Afternoon everyone.

Welcome to the October Government Operations Committee meeting.

At this moment, I'd like to recognize Council members and staff present in the chambers.

And we have uh councilwoman Alcorn, Councilwoman Peck, and I guess that's all for the council members.

Uh we have staff from uh district B, District C, District H, District I, District K, at large one, and then uh also online is uh I'm sorry, District G.

So in District B is online as as well.

Um we do not have a quorum uh at the moment.

We do not uh have one, so as has been a long-standing tradition of the council, we proceed with the presentations.

If an agenda item requires a quorum to move forward as vice chair of the committee, I will ensure there's a quorum before the committee proceeds to vote.

In today's meeting, we have a couple of presentations.

Therefore, public speakers will be called upon after the last presentation.

Uh at this moment, I'll yield to Rudy Moreno, Deputy Director and Joe Hana Clark, Deputy City City Engineer from Houston Public Works.

They will be providing an update on staff augmentation.

Council members and staff, please please hold your questions until the end of the presentation.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, uh Vice Chair and members of the Committee on Government Relations.

My name is Rudy Moreno, Deputy Director of the Houston Permanent Center.

Um today I'm also accompanied with Mrs.

Clark.

Go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, afternoon.

My name is Joanna Clark.

I'm the deputy city engineer with Houston Public Works.

So we appreciate the opportunity.

I think we had them both on.

That's why appreciate the opportunity to speak uh before the committee today.

Um today we're going to talk a little bit about third party or staff augmentation and how the city of Houston has utilized this.

So who encompasses plan review?

Plan review is a comprehensive multidisciplinary review team across key departments for residential, commercial, and public development.

Uh it's it's uh comparable to Dallas, um, who also has disciplines, um, but Dallas is a lot smaller.

Uh for fiscal year uh 2025, we reviewed over 60,000 unique projects.

Uh but we performed 85,000 project reviews, meaning that at least 25,000 projects of that 60 were reviewed more than once.

Um back up a little bit if it's okay.

I'd talk a little bit about the departments that are within plan review.

You got the planning and development department, Houston Fire Department, building code enforcement under Houston Public Works, Office of the City Engineer under Houston Public Works, and our Houston Health Department.

Those are the five departments that are involved in this.

The Parks Department is also involved, but they are through they they receive their reviews through the planning department.

Uh beginning of fiscal year 2026, our service level agreement for uh plan review was um reduced from 10 days for residential and 15 days to commercial to 17 days across the board.

Meaning all projects reviewed must be uh 80 percent of those projects must be reviewed in seven days or less.

Next slide, please.

So talking a little bit about uh plan review and and and the code enforcement.

Uh our responsibility is to review and approve construction project plans to ensure compliance with all applicable building codes and life safety regulations before permits are issued.

This process verify verifies structural integrity and ensures projects meet established safety standards.

In 2022, we expanded the our staff augmentation for building code enforcement to include structural electrical and plumbing disciplines, and those disciplines were those reviews were helped in our uh revamped after hours program, uh which you may know as a former uh customer paid overtime program.

Uh resubmissions and first-time commercial reviews.

So in the office of the city engineer, we also use staff augmentations for various various purposes.

So as you know, our office is tasked with reviewing all the projects that have any type of impact in the public right-of-way that uh includes infrastructure like water, wastewater, um, traffic uh assets in the right-of-way.

Also, the floodplain management office is under the umbrella of the uh Office of the City Engineer, very important office to look into, and that conducts many, many plan reviews under these categories.

Um we are responsible for ensuring that there is compliance with the local and state level regulations, minus, and all the guidelines that we already have in place.

Um this office of the city engineer, we specifically have user staff augmentation to review plans that are within uh now.

We need to move to the next slide.

I'm sorry.

I just realized you'll are in the previous one.

Uh the this disciplines where we have user staff augmentation are traffic and mobility, uh, stonewater, uh again, the flood plane management office uh conducts reviews that is user staff augmentation too.

And currently we are engaging in two resources that are gonna assist us reviewing telecommunications plans that are increasing uh significantly recently, and also encroachment applications.

