Ad-Hoc Stadium Audit Committee - Regular Meeting

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Thank you so much. And, well, I guess I'll do the do do the roll call or do I? It can be

Yeah.

I I think we will call. Or do you wanna call the meeting to work first?

Sounds. Oh,

can you call the meeting to order?

Yeah. Well, I'm calling it I'm sorry. Right. Now that we turned it on and calling it to order, like to welcome you all to this audit meeting audit committee meeting here on, gosh. I forget what day I'm at. June 12. There we go. And, roll call, please.

Chair Hardy. Present. Committee member, Tahol.

Present.

And committee member, Gandalis.

Here.

Looks like we're all in attendance. Thank you so much. Alright. In fact, I was hoping for a printout. I'm having a little trouble with the Internet connection.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. For the

The agenda?

Yes.

I do manage.

It it hasn't been connecting automatically when I get here to this. I've gotta redo it. I'm gonna fuss with IT over it. Thank you. Mhmm. That will help me. Alright. First, our audit committee minutes of March 17. Any questions about those minutes? No.

Motion to approve. Okay.

Second.

Approve. And a second. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Public comment?

Oh, public. Yes. Because we do have public. Do we have anyone in the public who would like to comment on the minutes? I guess that says no. Then we can take the vote. Thank you for keeping me honest. Mhmm. It's what our legal team does. All in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Thank you so much. I vote aye, and that is unanimous. Appreciate it. Alright. We public presentations. Oh, that may go fast too. Still no one on line?

Can be online.

Okay. Didn't know if it changed in the last thirty seconds. There seems to be no one here in the chambers, and so we'll go on for no public comment. Alright. Now we're going to see the city auditor's office report on the office on the audit of the city's building permit process. Thank you so much.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you, committee members, for being here and taking up the time. We have we have a yeah. I think it's kind of the first of this iteration report of the auditor's office. We had some that lingered over before, but since we got into a new agreement with Baker Tilly and doing our own risk assessments in house, this, I believe, is the first one we're bringing forward. So it's exciting. And I think maybe we should take a minute. I know you all know Akshay, of course, but I'm not sure that we all know each other. So maybe, Arman, David, you wanna do just do a quick intro?

I'm Arman Lobo. I'm the billing official with the city. Been the billing official for now for four years now.

I am David Joanne, assistant billing official. I'm with the Citi for one and fifteen years.

Krista Perez. I'm staff liaison for the audit committee.

Thank you. Appreciate it. And David and Arman were were very pivotal in helping us go through the audit process, and they were kind of our off show wasn't here yet, so they were kind of our primary contacts to go through throughout the whole process. So let me switch over here. Start our show.

And I'm gonna get to Nick in a minute. He'll just sit there and look pretty for a second. So I just wanted to do a quick background. I know you probably know most of this, but just to just to recap what our auditor's office mission is, and it's it's an independent office that we report directly through the audit committee to the city council. And it's it's really to, you know, promote effective and honest reporting of all of our functions.

Any issues that come up, looking for anything to keep us, you know, independent, doing some objective audits of of things that either rate us high risk or things that can come out throughout the year that look like they need attention. And that applies to all our entities, the city, SVP, same authority. And just a quick background as to why we have Nick here or had Nick here. Do I need to do something to get Nick's face back up there?

And he's on your block.

He's on me.

Can you see us, Nick? I think maybe when it's when your PowerPoint is on, he doesn't come on.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Nick, we've lost you visually, but hang in there. So we established the office back when the auditor's office was really started again coming out of the pandemic. And we established it under a co source model. So it's some staff and effectively getting into a partnership with a consultant. In this case, it's Baker Tilly. And so how that works is we hire them to to help perform the risk assessment annually. They help us develop what the audit work plan will be, and then they're one of the firms that we can go to to then perform audit work.

It's a co source model because, you know, we have a, I would say, an adequate but limited budget to to facilitate that because effectively, our auditor's office, from an independent standpoint, is a staff of one. So we work very closely with Bay Fertility on this process. And we also, I guess yeah. I brought that up. We we use them to do projects.

In the future, we're gonna have some other firms to bring forward to possibly help with the audit work as well. And long awaited, Nick, how about you jump on here and introduce yourself really quick and tell us a little bit about yourself and the firm and and how how you were part of this this audit process?

Nice to meet everyone. My name is Nick Martinez. I was a senior consultant on the project. Our firm regularly does work like this, and it was a a real pleasure to work with Arman. And, David, thank you very much, guys. We appreciate it. In this in this setting, we we perform internal audits pretty regularly, again, with with several, public sector clients. And as as David mentioned, this is for us, but we've definitely had a, a big task in front of us with this job, and, we hope that the audit report produced some, some quality, quality recommendations for the team.

K. Thanks, Nick. So a

little

bit about how did we get here. As I mentioned, the audit project selection process really begins with a risk assessment. That's kind of the beginning of all internal auditors' work. And the we really go through and do a full look at all the risks associated with the particular auditable units within the city. In this case, we follow along the programs of the budget. And so we'll do interviews with all council members. A couple of you probably remember that. We'll get to you council member Gonzalez eventually. And most of the department heads. And then in addition, last year, we wound up doing a staff survey to see what any frontline staff thinks about what risk would be in the city.

And so that was a process that didn't necessarily inform this audit. This was done under, you know, the previous risk assessment, but just something that we're doing currently. And just risk is defined as the possibility of an event or condition occurring that will have an impact on the ability of an organization to achieve its objectives. Very mouthful, but we take that as anything that's happening that we feel like could damage our finances, damage our reputation, so on and so forth. So the risk assessment, we picked out the building permit process due to a number of things.

There's inherent risks associated with that, but there were also specific risks that we identified during our interviews and paperwork gathering. I think many of the council members even mentioned building permit process to us as something we should look at. So I think some of the things were we had some customer complaints that we'd heard from people. The department at that point had some vacancies and turnover. We were in the middle of doing the Acela system implementation back at the time we were assessing this risk. Building permit, by its nature, can be a little volatile in revenue. And there's always compliance issues related to building permit. Are they changing? Are we following them? So that was a little background on how we each went to choose this process.

And so our as I mentioned, the audit itself, we went through a number of interviews throughout, you know, the building permit staff at all levels. Arman and David really emerged as our main contacts and and information gathering. I'm sure you got information from other people in your your function as well. We we really focused on the building permit services during this audit. It's really making sure that that's efficient and that our customer service there is is done really well.

Next step was to looking for adequate mechanisms to make sure that we're processed as efficient and that our, as I said, our customer service is good and we also are, as I mentioned, complying with all of our codes and regs. And finally, very important, internal controls is important over any function, but we always look at that with audits. And in in the billing and collections area, did we have permit fees and fines that were adequately designed, and were they operating as we intended them to? Are we collecting them correctly? Are we analyzing correctly?

