Executive/Council Action Form (ECAF)
ITEM TITLE:
Motion 24-456, approving a budget transfer within Planning and Development Services 002 General Fund Programs
DEPARTMENT: Planning & Development Services
ORIGINATOR: Julie Mass
EXECUTIVE RECOMMENDATION: Ken Klein 10/21/24
PURPOSE: To transfer funds from Program 521 to Program 517 in Planning & Development Services (PDS) due to unanticipated salaries, benefits, overtime and other costs in the Fire Investigation program.
BACKGROUND: PDS Fire Investigations (Program 517) is over budget and will need a budget transfer from Code Enforcement (Program 521) to cover projects overspending. There are three reasons for this. First, earlier this year, PDS needed to use a vacant Senior Code Enforcement position to recruit and hire a new Fire Investigator due to anticipated turnover in the Fire Marshal's Office, so that there would be overlap and cross-training with the new investigator and the existing three team members. When one of three fire investigators leaves, the remaining two cannot provide 24/7 on-call service to the county. Therefore, we opted to have four investigators temporarily, then transition back to three. (Note: in the 2025-2026 biennial budget request, we have asked for .50 FTE of a Senior Fire Inspector to be allocated to Fire Investigations to help provide sufficient coverage for investigations.) Second, Program 517 has seen overtime costs that exceed budget due to the nature of the work (after-hours, on-call, and unpredictable workload). Lastly, we have two additional expenditures in Program 517 that were not budgeted. One is the cost of sending the new fire investigator to the Fire Academy (required training) and the other is policies and procedures that are required for the Fire Marshal's Office to remain compliant with NFPA requirements. Appropriation exists within the other PDS General Fund programs to transfer the amount needed to Program 517 for these unforeseen expenditures. The budget aut...
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