I want to also mention mention that we have a special programs like the uh community rating system, CRS, if you're familiar with it, is part of the floodplain management office, and it's very, very critical for our residents to get the flood insurance discount that we get right now are in class five and looking into moving into a class four, uh going from 30 to 25 percent discount that demands several resources throughout the year to do intensive research, review all our uh elevation certificates, construction projects and so on, to be able to update this plan and be sure that we get classified properly and that we can communicate and uh meet with the requirements uh that FEMA and the federal and state regulations have in place.

So we do use the staff augmentation for this effort.

Um also on the standards and specific on review.

Um it's very important that we keep up with technology and with the latest practices in the engineering um uh requirements for both design and construction.

So we are expanding into using some of these resources to help us partially with this with these tasks.

Next slide.

Okay, uh here are the four different staff augmentation contracts that we've used.

We have our Michael Baker, who uh we're currently still office of the city engineer is currently still utilizing since 2020.

We have Asani, who we we finished utilizing them as of January 2023, and recently in April earlier this year, we um no longer use B VNA versus the one that we've currently been using since uh mid mid-2023 and currently use today.

That is they're being utilized in stormwater, flood and traffic for under the Office of the City Engineer, and structural electrical under building code enforcement.

The planning department used to also utilize them.

They have paused uh utilization of third party from VRSA at this point.

Next slide, please.

So talk a little bit about the challenges that we have with third party.

Um as of FY20 end of FY25, we had approximately 122 vacancies at Houston Permanent Center, which represents just over 20 percent of a vacancy factor.

Uh within our plan review team, 15.5% of that was um plan review.

Um so staffing's always been an issue, continues to be an if issue.

We are working hard to staff our positions as quickly as possible, and to uh get more people online, you know, online to help us with our reviews.

Uh, another issue that we run into is funding.

Um funding uh when I speak about that, I'm talking about our our our general uh excuse me, the general fund departments, which is your planning department and your health and fire departments.

They don't necessarily have funding available to them to do uh to utilize third party, whereas we're special revenue fund and we utilize our those fees and revenue from that to have offset that um like like any issue, like any new higher, you know, training is always uh you know takes them a while before somebody is fully efficient, and roughly it's anywhere from 12 to 18 months until when we hire somebody that we are fully that particular individual is fully efficient and can run run and be able to review these plans officially.

Next slide, please.

So here's just a cost of staff augmentation contracts, kind of in a comparison.

offset that um like like any issue like any new hire you know training is always uh you know takes some a while before somebody is fully efficient and roughly it's anywhere from 12 to 18 months until when we hire somebody that we are fully that particular individual is fully efficient and can run run and and be able to review these plans officially next slide please so here's just a cost of staff augmentation contracts kind of in a comparison what you'll see on this first slide is uh both of these are plan review one's plan review the other's engineering and roughly um our we are paying three times more for staff augmentation uh services than we are for plant regular employees from plan review um the same apply well it's a little different but it's uh almost half of what it is for engineering which uh what I really want to point out is the 49 doll that you see here is is an outdated um cost and we need to do it we're doing a uh cost comparison and also um looking at and figuring out what that true number should be you see that engineering is a lot more closer to what we are paying third party but you see the the disparity between the two of plan review when it's basically about three times more um on the right hand side you'll see Michael Baker we've used utilized just about 25 percent of uh staff of the contract capacity Bureau of Eratas uh is pretty much it's been no longer util we're not utilizing that anymore and versa we're roughly about seven you know just under half um uh of that contract capacity has been utilized to date versus uh contract expires in 2020 June of 2028 B V and A uh expired just recently and Michael Baker contract expires in January 2027 you want to say something so adding up to the to the you look at the chart on your left where we see that discrepancy you'll wonder why the engineering has less discrepancy that plan review and as Rodi is explaining many factors really affect that but one thing to touch is that uh the engineering job classification family with the city has undergone multiple reviews salary adjustments that have helped some with that cost so we are not as far from the market as we were 10 15 years ago however there is still a big discrepancy and difference especially with other public agencies which is our big concern we know as uh public agency we're not gonna compete with the private sector one on one but when we lose personnel to other public agencies and counties in the surrounding area that is very very concerning for us.

