How Delano, CA Optimized it's Permitting Process

Overview

The inefficiencies of their previous permit tracking process caused a backlog that resulted in frustrated customers and staff. Getting out from under that load and making sure it didn’t happen again was vital.

“The ability for increased collaboration and accountability across departments has allowed for staff to process permits more efficiently with a smaller number of staff than in previous years, leading to increased efficiency in the use of taxpayer dollars.”

Jerome Keene

Senior Planner, Subcontractor to City of Delano

SITUATION

Permitting chaos: drowning in requests

In 2013, the City of Delano, CA had found themselves in a mess no government wants to face. Their previous permit tracking system had stopped being supported, leaving them to resort to a manual process. What that process quickly led to was a permit wait time of 181 days, constant phone calls from unhappy customers, and permit correspondence being lost. It was clear they needed to get control of their operations before they drowned in them.

In looking for a system to turn their permit tracking around, they had a clear set of community development objectives:

Better tracking of permits
Consistent fee issuance
Digital records retention
Automated permit issuance via use of reports
Real-time review by various departments and outside agencies
Auditing capabilities to track permit actions
Ability to leave notes regarding communications with the applicant
Inspection scheduling and ability to review inspector corrections
Ability to expand permitting and processes to other departments in terms of automation and improved efficiency with existing staff

In addition to permit tracking and reporting, city workers also needed to be able to set reminders for plan review assignments and key dates for permits, licenses and violations.

SOLUTION

Efficiency and affordability: an exponential improvement

The city of Delano found their solution in SmartGov™, a product that allows permitting, licensing, code enforcement and more to be managed in one centralized, cloud-based system. Not only did it meet their checklist of objectives and offer GIS integration that could easily create maps viewable by citizens using a public portal, but it did it all within budget.

“For a permitting software, it’s not horribly expensive,” says Jerome Keene, Delano’s Senior Planner. “For a little city of our size that was looking to get going, there wasn’t a lot of upfront investment or startup costs.”

From there, they launched the solution in March of 2014, and it’s made quite a difference. The payoff on their investment was seen immediately.

“First, I would say we’re much more efficient, and we can handle a much larger workload by being more efficient. Second, we’re being better stewards of the environment by decreasing our carbon footprint due to not requiring paper plans or forcing people to drive unnecessary miles. And third, we’re being held accountable because everything we do is logged and can be reviewed. For the most part, everybody uses it, and things get done exponentially faster,” says Jerome.

Using SmartGov, the city can now track all aspects of zoning and codes in a single workflow:

Permitting
Planning
Inspections
Code enforcement
Licenses
Fees
Parcel contracts
And more

In addition to saving time and resources, the solution has greatly improved customer satisfaction through clear and efficient communication with all stakeholders.

RESULTS

A reputation restored

Employees are now able to state with confidence how long the city has managed an application. The entire record of the permit history, phone calls, emails and submittals is easily tracked and viewed by multiple departments, so they can quickly communicate the status and timeline of an application.

Some major business wins since using the solution include:

Reducing issuance from their previous lag of 181 days to just three to ten days
Decreasing phone calls from frustrated customers significantly
Keeping up with demand even during peak summer activity
Issuing 14 permits in 45 minutes, something that would have previously been impossible

This change in permit processing times and all-around better service isn’t lost on their customers. “Our reputation has improved with the development community where we’re getting larger projects in town, and they’re not coming in skeptical,” says Jerome. “We just finished a large movie theater in town and a 100-room hotel. If we didn’t have SmartGov, I don’t know how we would have done it.”

Council members have taken notice, too. “They love it,” Jerome says, “One council member told me the first month we had the solution, it cut down on his phone calls by 70 percent.”

“Another thing to note is what callers are complaining about. They’re not complaining about timelines or something being lost or getting the runaround — their comments are about the project details itself, which is normal.”

Delano’s success is a story that can give other cities hope. They’ve gone from a team that was on everyone’s bad list just a few years ago to a department that’s getting large building projects and logging record permit processing times.

When asked what he would tell other local governments considering whether to invest in a community development solution like SmartGov, Jerome ends by saying, “What’s your credibility worth? If you don’t mind being badmouthed at city council meetings, if you don’t mind being badmouthed at the counter, then don’t implement it.”