And then our audit methodology, I'm gonna let Nick kinda take this one to talk about, you know, how does the firm approach that and and what is it exactly we did through here during field work.

Yeah. Pretty standard process here. Our, planning often involves, you know, review of laws and policies, regulations, city code, things like that. And during planning, it's really just getting an understanding of the area, doing our best to get a lay of the land. And then from there, we use that information to develop what will ultimately be, our approach to testing.

And, you know, again, that includes interviews, research, best practice, analysis, things like that. Within field work, it's a variety of testing, a lot of redoing work and just validating and verifying, our understanding of the process and then trying to understand, you know, when there are discrepancies or anything that would go against our understanding of existing criteria, you know, trying to get to the bottom of what's what's at heart there and then use our use our results to try to form recommendations that ultimately the the main goal is to mitigate risk and add value. At the end of our fieldwork process, we move into reporting, and that's, very much a team effort between us and the auditee. And our mission there is, again, to make sure that we have accurate accurate information in the report. Nothing is a surprise and that we kind of arrive at a good place where, we have communicated our intention with the with the project, and then it's up to the auditee to kinda come back and say whether or not they agree or disagree with the, findings.

And, ultimately, we wanna be in a good spot where we can move forward and add some, again, some quality value with the project.

K. And part of that is really assessing risks, and we we did walk through processes with staff from beginning to end of, you know, a customer walking in throughout the permit issuance. And throughout all that, there's tests of controls, looking at any of the plan reviews, timeliness of review, timeliness of fee collection. And then from that, we develop a sample to test. It's a it's a big group of transactions, so we develop a sample.

In this case, we had 45 applications that were selected. And we did a sampling method to go through and take snapshot of all the various types of building permits that we issue. The time frame for that was anything for permit applications that were received in fiscal year 'twenty two and 'twenty three and that for which permits were issued as of 09/11/2023.

I had a real quick question. Rebecca, you switched over.

Can go back.

Five. It says, gathered information to understand the environment under auditing, en evaluating PMP. You mean what by that?

Sorry. Yeah. Missed that one. Policies and procedures.

Okay.

Yes, policies and procedures.

Yeah, I just try not to use any kind of abbreviations.

No, got you. Yeah, we should have spelled that one out. Sorry. And policies and procedures is a big big thing in internal audit any auditing, really, but internal auditing for sure as you'll see here.

Thank you.

So just a quick snapshot. I'm gonna flip a little back and forth between our slide and the actual report. I know there was a lot of information to go through in the report itself, But we had four, what we'll call, findings throughout the process. And as you mentioned, policies and procedures, that was what that was the lead yeah. That was you were you were a good segue.

Thank you. So we we noted that at the point in time, there were some written there were some written procedures throughout. I think, you know, the estimation is we were thinking they were a little bit informal and that we didn't really have a comprehensive group of policies and procedures for the entire process all the way through. And so we came up with a recommendation that management should establish and implement a comprehensive policy and procedure document, which covers all the critical processes for the the building permit function. Part of that let me bounce back one thing really quick, in the actual report itself.

Part of the oh, sorry. I'm gonna close my Zoom real quick, I think. How did I get lost here?

Too much procedure or too much Yeah.

I lost

my have to take

I lost my Zoom. But, anyway, let me

As long as you said, pray. Yeah.

So I'm trying to flip out from into my PDF. I'm having a hard time with that.

Maybe see, I've had some trouble looking at my

It's on my screen, but it's not displaying. You have to drag it into the screen? It's odd. It's on my screen.

Yep. Like I said, I've had a bit of a struggle with the Wi Fi connection sometimes in some of the rooms around here.

I am confused.

David, is that why I cannot see any screen sharing or slides or any of that? Just have a moment.

You're not seeing any other. Okay.

Oh, maybe share your maybe in the Zoom. Mhmm. Can I share your screen for your PowerPoint? Click on that.

Or, yeah, expand it. And then, like, share.

Oh, got you. You're correct. That's the one thing I forgot. Thank you, Sue.

Screening options.

Sue from our ID department.

Legal ID. Not illegal ID.

I am not screen sharing still. Interesting.

Maybe sharing on the Zoom and not Yeah.

Could you give me the option when Is it on Zoom?

Yeah. It is. Yeah. It is it's on Zoom, David.

So then we can alt tab into your Zoom screen. Or plus I Is that a short entire Yeah.

See.

You're sharing your screen, Paul.

I am sharing my screen. Oh, here we go. We're getting closer. So I want to be sharing here.

And you are sharing there. Is you, It looks like we're

Yeah. Well, I'd like to share it where we can all see it.

We are seeing nymph now. And

Well, sorry about this, guys. I am kinda lost. How about I stop doing this, and I will just direct your attention to the pages in the report? So on page five on page five, what we have here is kind of a part of our detailed analysis, which is our risk and control matrix. So leading into where we come up with the findings, this is kind of a snapshot of the way to do that.

So part of what this is and, Nick, chime in anywhere in here if if you feel like you wanna add something. You know, we follow through the processes of application processing, plan review, the permit fees, how do we monitor performance, and we come up with potential risks associated in there, which you'll see in the third column. And really what we do there is we identify from that process, do gaps exist or are there controls in place? And you'll notice that the comprehensive formal P and P is listed a number of times in this chart. It's a gap that exists across the processes.

So just a quick snapshot into how we really summarize the detailed analysis that we've performed to come up and identify what the gaps are and any strengths. And so heading back to that, just a quick summary of our of our first finding, as we said, was a comprehensive policies and procedures. So we've mentioned it a couple times, but I think it was something that we felt like was missing across the whole spectrum of the process. So the recommendation was really to simply perform that, complete that, have it somewhere that everybody can can see it. And I think maybe what I should do is just let me go through the four that we have, and I know that staff is is here to address those four as well.

And I'm gonna give the cord to offshoot here in a little bit too. So that one was a, you know, fairly simple diagnosis across all processes. So the other one was a question of timeliness of the permitting process. You know, looking at those 45 applications, and it it is detailed. This information is detailed.

It's a little much to throw up on a slide, but it is detailed on page page thirteen and fourteen where it it it shows some of the more data specifically about which numbers of of what, how far did we feel like they missed the window. And and, basically, it's just the permitting process timeline, I think, we felt like wasn't consistent with what was at least established at that point in time. And I know that there are a lot of reasons for that, I think, but from an audit perspective, we can only look at what is written as here's what we're going to do, right? Which there are so many features to that, which I'm sure staff is going to want to address as well. So again, the recommendation there would just be to have management really proactively monitoring that timeliness process of permitting really across all functions of the city that need to look at a permit, which there are many.