So just mentioned that they have been efforts to make that uh difference smaller but it's still not sufficient and we see this unfortunately very often where we personnel uh leaves the city to work with other agencies because of the pay next slide please this is a really important slide um this is how we utilize in our staff augmentation this is for FY25 the most important thing I want to point out is the amount of work being performed by city staff plus our third party staff augmentation contracts we are not eating into our balance of plans that are in the queue which essentially we almost broke even if you look at the very beginning we started FY25 at just over 400 plans in the system we we took in 2800 plans in the first quarter but we did roughly about the same amount so where I'm really going with this is with third party staff augmentation contracts we're just maintaining we are treading water we are not able to deplete and and reduce this ending backlog so next slide please and this is just kind of same thing talking about the reviews the number of reviews projects works this is where just we're relying on our third party again to maintain next slide please how to phase down you know as we've been talking about you know staff augmentation dependency we would like to phase that down and reduce our dependency we believe we need to have a robust hiring plan and additional staffing which is competitive pay as you heard a second ago from Ms.

Clark with the market you know more importantly you know we would need to be uh competing with our counterparts our Harris counties our metros our flight controls other municipalities throughout throughout the city of Houston we need to strengthen our pay scales and and have career ladder opportunities uh we need maintenance incentives we need to find a way to keep keep the staff here um and of course we need a comprehensive training program that includes cross training and and we want to expand and modernize digital review and review tools which as we've been working we're working with several different AI uh companies talking to how we can utilize our services yes um so all of these are methods initiatives that we are not just looking at in a piece of paper we are working in to see how especially through the public works reorganization how we add resources in a feasible and responsible manner.

So all these efforts are are are moving along, but we do need the support specifically with the staffing, the recruiting, the fair compensation, and all these initiatives that require involvement from various departments and the city itself to support us on it.

Um something I want to mention is to also we need to keep in mind all the efforts are are going on right now in initiatives like the 30 day uh permit program.

We have reduced as Rudy mentioned our service level agreement to seven days.

So we we are being um tasked and we are so much committed to serve the public, um be sure that we meet these timelines.

Um not necessarily looking only at time but also the quality of these reviews.

We want to be sure that we're concentrated on quantity but also on quality.

And for that we do need the right resources.

The staff augmentation has been good support for us, but we know that um financially we do need to phase down um these type of tool.

And these are these are strategies that we know are necessary and we need the support overall from the city to make them happen.

I think that's all we have.

That's the last slide, so we're open for questions.

Thank you for the presentation.

We have uh several people in the queue.

Councilwoman Alcorn.

Thank you, Chair, and thanks for the presentation.

I was just looking back at the uh the 23 presentation on stock augmentation.

I mean, we obviously needed them to catch up, and we've had we've had to have them to just maintain, as you said, and not fall behind far behind.

Uh on the staffing, you said 120 down.

I know when we've talked about inspections and everything, that was like in the 50.

Just kind of can you break down that 120 of how many is that how many would be like it for in plan review and and the things how many are you how many vacancies in in the types of work that are being conducted by these third party?

Not all 120.

That's correct.

Right.

That is correct.

Um trying to find it here.

We didn't don't necessarily have it broken down into uh classifications as much as we do.

We're like we lost um sixty-nine people to retirements.

Right.

Um we have some we've had 29 resignations and uh up to 16 transfers, and then of course others were could be a death or discharge or you know, not a rehire or anything like that.

So it's it comprises of about 24 20.4 percent parcel.

Okay.

So to the extent like it'd be helpful for me to have an idea of uh how many were like which you've done in another presentation, how many were lacking on like kind of nuisance code enforcement kind of stuff, and then how many were lacking in in these types of functions at the third party thing.

So you can get that to me later.

But still um down 20% overall is is a lot.

You're basically an enterprise fund, you know.

You're you're paid for with the your fee-based, you know, and and I w um when's the last time that um permitting fees have been adjusted?

It was adjusted in 2015, excuse me.

To 10 years, 10 years ago we we made it, we adjusted.

So there's all kinds of things that have happened.

And if you look at uh trying to keep up with staff, I'm assuming that since you had it on slide 10, Harris County, flood control, Metro, all these other municipalities.

Would is it fair to say we lag behind them all in in hourly?

That is correct.

And and it are there fees um adjusted more regularly, or I mean, what can you tell me about those other entities?

I mean, I I can't speak towards the ent the other entities, but I can tell you that when we do exit interviews on you know employees that are leaving most more often than not they're going to other governmental uh entities or municipalities, uh many sometimes it's for more money.

It's uh flexible schedule, working from home.

