HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 02 Costs and Impacts of City Administration of Nuisance Code Enforcement in the Urban Transition Area AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY Meeting Date: 6/9/2014
Meeting Type: Work Session
Staff Contact/Dept.: Greg Mott, DPW Staff Phone No: 726-3774
Estimated Time: 30 minutes
S P R I N G F I E L D C I T Y C O U N C I L Council Goals: Provide Financially Responsible and
Innovative Government Services
ITEM TITLE: COSTS AND IMPACTS OF CITY ADMINISTRATION OF NUISANCE CODE ENFORCEMENT IN THE URBAN TRANSITION AREA
ACTION REQUESTED:
Staff requests Council direction on whether or not to pursue the establishment of
the City of Springfield and the Springfield Municipal Code as the jurisdictional
authority for nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area (UTA). The Lane Code and Lane County government currently have sole jurisdiction on this
matter.
ISSUE STATEMENT: At the conclusion of the March 17, 2014 Work Session discussion of city administration of the nuisance code in the Urban Transition Area (UTA), the
Council directed staff to prepare an analysis of the steps, costs and consequences of
assuming this responsibility.
ATTACHMENTS: 1: Council Briefing Memorandum 2: Estimated Costs for Enforcement Programs
3: Tyler Quote 4: City of Springfield’s Urban Growth Boundary Map
DISCUSSION/ FINANCIAL
IMPACT:
The topic of effective code enforcement in the UTA has been the subject of several previous Council discussions primarily because the Springfield Municipal Court,
and by extension the effective implementation of Springfield’s codes, has no jurisdiction outside the city limits. This condition has persisted ever since the
County transferred Urban Transition Area planning and building authority to the
City in 1987. All of the City’s efforts to date to enforce land use and building codes in the Urban Transition Area have relied upon cooperative compliance or in
extreme circumstances, an appearance at Circuit Court.
The attached Council Briefing Memorandum includes the analysis of providing nuisance code enforcement organized into three principal discussion sections: 1.
The codes and programs subject to city administration in the Urban Transition Area; 2. the costs to implement the Administrative Civil Penalties process; and, 3. the impacts to the code enforcement program in general and inside the city limits in
particular.
The analysis of implementing nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area identifies three components, and their costs, necessary to accomplish this
program authority. These include creating an Administrative Civil Penalties process; installing the equipment and adopting the procedures needed to support the
Administrative Civil Penalties process; and providing the staff resources needed to
accommodate the volume of work generated by the City’s code enforcement programs.
M E M O R A N D U M City of Springfield
Date: 6/9/2014
To: Gino Grimaldi COUNCIL
BRIEFING
MEMORANDUM
From: Len Goodwin, Development and Public Works
Director
Greg Mott, Current Development Manager
Subject: COSTS AND IMPACTS OF CITY
ADMINISTRATION OF NUISANCE CODE ENFORCEMENT IN THE URBAN
TRANSITION AREA
ISSUE: At the conclusion of the March 17, 2014 Work Session discussion of city administration of the nuisance code in the Urban Transition Area (UTA), the Council directed staff to prepare an analysis of
the steps, costs and consequences of assuming this responsibility. This memorandum provides that analysis.
COUNCIL GOALS/
MANDATE:
Provide Financially Responsible and Innovative Government Services
BACKGROUND:
The analysis of this action is organized into three principal discussion sections: 1. The codes and
programs subject to city administration in the Urban Transition Area; 2. the costs to implement the Administrative Civil Penalties process; and, 3. the impacts to the code enforcement program in general
and inside the city limits in particular.
