Fortunately, Electronic Plan Review (EPR) can make backlogs a thing of the past and help municipalities better manage the high and low fluctuations of building activities. Using today’s digital technology, municipalities can streamline the traditional permitting process and usher in a future of faster plan review turnarounds — streamlining operations, reducing costs for applicants while simultaneously avoiding budget deficits, and improving overall service.

1. Faster turnarounds

By implementing EPR, your building operations will realize immediate results through a streamlined and scaled plan review process that more efficiently manages fluctuations in activity levels. This is achieved through the use of parallel plan reviews, and the use of multiple plans examiners who evaluate various aspects of a project concurrently — including standard building code components, engineering standards, and zoning

2. Stabilized budgets

Unpredictable and unstable permit revenues make it difficult to ensure an always-positive contribution to the General Fund. However, omitting costs associated with traditional plan reviews (printing, storage, mailing), broader access to technical reviewers, and shorter turnaround times collectively help your building department manage more reviews in the same amount of time, thereby increasing your permit revenues.

3. Increased customer service

Municipalities that use EPR to optimize plan review processes experience not only improved efficiency and consistent revenues, but also increased customer service that comes with the accessibility, ease, and transparency that EPR provides. Delivering constant, remote access to plans from any device, EPR promotes project accuracy and transparency throughout each stage of development. 

With digital commenting, stakeholders can coordinate and discuss detailed aspects of a project in real-time to optimize communication and avoid errors that could lead to delays or failed inspections down the road. Additionally, inspectors in the field can easily pull up plans to ensure the critical compliance components of a project are being met, minimizing inspection oversights, keeping projects moving, and ensuring top-quality development.

4. Broader perspective with National Plan Review (NPR)

EPR can put a wealth of tools and knowledge at your fingertips. And, depending on your provider, the EPR you choose can not only help you solve your immediate challenges but can also help you build new strategies for the future.

For example, our National Plan Review (NPR) service combines EPR and scalable staffing to leverage the breadth of our national knowledge base to your municipality’s unique projects, codes, and requirements. With a broader — in this case, national — perspective and support, you can uncover new opportunities for processes, revenue, relationships, and projects with greater insight and efficiency.

Ready to make the change?

CGA provides building and remote plan review services to over 1,000 communities across the United States. As a partner, you’ll benefit from on-demand access to a wide range of technical expertise for simple to complex projects; ensuring faster turnarounds, stabilized budget revenues, and increased customer service.

The post 4 Ways Electronic Plan Review (EPR) Helps Your Community appeared first on CGA.

Here are just a few tried-and-true tips for upping your customer service game, delivering successful public sector projects, and keeping your residents happy. 

1. Look ahead and put the right supports in place

No matter the project, understaffing and inadequate resources lead to inefficiencies, budget creep, and delays. On their own, each of these things leads to frustrations — and combined, can make your job incredibly difficult.

It’s important to identify early on the places where you will need strategic and practical support to ensure your budgets are stable and you are operating at maximum efficiency.

For some municipalities finding the right talent fit for a full-time staffing gap is ideal (but, unfortunately, tends to be time-consuming and costly). But for others, scalable, flexible interim staffing is a practical, effective solution for staying on budget while supporting immediate needs and fluctuating workloads.

2. Think of everyone on your team as a customer service representative

Everyone involved in your project is a potential point of community contact. That means everyone is responsible for delivering customer service.

When you are confident that every professional working on your project upholds the same high standards of customer service that you do, you can be confident in a project’s eventual success. It’s not unreasonable — in fact, it’s a good idea — to ask potential project partners about how much experience or training their team members have in customer service. This will help make sure you’re delivering the end experience you want to be known for.

3. Expect the unexpected 

Even when you’ve taken all the right steps, assembled the best team, and considered every angle for your project, things don’t always proceed as expected. Anything from a natural disaster to a simple inspection delay can greatly impact your community, your project, and your reputation.

But when you have the right partners in place, there’s a plan already in place for what to do when things don’t go as planned. For example, our disaster recovery assistance can get your community functioning quickly after catastrophic events, just as our expedited plan review and inspection services can help you navigate tight delivery timelines.

4. Equip your community with easy-to-use tools

Paper processes can be quick to slow a building department down. But these processes are familiar and established, making them difficult to change. So, how can you move into the digital era and keep up with rising demands without creating complications for residents and developers?

The key is to ensure that the technology is intuitive, easy to use, and provides new benefits to the user. Take electronic permitting and inspector software, for example. This technology allows community members and contractors to track permit projects from start to finish.

This type of transparency is no longer a luxury — it’s becoming a necessity to streamline projects as high-impact growth continues to affect communities of all sizes. 

5. Be transparent and over-communicate

These days, you might not have the time to issue a press release or hold a town hall for every budget update. Meanwhile, your community members want to know how their tax money is being spent.

Bringing in a partner can not only help you keep projects moving forward but can also help keep your community involved and informed. From organizing community workshops and forums, to creating surveys to get resident opinions on future projects, you don’t have to do it alone. A third-party partner can help you stay in touch with residents to improve satisfaction — and improve the final outcome of your next project.

CGA has what you need

Whether you need supplemental staff, a full-service embedded department, increased efficiencies, or innovative tools, CGA will help you deliver a higher level of customer service at every touch point to help your projects (and your community) thrive. 

The post Improving Government Customer Service: 5 Ways To Up Your Game appeared first on CGA.

So, how can you introduce customer service to your community? Here are five steps you can consider today.

1. Give Visibility Into Your Public Works Projects

By nature, public works services are incredibly visible. When handled transparently, community leaders can show that these projects are helping to improve quality of life — after all, park redesigns, improved transportation, and other local projects are all beneficial once complete.