We can also have other performance metrics throughout the year. I know that we were implementing Accela right in the middle of all this, so there there were advantages of Accela that we may not have gotten to yet. And the third one was the actual permit fees themselves. So, again, testing the 45 applications that we pulled in the random sample. There were fees that totaled a little over 3,000,000.

And, again, they were applications that were in '23 and '22 and '23. And we felt in the data that we had that they weren't always calculated accurately in importance to what we had in the fee schedule. And then also looking at kind of a review of those fees as they were applied, did did they really have a level of scrutiny before it went out to be charged or collected? And so again, just a recommendation to implement some mechanisms that we felt like could really help that process. You know, again, manuals, training of the permit technicians.

There are many. I think there's some turnover in that position too, I think, at the time at least. So comprehensive, you know, documentation and and regular training and then developing a mechanism to adequately test those fees as they're posted in the system, compare them back to the fee schedule. I know that that should be automated, but sometimes fees may get added that don't apply to that function. And then oh, go ahead. Quick question. Uh-huh.

Just because you talked about the 45 applications, were these very large development situations, or did you take kind of a sampling of a small neighborhood situation as as well? Because it the numbers are quite large here, the total value. Yeah. We There's 4,000,000, and the fees are, like, 3,000,000. So

We did a sample. Yeah. We did a sample across all types of building permits. We we deliberately went in and and structured it so that way we could hit everything. Okay. So if we randomly sampled and it was 40 large building, you know, we would fix that. So we went in and and and definitely we did.

I think in the report, it does.

Yeah. Breakdown.

Yeah. We do

have a breakdown in

there. Yeah.

Okay. And then I think the invoices that go out, we had an instance, I think, where the billing was incorrect. So just having a mechanism to review that invoice before it got in the customer's hands was another recommendation. And finally, the last one that we had out of our work was having a performance monitoring system and some process improvement. I think what we found or felt was that there wasn't really a formal mechanism to monitor the performance metrics and make sure that the permits were tracking through the process as designed, you know, areas where I think finding places to identify improvements within ourselves.

I don't think that we felt like there was a system to do that. And just a I know that we had many different ways of following through the receiving and tracking, but it just didn't seem as though that was very centralized and formalized as a process. So recommendation there was to establish more, you know, formal policies, written ones, and then obviously periodically monitoring that system to make sure that we're following them.

Question. Raj, so on this one, like, I know we right now on our website, we have monthly reports of all the permits issued, basically. And I look at that. I found one parameter which is not there, which is, to me, it's very objective. I don't know to the committee or everyone else.

We have a permit issuing date. We don't have the date when the permitting process started because that will give me oh, it does has a like, permit number has a, like, whatever, p d 20 fourth. I know it's starting in '24. Right. But ending date permit final finalized date is there, but it doesn't have the total amount of days how much it took for that matter.

And one other classification which can help on that is, you know, we have over the counter, simple, complicated, and bigger buildings. If I can add see that column on that, just one column of you can code it 123401234. That will give us anybody as a layman when you check it. Oh, okay. It's a big building, so it will take a little bit longer time. Oh, it's a simple permit process, so it should not take fifty five days or something. So that control So why? That report will help us out. That way, my comment on timeliness because I did check your reports on April up to April. I think it's there online, April, May.

Yeah. So but those are my suggestion if you can add those.

I like that because we were just looking at our hiring process. It was good to look at how long does it take. Yeah. And this is something we're very aware of. Yeah.

Great. Finally, the last thing I think as part of that finding was a recommendation to develop some sort of approach to log in any customer feedback and, you know, keep track of it, how do we resolve it, create metrics around that. So I I think that was kind of the last piece of our recommendation for that finding.

The Yelp for the city planning department.

Such a way. Sure. Right. And I I think if if you have any questions on kind of the audit piece, fieldwork, detailed analysis, maybe we can address those now. Otherwise, I can turn it over to Akshay. I should have mentioned the way that these reports work is, you know, we do our work. We come up with our conclusions. Those stand alone. We turn that over to city staff and management to have a response. That response, if they so desire, is you're nuts. This is not true. They could certainly write that. We wouldn't argue that. Our observations are our observations. They're completely independent.

And so it's really up to staff to respond to the work that was done and any recommendations that we have in the way that they see fit. So that's why I'm going to unless you have questions about the audit test work.

I do have a Please, please. On the permit fees question. Like, looks like it's subjective sometime and depends upon who is on the counter, to be very frank, who is dealing with it. Because just to give you and please don't take it wrong. I'm not trying to pick anything specific.

I'm just trying to I analyze the audit report and analyze the little bit of what's actual feedback from the resident, basically, is. Right? So I did see, like, in some instances, like, person a pays x amount, person b pays x minus something, and person c pays x two x also. And same project, basically. So I think we need to look at that objectivity, how we are codifying the permit fees.

And one other question which I had was, I know we are using online software for this one. Is our, permitting software capable of all these, most aspects, or do we need special plug ins into that? Let's say I'm applying for, water heater. Right? So as soon as that plug in water heater permit, does the fees come up by default on our online software?

If it is by default and is capable of that, chances of us as a human being making mistake is very less. So I'm trying to find out whether that software is capable capable of coding the fees into it. But somehow, there was a case, but I compared three cases, and it was drastically different. Like like, if I give you a number, it will be 300% more than other one. So I think we need to look into those from from the permitting fees point of view. And I know there are recommendations, and, yeah, Afsan is new to the department. So I'm just trying to say I'm it's just a discussion, so don't take it any other way around. Please just

Well and I appreciate that because we're trying to look at both ends. We're trying to look at our backside of making certain that we have a good clear process that it is appropriate and and having fresh eyes look at that. And then we also have our front facing, our residents, our anyone coming to any developer coming in, and they they will look at things from a different process. So we're we're kind of in the middle looking back on the backside and what do our customers see. We've got we've got a tough job.

I'm gonna say it because we are we are charging fees, and it is cost recovery. So I saw the head nodding, and that's what I understood is the price will come up because it is dependent on what it's going to take from our staff. That's fine.

And on that one, it is one other thing I noted while I was going through this port. So when we do simple permit process, basically, I clicked into the actual simple permit process, and they say, oh, you wanna find out fees? I click on the fees. The fee comes out to 290 page. Like, whole of the fee structure came over there. Right? If I'm doing something very simple permitting process, I how long I will spend to to find out my fees on the 290 page?

And everybody knows but control office.

So Mhmm. Yeah. But Yeah. On like, if you put HVAC, it will be HVAC It should twenty twenty places.

