State suspends inspection certifications

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By James Briggs

A state agency has put on hold a decades-old program that certifies municipalities to do plan reviews and commercial building inspections.

The state Department of Commerce, though, disputes some cities’ claims that it has stopped responding to applications for certification. The program, an agency spokesman said, is under review and will resume in 2011.

Officials from Green Bay and Wauwatosa have said their cities applied for authorization to let staff members handle reviews and inspections, but never received responses. The municipal officials said having their staff members do reviews and inspections would speed development and generate local revenue.

“There are no applications to which we have not replied,” Department of Commerce spokesman Tony Hozeny said. “I don’t know why this would come up, but we responded timely to every one.”

The state has, though, declined to approve all such applications for more than a year while the Safety and Buildings Division studies the program.

According to a 2009 letter sent to Pewaukee Mayor Scott Klein about his application, “approval is not granted at this time due to the Division’s review of the application and approval processes” and the agency will “hold your application for future consideration.”

That review is ongoing through year-end, Hozeny said.

“We expect to follow up with an intensive audit process,” he said. “After that, we will implement changes.”

The agency, though, is obligated to approve applications until changes become official, said Bob DuPont, a retired director of program development for the Safety and Buildings Division.

“(The statute) sets the policy,” DuPont said, “and what they’re trying to do is implement new policy before changing the (statute). In my mind, you should work with the current policy until it’s formally changed.”

According to the state statute on the delegation of reviews and inspections to cities: “The department shall certify a (second-class) city when the department determines and certifies the competency of all examiners employed by the city.”

That hasn’t been happening, DuPont said, adding at least 18 municipalities have pending applications for certification.

DuPont in October filed a formal complaint with the Legislative Audit Bureau in which he asserted agency officials “admitted internally (they were) holding the delegation requests because of the financial impact that such delegations would have on Commerce.”

The agency stopped approving applications before DuPont retired last year, he said, so it could retain 100 percent of the fees charged for its services, money that would help cash-strapped cities.

Green Bay, for instance, is authorized to do limited plan reviews and inspections on buildings smaller than 50,000 cubic feet, but estimates it could generate an additional $800,000 a year by expanding that service to all commercial buildings, said Rob Strong, the city’s plan director.

The state generates about $4.5 million a year from plan reviews and commercial building inspections, according to the Department of Commerce, but that’s not the sole motivation for reviewing its delegation program, Hozeny said.

“Revenue is how we support what we do,” Hozeny said. “Revenue obviously is a factor, but I’m not going to say the only reason we’re looking at this program is because of revenue.”

Another factor: As development has subsided, the state’s workload has lightened. The state has 11 commercial building inspectors and 20 plan reviewers on staff.

“Commerce has the ability and capacity to manage the work without delegating it to municipalities,” Hozeny said. “The dates to next-available plan appointments are within 10 to 15 days.”

It’s also likely, Hozeny said, that state reviewers and inspectors are better qualified for some work than their municipal counterparts are — something the agency is considering as it reviews the delegation program.

“The state inspectors inspect a wide array of project types and complexity,” he said. “These benefits should be weighed against the benefits offered by the municipality to determine if expanded municipal review is a benefit to the design community and owners.”

Green Bay’s staff members, though, are just as capable as the state’s, Strong said.

“We’ve got a licensed architect on staff with 20 to 30 years of experience,” he said.

Besides, DuPont added, the state hasn’t given some cities the chance to prove their qualifications.

“You have to actually let Wauwatosa do the work,” he said, “before you can tell them their review isn’t good enough.”