While projects are underway, it’s important to:

• Use social media to provide real-time updates such as road closures, utility interruptions, and progress of maintenance and repair projects.
• Communicate with residents frequently to keep them informed about current and future public works projects, as well as address any concerns or issues that residents may have.

Source: ARTBA Bridge Report

2. Encourage Community Involvement and Feedback

Because community members are the ones who use public works services, their feedback is essential in improving those services.

• Hold regular community events. These can be used to inform residents about public works services, as well as to gather feedback and suggestions from residents. Community events can also be used to showcase public works projects and highlight the benefits they bring to the community.
• Use surveys and feedback forms to gather feedback from residents about their experiences with public works services. This feedback can be used to identify areas for improvement and make changes to improve the quality of service.

Source: Infrastructure Report Card

3. Enable Timely and Efficient Maintenance and Repairs

While maintenance and repairs are necessary to ensure that the community’s infrastructure is functioning correctly and is safe for residents to use, it’s important to provide timely and efficient work to minimize impact on residents’ lives.

• Prioritize emergency repairs. Public works officials should have a system in place to respond quickly to emergency repair requests, such as water main breaks or sinkholes. Responding quickly to emergency repair requests can help prevent accidents and reduce the disruption to residents’ daily lives.
• Communicate repair and maintenance status so that residents are aware of when a project is expected to be complete, and why the project is important for the community. Without these communications, public works projects can be seen as nuances versus essential services being performed for the overall safety and well-being of the local residents.

Source: USA Facts

4. Invest in Technology

Technology can be used to improve communication, streamline processes, and provide better service delivery.

• Electronic permitting software makes it easy to stay organized, keep your team on track, and know which projects you have ongoing and the status of each. Having this information at your fingertips makes it easier to navigate conversations with the community and plan for future projects.
• Use technology such as sensors and monitoring systems to detect issues before they become significant problems. This can help prevent accidents and reduce the time and cost of repairs.
• Invest in Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GIS can be used to map public works infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and water treatment facilities. This can help public works officials identify areas that need maintenance or repair, as well as plan for future projects.

5. Measure the Success of Your Customer Service Improvements

It’s important to make sure that any customer service improvements you make are measured to ensure they are effectively helping your department and improving resident satisfaction.

• Customer satisfaction surveys are an easy way to gather feedback from residents about their experiences with public works services. This feedback can be used to identify areas for improvement and make changes to improve the quality of service.
• Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs), such as repair response times or the number of potholes repaired during a designated time period, can help public works officials identify areas for improvement and make changes to improve the quality of service.

Improve Customer Service With Third-Party Support

Many times, customer service is a priority for communities, but lack of staffing and/or funding makes it difficult for community leaders to provide the level of support that is expected by local residents and businesses.

At CGA, we specialize in community infrastructure development and services, including civil engineering, permitting, inspections, and more. With local expertise and the backing of a national company, we have the staff on hand to inform your project, keep timelines moving, and make projects more seamless and less disruptive to your community.

Ready to see how we can help improve community relationships?

Learn more about our public works services.

The post 5 Ways To Improve Customer Service in Your Public Works Department appeared first on CGA.

When city growth is handled in a thoughtful way, urbanization offers a number of advantages to city residents, local economies, and even the environment:

• More job opportunities
• Economic diversification
• Increased tourism
• Improved public transportation systems
• Greater access to social services

But rapid growth can present a number of challenges for the city officials and building departments managing plan reviews, safety inspections, code compliance, and internal staffing.

Spikes in plan review activity and staffing shortages can create frustrating approval delays for developers, who need to keep their projects moving smoothly, and for the city, which loses revenue opportunity when high-value initiatives stall.

The Benefits of Leveraging Auxiliary Staff

Auxiliary building services staff is a budget-friendly supplemental solution for cities experiencing rapid growth and development. Here are six advantages of using auxiliary staff to keep projects moving forward.

1. Scalable Engagements Can Help Accelerate Plan Reviews 

Normal ebbs and flows in permit application activity are to be expected – but with urbanization on the rise, and the American Rescue Plan Act going into effect, cities could soon see a major surge in plan review submissions.

Ballooning backlogs cause approval times to increase, frustrating residents and developers, but  auxiliary staff can help you accelerate the plan review process by supporting the work of your in-house team, minimizing your backlog, and helping to keep projects moving. Scalable service models allow you to ramp up your auxiliary engagement as activity increases, and dial it back when the workload subsides.

2. Cost-Effective Ways to Address Staffing Issues

When building departments face staffing shortages, traditional avenues for managing backlog activity include hiring more full-time employees and implementing mandatory overtime for current staff.

But both options can be costly. Mandatory overtime is expensive and may cause employee burnout if used as a long-term solution. Hiring full-time employees comes with built-in costs:

• • • Recruiting and talent sourcing
    • Hiring and onboarding (average cost per employee is $4,000)
    • Training and continuing education
    • Providing jobsite equipment
    • Maintaining full-time salaries when workload decreases

Auxiliary staff eliminates recruiting, hiring, training, and equipment costs, and allows you to design your engagement based on volume of work, helping to alleviate budgeting issues associated with high backlog volume.

The post Benefits of Addressing Growth Challenges with Auxiliary Staff appeared first on CGA.

On July 1, CCNA thresholds for continuing services contracts increased under CS/CS/HB 441. The approved bill increases the maximum limit for CCNA continuing contracts for Engineering, Landscape Architecture, Surveying, and Architecture from an estimated per-project construction cost of $2 million to $4 million and increases the maximum limit for procuring a study from $200,000 per study to $500,000.

Read the bill details at www.flsenate.gov

View a copy of the enacted bill HB441

Chapter No. 2020-127

House of Representatives Staff Analysis of the Bill

Download the flyer

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