Saying is if you're doing a water heater and that's your application, then what's the fee only for the water

heater?

I think

that, yeah, if the software is capable of that, okay. These are the fee schedule for that. Everything. Especially for the simple and OTC, which are, like we we only have a few of the simple process simple permitting. Right? In the simple permitting, we only have six or seven.

Six or seven.

So Six or seven. So for the

We all design those as flat fees

Mhmm.

Right, to eliminate the discrepancies that were incurring. Okay. And that were were actual feedback that we received even before this process when I first became in charge of the department where there were exactly set of water heater permits. One contractor pulled three different permits with three different fees, and they ranged from $300 to $2,500.

Exactly.

But so when you look at the data in that case, they were very different water heaters. Right? It's not just a simple replacement of an existing water heater with the same thing. That was the $300 fee or what have you. The other was a new hybrid system that required a new gas line, required electrical.

And

so it triggered a number of different fees. The first thing we did was say, well, you can't have this kind of discrepancy. We need to be very consistent. So we streamlined that. Then secondarily from that, we decided to build out the simple permit process for those six or seven types of things that are typical and over the counter.

And, generally, it doesn't matter. After we did our analysis, it didn't really make a difference what type of water heater was done. Our time, staff time for review and or inspections was about equivalent, right, within thirty minutes or forty five minutes. And so all water heaters now are one flat fee based on our time and not the valuation of work Because it was the valuation of work that was triggering the different value in the fees. So that's an example of how we try to Okay. Simplify.

Well and to ask the question, so when if someone goes in to do that, they can do it online. They don't have to come in to the counter. Right. Everything is a you're able

to do online and never have to come in.

They can set up their appointment and everything and pay for it and okay. Yes. We also still have counter Service. Yes. Five days a week. Who's uncomfortable, and that's usually our. That's correct. Doesn't feel comfortable with online. And then there's some people who will never come in as purse in person. Let's put it that way.

Well, as a quick example, before COVID, our office would see 200 people a day, and now we see on average maybe seven day a week. K. Because people we've tried to encourage online activity, try to meet their needs that way so they don't feel like they have to come in. Right. And if you wanna come in, we're here to serve you. But if you don't wanna come in, we can serve you remotely as well.

And your scheduling is very good. I checked that. Like, online if you want that system.

Yay. Very good. System is working.

The new scheduling is very good. Permitting is good, but I think the definition of defining basic. I read there is one line over there. If you are not sure of what you have, then you have to choose the most complicated one. K. So that, I think we need to resolve a little bit, define the basic services more little bit more. Because if we are making it if as a layman, let's say, don't know which where my permit falls, basic or complicated, and you there's one line in that specifically. I note I don't know. I've noted it down or not, but I checked online. It says if you

are not sure, pick up the Worst case scenario.

Yeah. So that I think if we define those parameters, that would be good. In a way, it will make simple for a common resident too.

So within the process, you know, working on improving our our common online system portal, and one of that, we're going to have a road map. We call it using all the big AI that people comment and tell me, say, I want to do a kitchen bathroom model, and we take them dependent, but they select the single family home, apartment complex. And so we take them to a right direction, and they go they they put them to a right permit application. You know, it's not by default. Like, you say, I understand.

Right? I agree that it it did not fall into these six simple permit. You're gonna go apply for most complex one. But now we modify and improve our process a little bit to, you know, when they come and do siding, do something, like, not really simple, but it's not it's a minor problem. You we report to take you into a right process with a less review time frame, you know, talk about one to two week, you know, not, like, four week or six weeks. So we we in the process in doing that right now.

Good. One other thing I would like to point out that ADU process you gave out there out of the flowchart and of all the details is very good. And there's one thing lacking on that. You know, we have preapproved ADUs, right, the process, and then you mentioned, oh, here's the list of all of them. There's no list over there. That is That's It is

not put in there, or it's broken somewhere? No. We just don't have any approved yet. So there's a preapproval process for ADUs. Oh, we don't have any? Well, an architect or builder would submit to us for a preapproval Yes. Master plan. We've had two submittals, I believe, or three, but we don't have any that have been approved yet.

K. Because should say that.

When I gone through that, I thought we have approved list, and it says, you click here to see

the approved list. We're set up. Set up. Okay. The scaffolding

is there. Just don't We're not in there.

We can add a note. That makes that's that's a good idea.

Yeah. Appreciate that.

So I haven't used the the portal, but, is it can the customer you know, can they and say, hey. You know, this date is not gonna work for me. Is it is it a two way communication that that happens there?

The portal itself?

Yeah. Let's say let's say, they have an appointment and, usually, like I'm used to working with CRMs, right, whether it be Oracle, Salesforce, whatever. You know, there there's ways that you can communicate with your customer to to see what's going on with the process, where you're at, and and certain things like that. And I don't know

if this Acela is Acela doesn't offer that kind of functioning. Our our schematic system that we're using for appointments is interactive. We send text messages and emails and and communicate with them that way. And once you schedule an appointment, whether it's for a plan review or something else, there is communication automatically set up as reminders, and and our staff kinda start to work on those projects well before their appointment because they're still required to upload plans. Right? And so we start on it in advance.

Well, I'm gonna say this is the good use of AI, and you mentioned that because people wanted to solve all the problems. But what it does is it helps you to give options and make things customizable, and that's where it there is a a true power in it. And I think that's really good that we're there. We also have to have the other if if your concern does not fit this. Because I we have seen in some of our phone messages over emergencies and things like that.

If you don't fit any of those, it it just puts you in a black box, and you have nowhere to go. So I wanna make certain that there is an opt out if someone's really not clear if they don't feel like they fit any of those categories so that they can talk to someone directly, especially during office hours.

K. Thank you. K. So I just wanna emphasize about timeliness part of it. One of the with audit ways that right? And I did analyze some of the data submitted. I know 2122 versus 2223. '23 was much better on the stats, basically. But still, we are lagging, like and that's the lot of complaints we get from residents to be very frank. As a point of contact for resident, hey. Well, I had a small permit. It's taking so long. Why it's taking so long? This is an issue. We had some review, very small issue, and why it's taking so long?

Just to give you statistics, like, 78% additional time. 78% of the 45, which we analyzed, basically, took an additional time. So, basically, that's a very big number. Eighty two percent did not meet additional time of second review when we get 82% still didn't fall within this additional time frame also, basically. That's, again, a higher number.