Section 1:
The city currently administers the following variety of programs in the Urban Transition Area:
Development Code – Established by intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with Lane County in 1987
Building Codes – Added to the 1987 IGA with Lane County in 1988
Fire Code – An additional service begun in 2007 provided through contract fire protection with Urban Transition Area water providers
Illicit Discharge – (Any discharge to the city stormwater management system that is not
composed entirely of stormwater.) Established by IGA with Lane County in 2008
Land Drainage and Alteration – These uses are regulated by the Development Code therefore
enforceable through the same 1987 County IGA
As the March 17th CBM stated, the enforcement of these programs is undertaken with the same purpose and business practices that occur within the city limits, but in the Urban Transition Area staff can only
request compliance; no convenient mechanism i.e. municipal court, is in place to require compliance. While the City would have the authority to proceed in Circuit Court, this is an expensive, complex mechanism which would consume a great deal of resources for a relatively low level of success. This
same limitation on effective enforcement will apply to the nuisance code (a subsection of the Municipal
Code) should the Council decide to assume this responsibility from Lane County and not include a mechanism for compliance. The Municipal Court is not available because its jurisdiction is limited to
land and activities within the city limits. The second discussion section of this memorandum describes the Administrative Civil Penalties process (ACP), which could be an alternative to Circuit Court to achieve code compliance in the Urban Transition Area. The remainder of this memorandum assumes
that alternative would be implemented by Council as a companion to nuisance code enforcement.
Attachment 1, Page 1 of 5
6/4/2014 Page 2
It’s important to clarify the difference between enforcement of the nuisance code as a remedy for citizen complaints, and enforcement of all provisions of the Municipal Code (subject to civil infractions) to
remedy citizen complaints. It is our experience administering the code enforcement program that most
citizens do not make any distinctions at all about which city codes and ordinances apply to the subject of their complaint. They see garbage or junk or smell something offensive and they turn to the City to
solve this problem. In almost every instance staff confirms the presence of one or more violations,
including other sections of the Municipal Code or other city codes, and initiates the compliance process. The citizen’s perception of the program is “problem solved” not which sections of the code or codes
were enforced.
If the code enforcement program authority in the Urban Transition Area only involved Nuisance Code violations a number of cases would not be solved because violations of other provisions of the Municipal
Code would not get addressed. Activities such as uses in the public right-of-way includes vision clearance obstructions, unlawful uses such as storage, unauthorized access, athletic appurtenances, deposit of refuse on public or private property, and various hazards to general public health and
sanitation are violations of the Municipal Code, not Nuisance Code. The perception would be a program of selective enforcement; one that ignores specific violations that are enforced inside the city. Even though the city’s Nuisance Code is far more comprehensive than the county’s, the likelihood of the
presence of non-nuisance related violations is sufficiently high that the perception of a change in the effectiveness of code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area might be quite disappointing. This
disappointment might be shared by Council if there is a perception that assuming nuisance code
enforcement in the Urban Transition Area will result in the same degree of success (“problem solved”) the code enforcement program enjoys inside the city limits.
Section 2:
The Administrative Civil Penalties process introduced in the previous section is the most commonly used enforcement tool for similar programs throughout the state. This is the system Lane County uses to
obtain compliance in the Urban Transition Area. Essentially, the Administrative Civil Penalties process
empowers staff with the authority to issue citations that impose a monetary fine for code violations not corrected within a flexible time period. It’s useful to the success of the program to allow this flexibility
in response to the nature or type of the violation and the ability of the subject individual to achieve voluntary compliance.
If the case does go to citation, the individual cited then may appeal to a hearings official. The Hearings
Official has specific responsibilities and discretion, as identified in the city’s ordinance, to decide such things as: uphold or vacate the staff determination of violation; uphold or adjust the amount of the fine; or, accept a proposal to achieve compliance under a modified time line. The Administrative Civil
Penalties process can be made applicable to all city programs (not just nuisance) and applicable both inside and outside the city limits.
To establish the Administrative Civil Penalties process, the City Council must adopt an ordinance that
contains all the elements necessary to accommodate the objectives of each program that will rely on the Administrative Civil Penalties for enforcement. An ordinance amending the Municipal Code is
currently under development for presentation to Council in September when the separate topic of an
Administrative Civil Penalties enforcement mechanism is scheduled for a work session discussion.