I believe Metro and Harris County are still working remotely.

Yeah.

So there's just other opportunities.

And and we're at at also the stress level.

And we see a a an abundance of plans that we see, and not only do we lose people to municipalities, we lose people even within public works to other services.

Right.

Because the stress level is nowhere and the demand is nowhere near what it is at HPC.

So while I understand your your uh sense of, you know, we've got to save money and we're paying three times the going rate, we need to knock down some of these staff augmentation things.

I would argue that like I don't know that you can.

I mean, looks like you have in some areas in planning, but in storm, I I gotta tell you, I get way few fewer complaints about storm than I used to, so it must be helping.

I mean, so keep that going if you don't have the staff to do it.

And then in um where else are you keeping it going in uh code enforcement and engineering plan reviews, stormwater and it's uh structural.

I mean so keep that going if you don't have the staff to do it and then in um in where else are you keeping it going in uh code enforcement and engineering plan reviews stormwater and it's uh structural and traffic uh traffic is still going on by Michael Baker yeah okay okay uh yeah I mean that's that's the story we either pay I mean people are like ah privatize it or get third parties to do everything well you're gonna pay that way and if we need to get do it if we're gonna do it our way we're gonna have to pay people more to get people to come and and and stay so is there anything in the code or anything that that requires a review of fees every so often I know a lot of our fee structures are governed by code.

I don't believe it's codified however we are in the process of doing a cost of service study.

You are just started that so yes just started and what's the we're going through that procurement process and okay so it hasn't really started the work hasn't started but the time is something we want to do.

The timeline on that is another year out of year and a half okay right okay thank you very much.

I also like to point out that as and I know I've said this before uh in previous uh presentations but we lose money after the second review so we are losing money so we want every we want to hence the reason why we went to an approved in two concept where we're trying to approve these plans in two so we're breaking even but to to what we're just talking about related to the cost of service study it's imperative that we do that to find out you know to determine what the true costs are.

And is the customer paid overtime deal working well are a lot of people taking advantage of it.

It's working very well the challenge with that is we don't have the staff to man to maintain it.

So where someone may request an electrical review there may not be an electrical reviewer that evening to do that review.

I'm just using that one as an example could be any other discipline also.

Okay.

Thanks also on add on that just Council member we are we when the program was established there were groups that were not part of it like the Office of the City Engineer and all their infrastructure development services.

So we're looking forward to working with our director on expanding that and hopefully I will come to you soon.

Great yeah we we need it for all disciplines.

Thanks Councilwoman Peck.

Thank you Chair and thank you for the presentation and thank you for the work that both of you do and everyone in the department we um definitely get a lot fewer complaints about the timeframe so thank you so much that we've seen a really positive change.

Just to clarify a question that Councilmember Alcorn asked the fees so there are none of the fees for permitting is part of the um the annual fee adjustment that the city does on many of the fees that's separate from that.

But you're still doing a study from seeing from 2015 what the fees should be now in 2025.

So that hasn't been increased every year automatically?

It's been increased by the CPI correct the CPI just so that's correct.

Okay got it thank you.

And then for the phase down is there a timeline on phasing down the augmentation again it's all dependent on hire you know hiring staff as quickly as we can get them we need to fill some of these positions so we can get them fully trained and in you so they're uh as efficient as possible so we can reduce down that dependency.

I would say we would love to have you know start phasing this down in the next 12 to 18 months but right now as as I stated a few slides back you know we're just maintaining with the use of third party now we're strategizing internally and with our partner consultants to figure out you know where's the what's the best you uh what's the best use of their services should do maybe do we use them more in um the front end work or do we use them more in the uh resubmittals so we're we're kind of strategizing on that on what would be the best use and what gives us the best bang for our buttons and there's no plans to end the um contracting um until we have this plan in place is that correct that's correct okay great thank you and staff from mayor pro tem castum thank you chair and thank you director marino and um miss clark for the presentation and um mayor pro tem cassexatum appreciates the work that um public works does um and what all the team does you know at the end your response um we appreciate the initiatives that were that are in place that you know the 30 day and also um the seven business day um review a question on that in the event that um let's say plans are not reviewed within seven days what is the course of action to take a so that's a goal uh right now it's eighty percent in seven days or less uh I want to speak a little bit about that um it's seven days or less for the review that's that's seven days from the time you submit it until the time we submit it back to you we have one day at the front end on the routing and we have one day at the back end to to actually route it out which means in reality it's five days for the for each discipline to do those reviews.