And for only, I think, 50% are were on time. Like, 23 out of 45 are on on time. So that shows, like, we need to improve on those processes. Like, you know, and audit has to verify, audit has done a good job in wherever as a city, where I was as a department, we are. And that's the purpose of audit, basically, to point out so that we can improve our working and home. So that is one focus I would like, like, how we can improve those. And as soon as we simplify some of these basic and ortho those processes, I

think we can improve those as suggested by the Sure. Audit report, basically. Yeah. I will just say, Raj, the definition of on time could also mean different things.

No. It's different. People. It's different. I know. In our audit in our

But I'm saying

Process is defined. I'm comparing only with that.

Yeah. I'm just saying to a resident on time is one thing, and to the staff may be something different.

If I may real quickly Yes. I think the on time is is a broad thing because it doesn't distinguish if it was one day late or or Uh-huh. Absolve any if anything. Yeah. I think the other challenge partially is that the audit was focused on building department, but we have many development stakeholders who also review things.

Right? And those numbers are also factored into that information. And we've worked very hard to improve consistency and response times with all of our stakeholders. And I think the improvements that you saw from the first fiscal year taken, that was all in the old permitting system. And improvements that you saw in the second fiscal year where it was better

Right.

Was three quarters of that year was in the new system. Okay. Right? So that was the transition, and there were improvements just because of the software upgrade.

Yeah. I'll just piggyback on that and say, just to highlight, the word is building, but other things within our system, where one department waiting on another department to actually clear a permit. Right? And so it's it's it's not solely a building issue. We just do know that Yeah. There are other departments that need to make advances in their process and actually utilize the systems the way building it make it

more efficient. Absolutely. I had that point noted. Like, hey. Sometimes we need to have a parallel processing because sometimes we are doing serial. Okay. This part will do, then this will do, then the tag That's the

entire developer.

The entire

large department. Pushing to parallel processing, like, This is a project. This is a fire department. Get it right away to them. Just like a example was given about Austin in that audit report. They have that team. Whole team comes there there, and they solve it. But it's a long term setup for that, but that's She is the objective is that we don't do serial processing to panel processing. So We do. I mean, we do.

So everybody gets an. Everyone has the same target

Okay.

Timeline. So based on the size, you can go for the project.

You have the agenda open?

And I think if in the builder software system Sorry. So do you

want me to email this to?

Had no real form I

could run it for you.

We couldn't run it. Sella, we have a much broader ability to actually run reports and to identify the issues. Afshah has her slides has has identified a number of the things already kind of started implementing that have shown improvements

as well. I'm gonna say while she's bringing that up. Oh, it speaks volumes. Fact that when you go to a new system, we always joke at work. Oh, we got you a new phone system. Oh, great. We won't be able to use the phones for who who knows how. And the fact that we saw such a dramatic change from the from the new system to the old system. That makes it that that makes a big difference. Shows that you made a good choice.

And and it well, it credits our staff Yes. In their implementation of that. I was not involved in the implementation of of the system at all, although I was in the city. You know, I was a part of that team. I wasn't a building official at the time. Our staff, David, kind of led most of that, did an incredible job, in trying to coordinate that. This system, like many others, is capable of a lot of things if it's properly implemented and utilized. Yeah. Right? Part of the training that we try to do is to keep people informed of its capabilities, and and one of our philosophies There we go.

Is to not let the system get stale. We're continually trying to improve the system. We have a long list of kinda wish list or to dos that are improvements, and we spend a lot of money trying to continually advance the system and make it better and more efficient. For us as users, but also for the customers and and the people who are utilizing the website, utilizing the portals to improve the overall system. It should

be switching

I'm not plugged in anymore. That's

why. I've got

You gotta get into the Zoom.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

We can just switch it back here. Right? Sorry.

Yeah. I wonder if we could switch my

Yeah. I know. We were. We're just we're making sure you're auditing us. You guys are doing a great job. Doing a great job picking up what we're doing on. Yeah.

As far as the four findings, I mean,

are there

any issues with, we

have enough budget to get this done? Any challenges or

So some of those challenges we started addressing with this budget cycle where we actually worked internally, and we said, you know, we have this work TELUS audit happening, but we wanna wait till that reorg assessment comes through. But in the meantime, we've already taken steps to add to the budget the staffing that we need. And then we're also looking at our technology group, which is an important part of this whole story and this narrative because that technology group actually provides us the structure and the backbone to help do some of the things that we're doing. And what we're recognizing is that there are deficiencies in the technology group, not in the technology, but in the staff capacity. So that's something that we need to address, and we will be working on that and taking a look at what's the best thing to do for the next for the long run.

Right? So that that's all works in progress, and we need to.

So for that, like, to follow-up to customer Gonzalez question, we have I know I did put this question. Maybe me and and discuss about it. We already budgeted about the positions reflected about shortcoming of the audit report we got. Have we already budgeted technological funds we need to improve one way or the whether we wanna add a plug ins or whether we need to train implementation trainings for the technology. Have we already So to have those budgets?

Budget. The budget for the software and the budget for improvements and ongoing, you know, plug ins that's already within our scope. Okay. Perfect. So

Yeah. And I there's two problems. There's the personnel fees and the technology. Personnel, we added some positions in this round that council approved, not all that we need. We're waiting on the the conclusion of the audit. For technology, just to say plainly, CDD has been pretty good at leading improvements in Acela. They have an Acela knowledge database. Part of the challenge is the other components of the development process. Our other divisions in the city that support the development process are not advanced as as CDD.

Yes, sir.

On top of that, we recently lost the person in CDD who was managing all of the IT improvements and advance and advancements. He was supported by two part time people. And both of those part time people, we are looking at ways to retain that that capacity in a more permanent basis. But right now, said plainly, we're at risk of losing our entire IT unit within the community development department that has made advances in in the last few years. And so we need to fully rebuild that, reconstitute it, as well as we've had conversations about potentially even taking that unit out of CDD and plucking it in IT or in the city manager's office because they really need to lead across the entire organization.

Not right now, that unit has actually been in built, right, which has been great for building, but at a minimum, it either needs to come to CDD. CDD director

To meet

manager or IT. Right? But we need we need to reconstitute our neighborhoods, that that that frankly entire unit because we lost the key personnel. We can say more and more, but we're we go down the ranks.

So on that front, I know we as per the audit, we have eight additional outside consultants who help us in the process. Right? That number was given in the report. So we are still retaining all of them. Right?

Totally different. Different.

We're

talking about yeah.

Go. Those consultants are for plan review and inspection. They are not anything that would do with business development on the IT.

I'm talking from this permitting point of view.

Permitting yes. We actually have 10. We So we went up to a new RFP.

Mentioned eight. So we have 10. We

are still 10 now. Right.

So for building permit processes, they're not for the technology group yet.

Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Full process. Right. Yes. I mean, I Yeah. Yeah. I know we've talked about the PT. I No.