There are several costs associated with the Administrative Civil Penalties process that result from
implementation of this program. It should be noted that these costs are borne entirely by the city due to the county’s position that assumption of this authority in the Urban Transition Area includes all costs needed to support the program. The Hearings Official is a contract service with LCOG. Their current
billing rate is approximately $100 dollars per hour; we estimate that each case that goes to the Hearings Official will be a minimum of two hours and that there will be an average of 30-50 cases annually, or $6,000-$10,000. For estimate purposes, this memorandum assumes an annual cost of $8,000 for the
Hearings Official services. This calculation assumes that this process will apply to all of the programs currently administered in the Urban Transition Area, not just the newly applicable Nuisance Code, since to assume otherwise would invite suggestions of selective enforcement.
Attachment 1, Page 2 of 5
6/4/2014 Page 3
The record-keeping for this administrative process is basically a financial management program. We’ve been advised by the city’s technical experts that none of the city’s existing systems are accessible or
applicable to this process. We’ve evaluated several systems that could serve this purpose: Tyler Tech
(Attachment 3) can develop the application and system software for $9,500 and provide annual hosting for $14,833. We also examined the Infor application that is being used for maintaining the City’s assets.
Use of that application would cost over $100,000.
The final cost associated with this administrative process is the staffing needed to support the Hearings Official (meeting scheduling, providing copies of the staff report and appellate materials, and arranging
for meeting minutes and security); and the staffing needed to receipt in fine payment; manage payment
plans if authorized by the Hearings Official; send out late or overdue notices; contract with collection companies for delinquent accounts. We estimate this work will require .5 FTE clerical. There are no
existing part time employees who could be reclassified to full time; therefore a new .5 clerk is necessary at an annual cost of $30,000. In addition, though not discussed in this Section, the Code Enforcement program will need additional staffing to accommodate the projected increased work volume (See Section
3 discussion below); we estimate this need at .5 FTE at an annual cost of $55,000. This cost is included with other costs (first year, subsequent years) for the administrative civil penalties program shown in the table below.
Section 3:
The final element of this assignment is an estimate of the impacts that assuming nuisance code
enforcement will have on the code enforcement program inside the city limits. As a starting point for this discussion we’ve estimated that this new responsibility will result in a range of 150-375 new cases. The basis for this estimate is a strict proportional formula that maintains the existing volume of cases
generated per household. There are currently 23,320 households in the City of Springfield generating 2,420 Code violations annually. These figures reflect a ratio of .1 complaints per household per year. Of those complaints 1,578 are nuisance only complaints, which equal .06 complaints per household.
There are approximately 2,500 households in the Urban Transition Area. If these households generate complaints at rates comparable to households inside the city limits, the range of new cases would be .06
to .10 annually per household, or 150 to 250 total cases. This upper bound represents a 10% increase in
the annual case load of the Code Enforcement program.
Code enforcement staff has tracked the time spent on cases and has parsed this work profile into 10
different steps (using the Municipal Court enforcement process). The graph below shows each of these
steps and the average staff time spent to complete each step.
TOTAL $117,333.00$107,833.00
1st Year - Implementation
Annuall - After
implementation
Code Enforcement Staff to
accommodate increased
workload $55,000.00 $55,000.00
Estimate of ACP Costs
Financial Management
Software
Hearings Official Contract
Clerk- Staff support for
hearins official
$24,333.00
$8,000.00
$30,000.00
$14,833.00
$8,000.00
$30,000.00
Attachment 1, Page 3 of 5
6/4/2014 Page 4
In the best circumstances (Task 7 above, compliance prior to warning citation) it takes an average of 3.55 hours from initiating complaint to site visit confirming compliance. In an average year we estimate that about 65% of all cases are resolved before a warning citation is issued; however many of these cases
involve additional contacts with the owner as well as the complainant, and additional site visits are made, 3.55 hours is the absolute minimum time commitment; 3.75 or 4.00 is probably more realistic.