We have one day at the front end on the routing, and we have one day at the back end to to actually route it out, which means in reality it's five days for the for each discipline to do those reviews.

Um we have to route that as quickly as possible to allow the the team, the reviewers ample time to be able to perform their reviews.

But it's a challenge, and that's part of the staffing issue that we're talking about.

We have to be able to, if if my routing team at the front end takes two days to route, I've now taken 20 percent of that plan review time from that next team.

So it's imperative that we get these routed as quickly as possible to to those teams so they can be reviewed in the disciplines, and then of course one day on the back end to be routed out.

Okay, thank you for that.

And then I have another question.

Um with regards to um uh staff augmentation, you mentioned that that's at with the use of that you're maintaining correctly.

So what does the backlog look like?

What is the status of of those items that are in backlog?

I can get that information that those numbers to you, but it's it's roughly uh probably around a thousand plans that are in the queue right now.

Okay, thank you.

And one more, if I may, Chair.

Thank you.

Now that being said, I do want to say that at our peak, we were had almost 5,000 plans in our system.

So it you know, in addition to the fact that uh we are maintaining the the economy has been down, so we haven't seen nowhere near the amount of subittals that we've seen historically in the past.

Thank you, Director.

And one more.

Um so with the talk of artificial artificial intelligence being a part of processes, um, are there any consideration with using artificial intelligence?

We're in discussions right now with uh two different companies regarding artificial intelligence and utilizing that.

One of them is uh Project Docs, the other one is Arch Archar.

Um but there's different different companies out there that we've been speaking to about the utilization of their uh product.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Munramir's staff.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um couple questions.

So on slide seven, where it shows the the bar graph about the hourly rate for an internal versus an external staff person.

Um so is there also data on the hourly kind of work product?

Like is it the same number of reviews, the same accuracy for an internal versus an external, or are there some differences?

Can you say that question one more time?

I'm sorry.

Sure, no problem.

Um this graph, which compares the the hourly pay rate for an internal staff person versus an external, it is their performance basically the same?

Like does an internal person review the same number of permits at the same rate as an external, is the accuracy kind of the same, or are there some differences?

That's a very good question.

And I would tell you they're pretty much equal.

Okay.

Uh they are an extension of us of the city.

Um but we've looked at that and they maintain a backlog themselves.

So uh my hope was that when we are submitting these plans or forwarded them to staff augmentation for them to do these reviews, they're not seeing the day-to-day customers.

They're not having to answer the phone, they may have one-offs.

So the idea would be that we would get a little more on our return for the amount of reviews, but it typically on average it's roughly about a one-for-one review.

Okay.

Um and so is the thought that in a year or a year and a half or whenever that the entire amount of money that's currently in the staff augmentation, the external folks be transitioned to hire internal folks, or might some of that funds be used for something else or saved or I mean as we as we continue to hire staff to meet this demand, we would love to reduce that dependency.

So, yes, we would love to utilize the funds that are currently earmarked for staff augmentation towards hiring city staff.

The entirety of the bucket.

Okay.

And so is the thought that we might then have more people or because of the pay differential?

Do you see what I'm saying?

Or no, because we want to be competitive, and so we'd end up paying the current rate that we're paying the external folks.

I think it's a combination of both.

I mean, we'd like to hire more people.

Um we'd also like to increase our salaries to be more competitive.

Okay.

Um so when we look at permits for restaurants, which I guess include health department and maybe fire, who I guess are not included in some of this uh staff augmentation bucket.

Um any has it been any conversation with those departments about their staffing needs for that or just how to enhance coordination maybe with some of their teams?

Any thoughts about that?

There hasn't necessarily been discussions related to staff augmentation.

However, we are we have entertained right now, currently we pay for three additional health reviewers.

So we have an MOU with the health department.

We're in the process of creating an MOU with the fire department to fund reviewers on their behalf because they are a general fund department.

Uh the planning department does have they a small portion of that that is a special revenue where they do generate some revenue.

So they they've pretty much been able to maintain on their own.

But the Health and Fire, we have again Health, we have an MOU in place and FIRE, we're in the process of doing that.

And so the FIRE MOU would hire new people or would just fund their existing people.

