. They help when the workload spikes, they perform inspections when needed, and they assist with plan review. For the past few years, we have also used two of their employees on a full-time basis under our contract. Others come in on an as needed basis. Some days they perform four inspections, other days eighteen, then they leave. It gives us the flexibility we would not have otherwise.
Turnover is the biggest weakness of third-party agencies. When a good inspector shows up and proves themselves competent, they often leave for a municipal job because the benefits are better and the pay is competitive or even higher. Others leave for competing agencies offering a slightly better deal. That creates an expensive cycle of retraining. Every new person needs to learn our software, our procedures, and our expectations. After enough cycles of that, the cost adds up quickly.
It reached the point where we had to contract with a second third-party agency because the first one could no longer provide consistent staffing. That is a sign of the pressure agencies are under and the instability that comes with rapid turnover.
Today, based strictly on workload and budget, I could likely justify running an entirely in-house department. The one thing that keeps me from eliminating third-party assistance is long-term coverage gaps. When one of my key staff members was out for two and a half months with an illness, I had to do my job and his job because the agency did not have a full-time replacement available. Third parties are excellent for short-term needs, but they do not always have the depth to cover extended absences.
The town where I currently work also shows the consequences of relying exclusively on third-party agencies without proper oversight. For almost twenty years, the town outsourced nearly everything. The agencies provided the minimum and often operated with too few people. Contractors became accustomed to almost no enforcement. When the town finally hired an in-house building official and inspectors with the proper discipline-specific certifications, enforcement returned to normal, and the construction community was stunned. They had been working in an environment that had felt like an unregulated frontier. That is the result of poor oversight and low expectations.
It is important to acknowledge that a lack of integrity is not limited to third-party agencies. There are municipal building departments that fail to provide competent service, either through indifference, politics, or lack of leadership. There are municipal building officials who are not qualified to manage the department they oversee. In those cases a well managed third-party agency is not a downgrade. It is an improvement. When the local culture or leadership is the problem, bringing in an outside agency with competent staff and clear procedures can elevate the quality of enforcement and restore professionalism.
None of this means that third-party agencies are inherently good or bad. They are a tool. Whether they improve or damage a municipality depends entirely on how they are used. A third-party agency works when it operates under strong leadership, clear expectations, and real oversight from a competent building official or municipal manager who understands the code and insists on enforcement. A third-party agency fails when it is left to run itself, when elected officials try to micromanage enforcement, or when the agency prioritizes contract retention over public safety.
The financial argument is often exaggerated. Agencies advertise cost savings, but when you compare a full-service building department to a full-service contract, the savings rarely survive an honest analysis. Contract administration, software integration, management time, repeated training, and the hidden cost of inconsistent enforcement all reduce or eliminate the supposed savings. The only time a third party clearly saves money is when a municipality would otherwise be paying in-house staff to sit idle due to low permit volume.
Third-party agencies absolutely have a place in this profession. They serve small towns that cannot justify their own staff, they provide coverage when workload spikes, they help when a department loses an employee, and they bring technical depth that some municipalities simply cannot maintain internally. They are an important option. But they are not the future of building departments on their own, and they are not a substitute for professional leadership.
My experience on both sides taught me that the deciding factor is integrity. With it, a third-party agency can strengthen a municipality. Without it, the damage spreads quickly. A contract cannot replace a conscience. When integrity exists and when oversight exists, third-party agencies can serve the public well. When they are used to avoid accountability or to replace competent leadership, the results speak for themselves.