I'm We have a bench of 10 consultants, and we utilize probably seven or eight of them on a regular basis. Depending on our needs, we scale up or down depending on volume of work and technical expertise and risk management also.

Well, I was made aware of something at my BOSCA meeting yesterday that surprised me that I that this conversation brings up is a lot of new systems that cities are buying and and entities to work with all their data. There's a little clause in there that says, if you didn't pay the extra, we didn't keep all that past data. And the only we found out of all on the Peninsula, the only group that had it was someone on their staff downloaded every day the information they were getting from the it was from the water meters and the AMI situation. And so I'm just curious with our new system, do we have an understanding of how our past data is handled and if we are able to hold on to that because that was something I had not thought of. And, apparently, it's become a ploy by some software companies to keep charging you?

No. Our our system downloads our repository is held in house servers. Good. Right? So our software system is cloud based.

Okay.

Right? But when we download any kind of documents, it gets integrated into our servers. That's great. And it's retained with our stuff. We have retention policies by the state, right, that that we have to maintain, and we're on board with all of that. Although they're making adjustments to that, we have all

of that. It was just some entities found out their costs went up because they didn't think of that ahead of time and are now being charged for something they didn't think about. Yeah. No. Worth We're on top of it. Good. Yay. Yay.

So I think I've asked all the questions.

Yeah. We can move

on. Please.

Mhmm. So okay. I'll I'll begin my presentation. Introductions, you've already met all of us. Thank you.

And thank you for having this dialogue with us first, and thank you for, you know, having these questions and being very receptive to the entire approach and the methodology. And so we appreciate that, and I I wanna make sure that, you know, we keep sharing and that this is a very transparent and open process for us as well. So the primary objectives which were laid out in the Baker Tilly report were to establish whether internal controls for the permitting process are effective and they implement to ensure compliance, whether the permit process is efficient and responsive, and if billing and collections of fees and fines are properly managed. So for the rest of this, this is basically staff's response to the Baker Tilley audit, and we looked at those, the purpose of this. So we'll provide you an overview of the department, and then we will look at all the four findings that were listed and how we are meeting those findings.

And then we'll talk a little bit about the Raftelis assessment and the next steps. So the audit was initiated in fall twenty twenty three, and it was initiated actually by the city for reasons described by David. And during this process, staff acknowledged the existing gaps, and we were, we also kind of actively started implementing improvements. During this period of time, there were some significant transitions. First, there was the pandemic.

There were staff transitions. There was retirements, staff turnover. And then Jovan already mentioned that we about a month ago, we also lost our technology manager, our analyst, and then we had two part time staff for technology. During this period, we also had new staff join. The so you have a new city manager, new CDD director, and then the building official was also promoted.

Staff is really aware that about the council priority. So we take a look at the council priority, and we also take a look at this and streamline and improve the city permitting process to increase clarity and fix inconsistencies for residents and businesses. And the reason we say it's underway is because it's not an overnight fix. There are short term things that we are already done, and then there's long term reviews that we are going to be processing. And plus, it's not just the building department.

We have multiple stakeholders that we work with and that we coordinate with in order to get an efficient process, the business process. So within CDD, there are three divisions and one group. There's planning group, the building group, housing and community services, and there's technology and innovation group. Overall, there's 79 FTE and 52 are just within the building division. For you were asking about the budget.

And so for FY 2526, we are now at 84 FTE, and 55.2 will be in building. So there is an increase. Two of the personnel went to housing and community services to for homelessness and for the housing element. Next. So the overview of the permit review process is we have multiple partners and stakeholders that we work with.

Of course, we have CDD. We have planning and housing and community services. We have the fire department. We have public works. Within public works, there are multiple divisions, traffic, storm water, solid waste, Silicon Valley Power, water sewer, parks and rec, and we have outside partners as well that we work with.

And this is just some of the main ones that we work with, and then there's probably more that I didn't list, but there's a lot that happens during the permit review process that we work with. So in 2018, we purchased the Acela platform as well as the citizen access and two point solutions. In 2021, we went fully digital with our permitting process, and we hired a management analyst at that time to lead the technology. And we also added a web content team. The web content team is consists of two part time people.

And then, we are transitioning to what we call an innovation group, so technology and innovation group. And why do we call it that? Because it's not just technology. What we're doing is trying to do business process improvements. We're also trying to improve access to the website and portal.

We are trying to do internal procedures and processes. And then we are also trying to make sure that communications, like, for example, if we have a major project coming to planning commission or council, We're looking at ways on how to get the communication out about a project and also data on how effective we are with our processes. So that's why we're calling it a technology in innovation group. And plus, you'll hear, as you've already heard, that we're looking at employing AI for our some of our improvements. So, our approach to the audit was very collaborative, and we took a look at it with, a lot of transparency in providing documentation.

We, assisted the auditors by identifying identifying gaps and also contributing to, our processes and frontline insights. Prior to even the release of the audit, we began addressing concerns. We looked at our internal systems. We looked at resource allocations and capacity, staff capacity. And departments have been increment improvements have been incrementally happening throughout.

So we will go into the building division first. So I felt that the easiest way to really describe, what was happening was through a timeline approach. To explain, in 2021, we acquired the AcelaCivic platform, and then all what we were looking to do was to take all our workflows and put them into a system. In 2022, we also got a grant for SolarAPP, and, we adopted the first reach codes. We looked at our staffing in 2022 and 2023, and then below each one, you'll see, I highlighted how we are meeting findings and which findings are specific.

So we conducted outreach, and that's how we established the timelines for the four week, six week, ten week, and then subsequent reviews are now 50%. So if you bring in a project and it's a simple project and it takes, like, a single family home could take, you know, four weeks, the subsequent review for that would be 50%. We have done simple permits, and the simple permits are one to two day turnarounds with over 70% being that very same day as well as over the counter permits. More internal coordination between all the stakeholders. We have a plan check dashboard, and this is really combined with the next item, which is reporting and monitoring.

This is, like, two steps, but it's really one thing. It's very coordinated. We actively review and tap monitor our workflows. So for example, if there's an MEP or a building permit, there's a holistic report that shows how and which staff is performing that permit and that review. And so for even if, for an example, like a stormwater repair, it's entered now into Sella, and then it is tracked.

And then once it's completed, we actually close it out. But if there's subsequent reviews, it's opened up again, and we start a new review. And so that's how we're able to track and monitor how long things are taking and who's working and able to understand, you know, the process from end to end. We also established some programs, so preapproved ADU program. The preapproved ADU program is more comprehensive than just a handout.