It we would hire additional staff and would be solely dedicated to that effort.

Gotcha.

Do I have time or do you want to cut me off?

Thirty seconds, okay.

Um last question.

Uh the slide where it it showed kind of the maintaining status, right?

Where we kind of have the same b backlog as we did uh a year ago.

In addition to the staffing changes that will come down in a year and a year or a year and a half, what are the top couple of um strategies, operational changes that you're you're implementing to to reduce that the backlog?

One of the things we've been working on is kind of more of a streamlined approach where we have uh right now the we have a plan review team and office of the city engineer plan review team and building code enforcement.

We have a plan review team and sign administration, we have a plan review team within our IDS within public works.

Um so we're really kind of trying to align more from a functionality standpoint to expand our bandwidth.

So we're doing that with plan review, inspections, and permitting.

But that's some of the things that we're looking to align and help with efficiency opportunities.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

I've got a couple of questions.

Uh first of all, I wanted to say that we've gotten a lead a lot of feedback about permitting.

It it's all been positive.

Um the general consensus of the feedback we've gotten is that uh although things uh aren't where they want them to be, it is moving the right direction and they see improvement and they appreciate it.

So thank you very much for that.

Um you talked about uh your goal was to review 80 percent of proposals within seven days.

Where are you at with that goal?

I apologize, I should have brought that in.

I don't have that with me, but I mean we are we're hitting it in some cases.

Uh I know opposite the city engineers reviewing theirs in seven days seven days or less.

Uh building code enforcement is still struggling.

Building code enforcement also has uh the large number of vacancies.

So we are struggling in the building code enforcement.

I will tell you in health fire and planning, they're not meeting it.

So we are we're working diligently and as efficiently as possible to identify streamlining opportunities to get these plans reviewed as quickly as possible.

Okay.

But as as Ms.

Clark said, it's important that we don't sacrifice quality for quantity.

On the uh engineering um expense and the staff augmentation and Houston employees paid seven.

Uh uh you're paying your engineers 125,000 a year?

Sixty dollars an hour.

Well, that includes total compensation, and that's an average.

The engineering family is pretty wide, plus we use several classifications.

We have entry-level engineers, licensed engineers, supervisors engineers are conducting reviews too.

Um so these numbers are pretty big picture average for all of that.

Okay.

What what's starting salary at?

So a gradual engineer or an engineering training, which is the first level, I believe is right now at the 70,000 close to that.

Uh once you are a licensed engineer, I believe you are on the 80s, close to 90.

Um, and I can get you those numbers to be completely accurate, but that's kind of the uh again, big picture.

Supervisor engineers are right above the hundred thousand.

Uh so yes, various um.

The things that the change has not happened quickly.

These this was recently updated.

What do you think you need to be at in order to be more competitive and retain more and be able to get caught up?

Uh I would like to share with you some numbers.

I don't have them with me, benchmarking numbers that we have done with other public agencies, because I think that's what we need to compare with in the private sector, clearly, that's probably half of where you are with a private firm.

But for public agencies, they are literally about 20, 30 percent higher than what we are.

Okay.

And it's something that I I want to make a remark that if you if we think about the concept of plan review, we are those that conduct plan reviewers are looking at the designs by other firms, whether it is contractors, uh engineers, uh constructors, and so on.

So we do need a high level of expertise and knowledge to be sure that they can review somebody else's work.

Well, the way we have the uh application of our job families to conduct reviews are at the entry level, if not a little higher when you get to uh a professional licensed engineer.

So that's something just to keep in mind.

But yeah, 20, 30 percent probably, but I would like to share with you those numbers once I get in tabulated.

Okay, thank you.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

See, our uh next presentation is on code modernization update, presented by also again Rudy Moreno.

Deputy Director and Ray Reese, Senior Division Manager.

Good afternoon, Vice Chair and members of the Committee of Government Operations.

My name is Rudy Moreno, Deputy Director of Houston Public Works, and also the Deputy Director within Houston Permanent Center.

I am accompanied today by Mr.

Ray Reese, who is the senior division manager over our code team.

Uh, he'll be speaking about this presentation today, and I'll be available for any questions.

Again, my name is Ray Ruiz.

Uh, senior division manager with code development.

Uh thank you for your attention.

