Title
Body
MEMORANDUM
MEMO
TO: Board of Supervisors
FROM: Michalyn DelValle Community Development Director
Mary Jane Montana, Chief Building Official
SUBJECT: Authorize out of state travel for Chief Building Official Mary Jane Montana and Plans Examiner Jack Smalley to attend training (ICC EduCode) in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 11 through March 15, 2019
DATE: February 5, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
California Health and Safety code requires that all construction inspectors, plans examiners and building officials shall, within two years of the date of hire, obtain certification from a recognized association. Additionally, the County job description for Chief Building Official requires that the Chief Building Official shall obtain certification within 1 year from the date of hire (2/13/19). However, due to the inordinate amount of time spent on wildfire damage assessment this summer, the Chief Building Official has received authorization to postpone her certification deadline to March 31, 2019. Plans Examiner Jack Smalley must obtain his certification by September 18, 2020.
Further, all inspectors, plans examiners and building officials shall complete a minimum of 45 hours of continuing education for every three-year period. The Health and Safety Code Section 18949.31 goes on to state, “the local agency shall bear the costs of certification, certification renewal, and continuing education as mandated by this chapter”.
Knowing these state requirements, the Building and Safety Budget Unit 2602 for FY 18/19 provides adequate funding for training and travel for all County building inspectors, the plans examiner and the Chief Building Official. Building and Safety is a self-funded budget funded by permit revenues, and provides all building code and zoning enforcement functions for the County.
Historically, when the budget allowed, several staff members were sent each year to week- long intensive training (either ICC or CALBO sponsored) while the remaining staffers attended more local or on-line training. Then, in the following year staff members that did not attend the week-long sessions in the prior year, were then sent to the longer training, thus, rotating staff attendance at the longer sessions. The Building and Safety Budget Unit 2602 FY 18-19 training budget was designed with this cycle in mind.
CDD management staff looked at different options to provide adequate and appropriate training and found that there were only two venues that would provide the intense week long training needed. These were CALBO EdWeek (offered in Ontario, San Ramon, and Anaheim) and EduCode in Las Vegas. The CALBO training is four days in length and does not occur until August, September and October 2019 (next fiscal year) and EduCode is five days occurring in March 2019. EduCode also provides on-site certification testing allowing Mary Jane Montana to complete the final two tests required for Building Official certification and for Jack Smalley to take the Plans Examiner certification training.
A cost comparison was done (Attachment B) and it is actually $111 less expensive per employee to attend five days of training in Las Vegas than four days of training in California. That is a cost of $269/day/person to attend training in Las Vegas vs. $364/day/person to attend training in California, a savings of $95/day. There are adequate funds in the 2602 Building Budget to cover this requested training.
FISCAL IMPACT ______None __x___Budgeted ____Non-budgeted
Estimated Cost: $2690
Amount Budgeted: $2690
Additional Requested: NA
Annual Cost (if planned for future): TBD at annual budget process
FISCAL IMPACT (Narrative): None
STAFFING IMPACT (if applicable): None
Recommended Action
Authorize out of state travel for Chief Building Official Mary Jane Montana and Plans Examiner Jack Smalley to attend ICC EduCode training in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 11 through March 15, 2019.