It's basically also, it ties into, establishing a process end to end on how to approve the ADUs and providing, because it's the simplest permit, but sometimes it can get more complex because most of the people that we're dealing with are single family home owners. They're not complex developed or develop sophisticated developers. So often, our single family homeowners actually need more time and more kind of like a walk through, so this is a much more comprehensive program. Plus, we've been looking at all of our handouts for all of our applications, so mixed use, ADUs, single family, duplexes. We've expanded our standing hours.

So in 2025, you'll see that there's more permit center hours. At the same time, we've also been doing website improvements, and I will get to that a little bit more detail. And then we have our major pipeline projects with a dedicated in house staff. With with our division, because our in house staff is already understands the processes and the workflows and the codes and the particular things, we feel that it's better and better turnaround time and more consistent to have in house dedicated staff that can respond to more complex projects, and then we bring in we bring in outside consultants for other types of projects. So for 2025, we are continuing to take a look at our plan review timelines and coordinating with our internal stakeholders, looking at our development workflows and streamlining those.

We are continuing to develop comprehensive policies and procedures, with detailed permit fees. Our staffing, the budget was just approved. In 2026, '27, continue to work on the work plan and integrate with other platforms such as GIS and SolarAPP. And then a multiyear project is continue to work on the Accela portal and integrate integrate with and access with GWiz and a dedicated one stop shop. What is

GWiz? Sure.

That the AI That's the first.

It's it's the name of the brand. Actually did. Catchy.

That's right.

Said POP, you meant.

POP is the online public portal. Okay. Perfect.

And GWiz is separate from Cheez Whiz. Just because we didn't say it.

Let's hope so.

Call it the Cheez Whiz, but alright. And then gaps and opportunities. So there's performance measures, and then, you know, where we're measuring, and we've been looking at since 2020, 2021 to twenty twenty four, twenty five. So when we're looking at short plan cycles that are performed within ten days, and you can see in 2022, 2023 where our targets were and where our actuals are, so there's a considerable amount of improvement. And then also the more complex plan checks, which are performed in a four, six, eight, ten week cycle.

And you can see where in 2022, 2023, we have actually met our targets of 85%. So some of the strategic goals Screen, I think there's

a typo, like, on the third column, '22, '23 target. That should be actual like, why we have target for 2022? Target was 50%. We achieved 93%. Is that right?

No. We achieved 85%, but, yes, you're right.

On the top line.

Top line. Oh, 50. Line.

For the

ten day turnaround. Chris, this actual

I I think the reason it was a 50%, which is a little bit low, is because it was transitioned, and we were launching the project. Let's

see. Yeah.

And that's why later years, we had a higher goal. But the first year, it was like, we're ramping this up. We're kind of Let's be feeling it out.

Yeah. Okay. Well, and we have more internal processes to track everything now as well. So I think we're doing a better job of documentation.

Okay. And that's why we didn't put any target for Right. Mister Reblov? Correct. Any okay. Got it.

So strategic full goals for the building department is comprehensive and formal policies and procedures, actively monitor our process with metrics, adequate testing of fee calculations, customer service, customer feedback loop, which is through the Qmatic, and then a dedicated one stop shop. And that is a multiyear based project.

Good call.

Right. And then for the technology That's

the Austin model, basically, we're talking about. Right? The one stop. Is it same as the

A lot of cities have a one stop shop, and I think this is basically you know, it could be multifaceted, and I think that is something I think that our division is our department is really looking at, and we will also work with our internal stakeholders to first map out our process, identify the gaps, and look at how we can get buy in from all of our stakeholders and what that looks like and then develop that road map for a one stop shop.

So one stop and I'm trying to understand the model. Like, one stop shop, shop, you mean to say, okay. I apply for a permit, and it relates to fire, CTD, PD, and, let's say, public works. So all of them will come, and my developer person will also come. My architect will come. I'll come, and they will sort out everything on Monday. Right? That's the goal.

We have yes. But and we have portions of that already in. Yeah. Mhmm. So when we do what we call a PCC review, you know, where, like, let's say, we have a new laboratory coming in, you know, and we have thirty days. The planning department takes the application, and we have only thirty days under state law to turn that around and provide comments. Our PCC meeting has all of our internal stakeholders. And within that thirty days, we meet. We go through. We also invite the applicant in at the end of the meeting so that the applicant can hear our comments, and then they go back and we'll make Right?

So some of that is already in place, but now we're looking at other things. Well, how can we do, like, project management from planning to building to the other stakeholders? Right? How can we make it a smoother process? So if we have comments, those comments aren't lost. Right? How can we have, like, better transitions, like pre con meetings or post con meetings? Like, how do we make sure that conditions of approval are met. So those are some of the things we're talking about, but we need to do a comprehensive roadmap and analysis and look at all the gaps and then come back. So okay.

The next one is the technology and innovation group. And, again, you know, the technology and innovation group, and I won't start from 2018 because you're now familiar with that. But at that time, our average customer, satisfaction in '22 was six out of 10, and what we heard the most was improve the permitting website in 2022. So in 2023, once we got our technology manager, our analyst, we looked at product demos. We hired, spoke to vendors.

We did simple permits, solar app. 2024, we did the two point and GeeWiz products. SolarAPP, we launched. A seller knowledge base was launched, and we've been creating self help articles internally, for different, different processes and procedures throughout so that if you're in public works or if you're in fire, you can access this Asala knowledge base, and it walks you through, and it demos for you. We also launched Qmatic, and that's, for queuing and appointment booking, of the permit center, and we also have done zone zoning clearance, and streamlined planning applications.

I wanna point out the internal issue tracker on the bottom of each of these columns. What that means is each of those issue trackers that in 2023, we had 111. In other words, 111 times our staff members went in and said, I have, an area that I've identified that needs to be addressed. And so we go in, and then we address that. So that's how many times we go in and work on all of this so there's constant constant review, constant analysis, constant resolution of problems.

And those are specifically with the Acela package. Right?

Say the number the drop in that year is because of the good rollout for everything. Or

And just developing our knowledge base. Developing that ASELA tool and getting it to where it needs to be. And then in 2025, some of the improvements that we're making are the permitting online portal, researching AI contract renewals for Arcella. And then you can see that the issue tracker so far is 17 items to date, which is a big improvement for only six months. Then 2026, this is our road map for what we wanna do for 2026, 2027, and 2028.

So we wanna develop a AI driven solutions, inspections. We wanna integrate the in inspections. We also wanna integrate my Santa Clara with our permitting system, which is not integrated right now. And so those are some of the areas that we wanna work on, and we wanna also do centralized knowledge management. So a much more cohesive, much more coordinated internal policies and procedures, but also using a lot of our digital technology and our software to help us get there.