Can I go over a few slides uh and talk a little bit about uh the history of the code modernization of where we're at, uh some of the things that are being accomplished, uh some of the uh important things that we want to maintain as well as uh what it is that's next for uh code modernization and where we're going with this.

Uh to begin with, the first slide there with the uh the history of it.

Uh the most recent code adoption that we have had is uh 2021 code modernization.

There was a grant funded program that allowed us uh to catch up uh in this way.

It that particular grant allowed us to hire uh three positions.

Uh we had a um a consultant that we hired that at any time had between one to eleven people working on it.

On top of that, we dedicated two of our uh subject matter experts in the co-development department uh to help uh supplement that.

Uh it ended up being uh spanning over two years.

Uh there was a lot of uh stakeholder engagement, there was task force groups uh that were created, uh committee reviews to make sure that we uh did not sacrifice any of the minimum uh life safety requirements.

Uh there were many trainings and workshops that were held uh internally and externally, as we're gonna keep continue to expound upon.

The result was that uh January 1st, 2024, we were able uh to have in place the adoption of the 2021 International Codes.

As we go to some of the highlights on the next slide.

We'll see that uh speed was certainly one of the highlights uh again with that uh grant funded program and the uh uh additional staff that we had, we were able to achieve the fastest code adoption in the history of City of Houston.

Uh several uh training toolkits came out of that.

You'll see there the technical papers, the uh cross-reference analysis.

Uh keep in mind that as a city of Houston, we were previously under the 2015 building code.

Building codes are uh in three-year cycles.

So for us to go from the 2015 to the 2021, we also had to uh evaluate the changes that came about at the 2018 code.

So all of that uh was a result of that cross-reference uh code analysis, resulting in uh significant changes being tracked for the nine building codes that we have, the the residential codes, the building codes, fire codes, existing building codes, swimming pool codes, uh uniform mechanical codes, plumbing codes, as well as the national electrical code.

Uh the training courses, as you can imagine, with us having uh this more up-to-date information.

There was a lot more or of uh community stakeholder involvement.

Uh the educational hours uh greatly increased the number of trainings uh that we had.

Uh one of the things that you'll see that really took place differently is having not only external stakeholder engagement, but the need to also have a lot of training for our internal staff at the same time.

Uh, three of the key deliverables from that grant funded program uh for modernization were the project management plan, the public participation plan, and the training implementation plan.

Again, all a rough uh framework for how we would be able to do uh future uh code adoptions.

Now on the next slide, you'll see uh some current initiatives that we keep uh working with.

The year-round curriculum, uh particularly the outreach, in order to target specific external stakeholder needs.

So the customer service section as well as communication, Elizabeth Orton and her group, uh, Grace Chandler, uh, they keep us in touch with what it is that those external uh stakeholder needs are uh via round tables and so forth, uh outreach.

Some of the result has had a direct bearing on the topics uh that we discussed, plan review process is always uh key.

Uh the code updates, the new technologies that are available, and as mentioned before, uh it being critical to include the Houston permitting staff as part of that training.

So you'll find that uh one of the key things that we've done is we made sure to have an internal training program with our staff prior to going to to externals, and we'll talk about that in just a second.

The education and outreach, again, the the monthly trainings that are happening on a continuous basis, the flyers uh that are available, uh, the uh postings that we have in the building, as well as via social media, uh the public, the public is informed.

So everybody knows what's taking place.

Now on our next slide, uh wide code modernization uh matters.

Uh alignment, uh, improve customer service through alignment.

It's one thing uh for the public to feel like they know something via their experience or their previous experiences, and for us at the permitting center, but unless that understanding aligns, then uh it may make uh the permitting process and even the inspection uh difficult, unnecessarily difficult.

Uh driving consistent uh code interpretations, again, for one person or even for the code development group to have the right interpretation or for plan review to have the right interpretation, it's one thing, but unless we can all uh come to an understanding of what that correct um interpretation is and why it is, so that uh customers can uh be driven by that through the uh submittal process, through the review process, and through the inspection process.

So partnering that third bullet point obviously becomes very critical.

The communication that takes place now at the permitting center from the various departments to see how it is that we can uh better have an understanding of the code requirements as well as what we would require.

So deliberate direct communication among all the departments, understanding that we all play a part in the in the customer's experience when pulling a permit again from what's on the flyers all the way through the initial intake through the inspection certificate of occupancy and so forth.

