ADA Excuses

[ICE]

As you should, the state of California mandates fees be based on the cost of the department to administer the services for that project, usually a fee formula based on the valuation of the work.Cities can no longer use the permit process to generate revenue for the city.

That has been the rule for as long as I have been an inspector. The cities that I have worked in generated three to four times what it cost...still do...always will.

 

[mark handler]

That has been the rule for as long as I have been an inspector. The cities that I have worked in generated three to four times what it cost...still do...always will.

That's because there are "administrative" costs, transportation, office support staff, reprographics, computers, excreta, not just based on your salary.

 

[mtlogcabin]

State mandates we can have one year of operating cost in reserves plus current budget so basically two years worth of funds in reserve. Went through every bit of it when the bottom fell out. We finally have one year in reserve built back up.

We also pay "rent" for our portion of city hall as other deparments do. It was a way to have enterprise funds transferred into the general fund.

 

[ICE]

That's because there are "administrative" costs, transportation, office support staff, reprographics, computers, excreta, not just based on your salary.

Those admin costs don't come close to exhausting the supply of money left over after salary is covered.

 

[conarb]

In the past building departments were profit centers, for instance making profits to support other agencies that take in no money, like social services, in fact that inspector how died recently that I mentioned here once bragged to me that his department was the most profitable in the county. That all changed in 1978 with Prop 13 and subsequent initiatives, taxes required a 2/3 vote of the electorate but fees for services rendered were exempt, the courts determined that fees for services were just that, if they exceeded the cost of delivery of those services they became taxes subject to a vote of the electorate.

Building departments were so profitable that many counties and cities routinely ignored the law and continued charging more then the cost of delivery of services, eventfully the NAHB started supplying legal representation to builders to bring actions against the greedy jurisdictions and routinely winning, unbelievably many paid the fines and continued right on charging exorbitant fees, only to get sued again and keep right on charging the exorbitant fees on the basis that they made more money paying legal fees and fines and continuing their overcharging.

I don't hear about lawsuits anymore since the various AHJs have become adept at bundling other overhead into their fee structure What I do see now as outrageous is our local communist groups have got an affordable housing law passed with no source of funding, bright city attorneys brought the affordable housing administration into the building departments, so the costs of affordable housing are absorbed into the building departments, of course when challenged they say we builders will profit from building affordable housing.

 

[mark handler]

Those admin costs don't come close to exhausting the supply of money left over after salary is covered.

So you are saying your building department is not obeying state law....

 

[ICE]

So you are saying your building department is not obeying state law....

Name one that is.

 

[conarb]

So you are saying your building department is not obeying state law....

Mark:

He's probably not taking into consideration the enormous costs of lifetime health benefits and pensions. This is why building inspection should be privatized, pay one time and it's over.

 

[steveray]

We don't all get pensions...or lifer benefits.....I would bet every town in CT takes in 3 times what it spends...There was a lawsuit over fees brought in by the builders that got granted class action status in Madison CT I believe....

Mark:He's probably not taking into consideration the enormous costs of lifetime health benefits and pensions. This is why building inspection should be privatized, pay one time and it's over.

 

[mark handler]

We don't all get pensions...or lifer benefits.....I would bet every town in CT takes in 3 times what it spends...There was a lawsuit over fees brought in by the builders that got granted class action status in Madison CT I believe....

This is a California thing....

 

[conarb]

Just to give you an idea of what these public servant's benefits cost us taxpayers, we had a public hospital on the verge of bankruptcy, eventually a nearby private hospital took over the bankrupt public hospital. The public hospital was run by an elected hospital district, there were two elected directors who refused to go away and spent $600,000 of district money litigating the matter, the two were Grace Ellis 85 years old, and Ron Leone 65 years old, just look at the actuarial cost of providing them lifetime benefits:

Given the overwhelming support for the District’s dissolution one would think that Ellis would accept the inevitability and facilitate the closure process by addressing the District’s $700,000-plus liability for the lifetime health and dental benefits that only she and Concord’s Vice Mayor Ron Leone and their families receive.¹

These people do nothing since the district has nothing to do now that the hospital has been taken over, I think they attended one meeting a month to discuss their only business, their own meeting fees and benefits. BTW, Leone also gets free benefits from the City of Concord for his "service" as vice-mayor.

¹ http://halfwaytoconcord.com/the-inevitable-end-of-the-mt-diablo-health-care-district/

 

[fatboy]

And............once again CA, would you please stop lumping all public servants into to your diatribes???????????

I, like probably at least 1/2 to 3/4 of us, are on the same ol' IRS/401K retirement plan..........and neither one of them look rosy. And don't even start on the health insurance. Just because we work for a government entity, doesn't mean we are all on the gravy train.