The addition of 250 cases is translated into 979 hours, or .47 FTE; the lower bound translates to 587
hours, or .28 FTE. With annual work load volumes averaging 2,400 cases staffed by 2.42 FTE, the program cannot absorb this increased case load without unacceptable delays in response benchmarks, assisting voluntary compliance efforts, and court dockets. We recommend that .5 FTE Code
Enforcement staff be added to the existing Code Enforcement work force of 2.42. This additional staff cost is approximately $55,000 annually. If this cost is added to the figure of $52,833 in the table of
Estimated ACP costs on page 3 of this memorandum, the potential maximum budget needed for
nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area is $107,833 annually and a first year cost of $117,333.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Independent of, but related to, the issues discussed in the previous sections of this memorandum, nuisance code enforcement in the Urban Transition Area serves a different purpose than the existing city
programs in effect in the Urban Transition Area. By transferring planning and building authority from the county to the city back in the 1980’s, the city saved hundreds of thousands of dollars by controlling or preventing any development in the Urban Transition Area that, under county zoning, could have
created difficult and costly retrofitting. The infrastructure planning that had been performed within the city could be logically and sequentially extended into the Urban Transition Area with minimal complication or revision.
The transferal of building code administration was also beneficial to the city and property owner by making Springfield’s offices, codes, fees, and staffs the same provenance as the land development approvals. Going to the city for development approval, including site plan, but then going to the county
for building permits and inspections is extremely inefficient for citizens and developers and precarious for investors who may think because the county building department rules apply that somehow that
Attachment 1, Page 4 of 5
6/4/2014 Page 5
would preempt the city’s Development Code, which clearly would not be the case. It should be noted that the first 4-6 years after this transfer Lane County paid the city $50,000 annually to off-set
administrative costs. The city also collected fees for these developments and building permits so
additional revenue for the city was created by this IGA.
The other programs in the Urban Transition Area administered by the city are also beneficial to the city
and property owners by providing the same continuity of permitting or review or administration when
the property becomes annexed. Moreover, the Illicit Discharge administration is performed for Lane County’s benefit maintaining their compliance with federal law. The county also pays the city $25,000
for this service.
Nuisance code enforcement is a highly desirable service at the personal, individual level. Anyone who’s lived near a property exhibiting some of these more unpleasant violations knows how frustrating it is to
live with these conditions. The quality of life values are easily reduced to meaninglessness the more objectionable these violations become. The significance of the goodwill and sense of community sustained and enhanced by the presence of an effective and responsive nuisance enforcement program
should not be underestimated or thought of as a secondary outcome. However, nuisance code violations are not widespread nor do they impose or represent a development obstacle that will or could be responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted through poor planning.
An additional outcome of this proposal would be the provision of this service to properties outside the city limits at no cost. The cost of this program has no off-set through fees, charges or taxes; the fines
that might be collected are not sufficient enough to be considered off-sets and in any case, the principle
of the city’s code enforcement program is voluntary compliance, not revenue generation. The provision of this service outside the city limits without cost might be regarded by some as an action in
contradiction with the city’s efforts to incentivize annexation.
In addition, it must be recognized that at present there are no local resources available to fund the costs associated with implementing this program. That leaves the City with limited alternatives. We can seek
to secure County financial support for assuming a responsibility for an enhanced (compared to the
County) nuisance code program, we can use techniques from Priority Based Budgeting to evaluate this service addition with existing programs, or we can defer action until there are resources that can be
developed to fund the program.