Uh customers uh being informed about key updates, uh frequently asked questions again, with the interpretations being consistent with the information, with the same information being shared among all departments.

That obviously allows us to then be able to have good information on our website, so that even prior to coming in to the permitting center, uh people are well informed, and there's not one thing that they read online versus what they actually experience when they come into the building.

Having current codes being modern in our current codes, then allows us to be able to have uh better uh ratings from the program that offers the insurers uh the program that they look at uh into a community's building codes and their enforcement.

Uh the lower a uh a B SEG score is, B SEGS is a uh building code effectiveness grading system, the lower the score there, then the better likelihood of people being able to get uh better premiums for their insurance rates.

And then lastly, you have the community development, uh, the life safety factors, right?

Whether it's smoke detectors or carbon monoxide generators and what have you, those life safety items are constantly kept before the public uh via bulletins and so forth.

Our next slide is code modernization uh training outreach.

There's much benefit and wisdom that we have gotten from the 2021 code update.

And so we're obviously maintaining the trainings uh you see there in the bullet points.

We've had 17 internal trainings to date already.

We've hosted 18 external trainings, both at the permitting center as well as uh outside.

We've revamped the certification programs.

At the permitting center, there's always been some certification programs and some assistance to help our staff become certified, but revamping a very specific curriculum, 16-week curriculums for whether it's the permit tech certification or the building code inspector certifications.

We have simulated time test.

Again, we have a set curriculum.

We have many staff members, not only the ones that are participating in the trainings, but even their other departments.

They're enjoying that and they're benefiting from it.

Lastly, on this slide, we have the second per annual permitting workshop.

We did that last year.

Again, uh the collaboration across departments with the customer service and the communications team.

It's going to happen again November 19th.

The focus as the demand is for permitting, right?

So three tracks, whether you are new to the permitting processes, whether you are a pro at it, or perhaps you are at the develop developer level.

Our last slide is uh what's next.

And what's next?

Uh again, we're currently under the 2021 code.

Uh we want to look at the 2024 code and bring forth uh high value updates uh that have come out.

So that's going to allow us to benefit uh from those updates.

We implement it, we join it uh to the 2021 code, and then we prepare for the 2027 code, which will be coming up uh in 2027.

The idea is to be able to uh to implement the 24 code updates in 2026, and then to look at uh targeting a full 2027 code cycle adoption in 2028.

That's gonna uh help us be able to uh bring about those changes uh with less staff requirement that was necessary through the grant funded program of you know up to 17 uh augmenting via 17 team members.

Uh it'll allow us to make us better use of uh not having to purchase code books for every code cycle.

So uh looking to have something that is sustainable and predictable, uh updating uh the codes and then doing full adoptions.

So essentially that gets us, I think, to the end of this part of the code modernization presentation of where we've been and where we would like to go.

Okay.

Have uh questions from staff.

Um Councilman Ramirez.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um I imagine sometimes there is a trade-off between uh cost and trying to save lives, or right, other trade-offs.

Um, two related questions.

One of them is um the the 2021 code compared to the 24 code.

Any kind of cost analysis of how that might impact affordability for a home, for example.

Uh I don't have any of that particular information.

Uh again, what we're looking to do is be able to go to to start the analyzing of the 24 codes, particularly for the the life safety items, to be able to see how they can be of value and any potential cost savings, whether it's energy and some of those other valuable updates.

Gotcha.

So uh my second question might be the same answer, but I'll ask it anyway, um, which is the 2024 energy code.

Any sense of will it save money for for home builders, will it cost money?

Does it depend if they implement all electric or how or how does that work?

As of right now, just at a at a cursory look at it, there are some um, for example, installation energy type requirements that's gonna allow for some trade-offs and for scaling back a little bit, but we want to take a full a full look at it before we make a final determination.

Gotcha.

And you may have said this, but so what what's the timeline for when we might hear back some of that analysis?

We are wanting to get into the review of the 204 code uh here pretty soon.

The idea is for us to be able to present some of the Director Moreno early on in 26 and then take steps beyond that.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, I believe we have uh one question or one public speaker that is signed up, Benjamin Broadway.

Is Benjamin here?

I guess not.

So uh with that, that uh concludes the meeting, and thank you very much.

Thank you.