 

[mark handler]

And............once again CA, would you please stop lumping all public servants into to your diatribes??????????? I, like probably at least 1/2 to 3/4 of us, are on the same ol' IRS/401K retirement plan..........and neither one of them look rosy. And don't even start on the health insurance. Just because we work for a government entity, doesn't mean we are all on the gravy train.

And Me, a contract worker, no benefits or retirement

 

[kilitact]

And Me, a contract worker, no benefits or retirement

It's not to late to spend some time putting together a benefit package for yourself.

 

[mark handler]

It's not to late to spend some time putting together a benefit package for yourself.

I have myself taken care of thanks. I have retirement set up from former employers. I do not have a benefit package from my current contract city.

And I plan on working for the next twenty yeasrs...

 

[conarb]

And............once again CA, would you please stop lumping all public servants into to your diatribes??????????? I, like probably at least 1/2 to 3/4 of us, are on the same ol' IRS/401K retirement plan..........and neither one of them look rosy. And don't even start on the health insurance. Just because we work for a government entity, doesn't mean we are all on the gravy train.

The public reads the newspaper exposés about public employees, mostly firemen and policemen, and thinks all public employees are retiring at 50 with huge benefits. When I budget for permits I changed the name several years ago to "Government Fees", and Special Inspections are right below those fees, I even have them asking why they have to pay for inspections when they have to pay for special inspections? Maybe you guys ought to use the press to separate yourselves from the other public employees who are ripping off the taxpayers? Just look at this thread, building departments profiting off permit fees, why don't you guys exercise your whistle-blower rights and inform your local DAs as to what's going on?

 

[mark handler]

Most of us don't dwell on the negative. That's for the naysayers. Lead by example.

Newspapers won't do any good. They deal with the negative, thinking that is news.

 

[conarb]

Government corruption and over-regulation are far bigger problems than say non-code compliant construction, we have to pay taxes, we have to pay government fees, but if we build without competent architects, engineers, or contractors that is our own fault. Recently Balaji S. Srinivasan called for Silicon Valley to secede (in a Y Combinator address to standing applause) from over-regulation and over taxation in the United States¹.

i don't completely agree with the New York Times interpretation, but he is saying that technology is going to destroy the Paper Belt and it's stymieing taxation and regulation, technology is going to get blamed for destroying jobs and the outdated status quo.

So the reason why is that today it’s Silicon Valley versus what I call the Paper Belt. So there’s four cities that used to run the United States in the postwar era: Boston with higher ed; New York City with Madison Avenue, books, Wall Street, and newspapers; Los Angeles with movies, music, Hollywood; and, of course, DC with laws and regulations, formally running it. And so I call them the Paper Belt, after the Rust Belt of yore. And in the last twenty years, a new competitor to the Paper Belt arose out of nowhere: Silicon Valley. And by accident, we’re putting a horse head in all of their beds. We are becoming stronger than all of them combined.²

We need to free up geniuses like Srinivasan who became a multimillionaire in his college dorm room, and stop throwing our resources at our least productive citizens.

¹ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/us/silicon-valley-roused-by-secession-call.html?_r=2&

² http://nydwracu.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/transcript-balaji-srinivasan-on-silicon-valleys-ultimate-exit/

 

[ICE]

Just look at this thread, building departments profiting off permit fees, why don't you guys exercise your whistle-blower rights and inform your local DAs as to what's going on?

That's what pays for all my stuff.

 

[Msradell]

Those admin costs don't come close to exhausting the supply of money left over after salary is covered.

Don't forget that, the costs to keep you around are much higher than just your salary. In addition to those other items mentioned earlier there is a huge category called benefits. It includes vacation, insurance, retirement, sick time, etc.. These items easily at 50% to your salary and that of everyone else. What about vehicles, mileage and so forth? Those are also a huge expenses that have to come out of the fees. I'm betting the fees are much closer to the actual charges than you think they are.

 

[ICE]

I remember one million dollar years with 2.5 employees. Wages and benefits were under $400k.

 

[ADAguy]

Quite a jungle you work in eh? In LA we have city councilman having upgrades done to their garages with city crews and no permits, until the LA Times gets wind of it and then he is placed on the chopping block!

Does your area lack for muckraking reporters looking for the next Pulitzer?

 

[conarb]

An interesting observation here is that the strongest advocates of ADA here are architects, Mark Handler, ADA Guy, and MSRadell are all architects. What's happened to architects, why aren't they out being the next Frank Lloyd Wright, Frank Gehry, or Mies van der Rohe? Apple is building a new headquarters, they turned to 78 year old Sir Norman Foster, Facebook is designing a new headquarters, they turned to 84 year old Frank Gehry. These tech corporations are chaired by really young guys who usually surround themselves with other young guys, why are they turning to old guys for creative architecture?

 

[JPohling]

because they didn't have their life sucked out of them dealing with accessibility issues...............but in all actuality both of those offices are staffed with young designers