Since the city will benefit from the establishment and implementation of an Administrative Civil Penalties process to provide a mechanism for enforcement of all of the city’s existing programs in the
Urban Transition Area currently without such a tool, staff does not recommend simply putting this concept on the shelf. Since the costs described in Section 2 are unavoidable and cost recovery via fines is unrealistic given the voluntary compliance principles of the city’s enforcement program. The city’s
enforcement program is approaching critical imbalance between staffing levels and levels of work. Adding more work to this program is not advisable without a concurrent and proportional increase in
staff resources. Accordingly, staff recommends that Council direct that both of the other alternatives be
pursued, and that the City and County have a conversation about the ability of the County to provide financial support, while City staff explores how a program like this would be evaluated in Priority Based
Budgeting and whether or not there are current city activities which could be changed, or perhaps even
eliminated, to provide resources for this program..
RECOMMENDED ACTION
Direct staff to explore opportunities for funding with Lane County and by evaluating this proposed
program within the context of Priority Based Budgeting to develop resource to fund a potential maximum annual increase of $107,833.
Attachment 1, Page 5 of 5
Program Enforcement Estimated Cost in the UTA
FIRE
Background: In 2007 a door to door survey to identify all commercial occupancies that fall under the
enforcement authority of the Fire Marshal was conducted in the Springfield UGB outside of the City
limits. There were 111 occupancies identified in this survey.
Current practice to achieve fire code compliance is staff intensive an designed to avoid Muni code court
and disruption of business for offending occupancies. Due to lack of staffing because of budget cuts
(50% loss of Deputies in the last two years) ‐ practices will change to a more penalty driven approach in
order to save staff time and be more efficient.
2011 Inspection and violation activity:
888; Occupancy inspections conducted citywide yielding 1572 violations noted and followed up
on
29; number of occupancies requiring more than 2 visits to achieve compliance
29/8888100%= 3.25% of inspected occupancies would have received notice of civil penalty and
ACP followup
Therefore:
Approximately 111 occupancies x 3.25% = 3.6 occupancies could require ACP follow‐up in the urban
transition zone each year.
Cost of ACP process is unknown
Estimate of DFM staff time for each ACP process; 8hr
Total cost ; 3.6 x 8hr= 28.8 hr
Staff cost per year ; 29 staff hours x $42/hr= $1218/year
Land Drainage and Alteration Permits (LDAP)
LDAPs issued within the UTA since 2011 have accounted for 0.7% of the total number of LDAPs for that
time period with an average of 0.57 issued per year for county parcels.
YEAR TOTAL LDAPs ISSUED LDAPs ISSUED IN UTA Hours per
permit
Permit $
2011 92 0 0
2012 104 0 0
2013 77 2 2‐4 hours $945/permit
$1,890 total
2014
(through May 5)
19 0 0
The fees generated for those two permits totaled $945.00. There is no existing method for tracking the
exact amount of time that LDAP staff spent on those two sites, but given the limited size and scope of
each project (single family dwellings), the total time spent on each project was probably between 1 and
2 hours.
Attachment 2, Page 1 of 2
Public Outreach for Enforcement in the UTA
The cost estimate for implementing Communications/Public Relations and recommended tactics if this
item is implemented:
Mail an initial letter 30‐45 days prior to effective date to approximately 4,600 residents within
the UTA to inform them of the pending change, what it means to them, and the effective date =
$1,600.00
Send a follow up post card two weeks prior to the effective date to remind them of the pending
change, effective date and where to go for more information = $1,600.00
Create a FAQs handout and print 300‐400 for code enforcement staff to handout if they receive
questions in the field plus post to website = $300.00
Total $3,500.00
Attachment 2, Page 2 of 2
Proposal
Local Government Division
2nd Instance of Incode Court for Code Enforecement
Presented to:Daniel A Haight
GIS Database Administrator
City of Springfield
230 4th St
Springfield, OR 97477
(541) 726-3710
dhaight@springfield-or.gov
Proposal date:May 15, 2014
Submitted by:Ryan Burns
(800) 646-2633
ryan.burns@tylertech.com
Tyler Technologies
Local Government Division
5519 53rd Street
Lubbock, Texas 79414
Attachment 3, Page 1 of 5
Subscription Summary
Daniel A Haight
City of Springfield
Investment Summary Proposal Valid for 120 days
Professional Services & Hardware Cost
Implementation Services (Existing Customers)8,500
Professional Services 1,000
Services 9,500
** Note: Travel expenses are billed as incurred based on Federal IRS per diem standards.
Subscription - Hosted Annual Fees
Length of Agreement
Annual Subscription Fee 10,333
Annual User Fee 5 3,600
Tyler On-Demand 900
Summary 14,833
**Note: Additional users may be added at any time at the per user rate of $720 per year.
May 15, 2014
4 Years - 48 Months
Attachment 3, Page 2 of 5
Software Licenses
Daniel A Haight
City of Springfield
Application Software QTY Hours
Estimated
Services
Annual
Maintenance
Incode Court Case Management Suite 5,500 3,819
Criminal Court Case Management 40Centralized Cash Collections 4
Incode Scheduling Included
(Warrant Scheduling, Macro Scheduling, Citation Import Scheduling)
General Ledger (non-Incode) Interface (PeopleSoft)Included
Incode Content/Document Management Suite 3,000 2,213
Incode Printing and Reporting Solutions
Secure Signatures (includes 2 signatures)Included
Tyler Output Processor
Tyler Output Processor Server 8
(Base Top Engine, Print Output Channel, Tyler Content Management Output Channel, Email
Output Channel)
Incode Content ManagementTyler Content Manager Standard Edition (TCM SE)16
(Unlimited Full & Retrieval Licenses, Multiple Scan Stations, Advanced OCR, Content Manager
for Incode Applications)
Professional Services 1,000
Professional Services
Project Management 1,000
Incode Application Subtotal 68 8,500 6,031
Professional Services 1,000
Preferred Customer Discount (25%)-1,508
Application and System Software Total 9,500 4,523
5
May 15, 2014
Attachment 3, Page 3 of 5
Hosted Applications
Daniel A Haight
City of Springfield
Service QTY Charges Initial Year Annual Fee
Citizen Portal
One Time Setup Fee 1 N/C N/C - Hardware Configuration
- DNS registration
INCODE Court Online Component
Monthly support/maintenance fee 75 /month 900 900
- Display of citation/citations for payment
- Display of Payment Plans - Payment Options
- Drivers Safety Course
- Deferred Disposition
- Make Payment
- Collects plea from defendant - Security -- SSL (Secure Socket Layer)
- Payment Processing - Credit Card
• Payment packet is created to beimported to Court System
NOTE: Defendant pays $2.50 - $3.50 fee per transaction for payment on-line.
Hosted Applications Total 900 900
May 15, 2014
Attachment 3, Page 4 of 5
INCODE Notification
Daniel A Haight
City of Springfield
INCODE Notification for Courts
INCODE Notification for Courts ($1 per violation)
- Defendant Notification by Phone - Call can be made for:• Citation Issued
• Court Date Reminder
• Court Date Missed, Notify of Next Step
• Warrant Issued
• Payment Plan due date reminder
• Etc.
- Case updated after call
• Call taken live
• Left message
• No answer
- Court creates unique message for each call type
- Call message can be English or Spanish
- Call Attorney, rather than Defendant
The Court will be allowed 2 call campaigns in the first 30 days at no charge. Tyler will assist with setup and creation of campaigns.
- Trial offer is free for 30 days.
- Campaign is limited to a one year time frame. - Both campaigns must be used within the 30 day time frame.
- If more than 2 campaigns are used, then customer will be billed for the additional campaigns.
Note: The Court will be billed for the cases in which calls are made. The $1.00 charge per violation includes up to 4 calls
per violation, as shown above. The Court will be billed by Tyler Technologies monthly for the calls conducted.
May 15, 2014
Attachment 3, Page 5 of 5
Attachment 4, Page 1 of 1