Think I noted that. A digital fee payment on website is Yes. Only applicable to online, and they don't accept checks or anything.

Sure. Let's talk about that.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Coming to that.

Okay. Next.

Next. So some of the areas and I wanna you know, I I'm really proud of this team because there are only two part time people now. Our actual person has left, but this was launched last week by them by our two part time people. But they launched a improved permit website portal, a digital permit center, and you can actually apply for permits online. So I think it lets you apply up to a certain amount, and you can also schedule an appointment here.

And it tells you very actively how much time you have left for your appointment. You know, you're That's good. Fifteen minutes. It's really great. And, also, just in case, you know, you don't get the answer you want here, there's also contact information so you can contact a staff person. So it's important. These are the simple permits. Again, this was launched last week. And, again, this is as a result of us doing our website content audit and improving our customer service interface and accuracy of the content and also accessibility of the content. That's really important that the content flows.

It's easy to read, and it's you know, you can click on certain things, and it'll take you to the correct place. And then this is the fee payments. So with the fee payments as well, there are you can now make wire transfers as well as well as online payments, and it'll take you to where the online payments should go. And it improves the customer experience through the website. So there's a lot of things that we're constantly improving, but, again, you know, staff capacity.

Right? So near term deliverables. So the CDD technology project manager and the web content team, they are responsible for 40 near term deliverables and ranging from everything that's in the Baker Tilly audit to council priorities, ongoing operations, and existing projects. So, the Cumatic program, I do wanna share something. So, initially, when we first had did a survey back in 2022, you'll recall we got a rating of six out of 10 and said, improve your website.

That was, like, the the biggest, like, comments we got. So we have since done through the QMatic program, we did another set of surveys, and we got five out of five about our permit center experience. Wait times have been dramatically reduced. Again, we got five out of five. And then overall satisfaction with the staff member that they worked with, again, five out of five.

And about 87% of our customers say that the department was able to resolve the issues. So the Raftelis organizational assessment, this was launched in February 2025. They've done they are they did interviews in March and April 2025 with all the CDD 80 people. They are comprehensively looking at our operations and our functions, lot tied to staffing capacity. Right?

And they're also looking to see, you know, how how are we functioning? What's our efficiency? Are there opportunities where we can better place or be more strategic about our staffing in order to address some of the some of our ongoing challenges. So I when they Raftelis did join, I did share the Baker Tilly audit assessment with them because I wanted them to understand, what had previously come out. And so they're they are aware of the audit assessment.

And I have met with them once because I talked to them about the technology group. I wanted to elevate that with them a little bit, and then that is ongoing.

So No. No.

So that's where we're at.

Thank you. Thank

you. Like, I did see the stats as well as Yeah. We are on the track of improving, especially after implementation.

Some of this work was done with these guys.

They Everybody. Yeah.

Honestly, they

There's always room for improvement. We understand that. Right?

Well Yeah. Yep. Yeah. But when I see the satisfaction rate that high, that makes a difference because Yeah. There's always going to be someone who's not gonna be happy no matter what you do, and they know that. But the fact that it is on the up trajectory and so you've heard so many of our concerns, and we appreciate that. It makes a difference.

I think the AI tool is gonna be, like, really interesting because it'll be like the back end. It won't be like this AI pop up, but we're gonna use AI, and it'll be like a decision tree driven. So let's say if you're Susie's cupcake shop and you wanna locate it in the downtown, then it'll guide you through, okay. You have you know, you can go in this location, yes or no, next to the coffee shop. Yes. You have zoning for it. Then here's the permits that you need for Suzy's Cupcake Shop. You need a health environmental health. You need a building permit. You know?

So it'll guide you to the permits, and then it'll hopefully guide you to the correct fees as well so that you don't

have to go to 100 some disclosures.

Fees. Right?

With some disclosure. So And

then, of course, staff will always be available because

But I I like that idea of stepping people through things. Yeah. It kinda makes a difference.

Okay. Any I I would like to point one out, and this may be historic now. We all the things improving up to date, like, maybe but I would just like to write off. So, historically, what has happened is, let's say, a person applies for the permit. Right? And they have a first review, and they fulfill whatever first review conditions were a b c d. Let's say four conditions were they fulfill. And they come back, and they say, oops. We have three more. So that was really frustrating for our residents.

Like, hey. Like, why didn't they tell me at the first out first instance that I have to fulfill plus three seven? Because imagine, like, they have to go back to their architecture, right, their architect about their in engineer or sort of whatever, and then they go back, oh, three more now. So if we can I'm I'm Yeah. Not sure, but this might have improved roughly with the all the improvements you already made, but I just wanted to point that out. Okay. If we can add the one set of course, we are human being. We can miss still miss, but the goal is, like, if we can do our best during the first review, that would be better for them. So that

And I think one of the one of the areas that I have found is that sometimes when you do a first review, you often get incomplete drawings. Right? So, like, you might get, drawings that may not show the where the plumbing lines are coming from. You may get site plans. You may get elevations. So then you have, of course, the second round of review, you can only comment on what you've received. Right? And it's also the quality of what you get as your submittal. So

someone who's graded a lot of papers, I

understand that. You took you

took the words out of my mouth, and I I can guarantee you we will get that complaint again. Right. What I always say for whatever issues come, it's best if they come to a council member that they're sent to us via email, maybe sent to manager at. And then what the staff in the manager's office does, they triage them. They know exactly who to go to.

Sometimes it's building, sometimes it's fire, right, or whoever. And what I often find is the story is oftentimes, if not 95% of the time, more nuanced when we get it back. But that doesn't mean we don't make mistakes or we don't miss anything. Right? But but when I've seen that particular issue more often than not, there was a reason why it wasn't caught on the first review Okay. Or or mentioned on on the first review. The other thing I'll sort of overall, I wanted to thank David and Baker Tilly for their work on the side. There are some significant findings here. Mhmm. And when I first received it, we sat with it.

As council may remember, we had a a leadership change in in CVD. And so I sat with it for a while and actually gave this draft audit to our new director and said, welcome. Here's here's what you're walking into. And David and Baker Tilly really worked with us to give us the time and space for Afshar really to come up to speed. And I think what you see from Afshar's presentation in in buildings being here, we're not running from the findings. Right? We're we're really taking them head on. Yes. We have work to do. It's oftentimes a nuanced situation. But, you know, as an as an independent auditor, but someone that sits within the organization, David did a remarkable job, and just thank you for that.

Well, and thank you, Avsha, for still being here. Nothing into the wilderness of oh my goodness. She

will have much better sleep down there. Multiglass is settled now.

Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me here. And and we're definitely gracious. So We're definitely improving.

Yeah. That's the that's the main thing. Like, we are a good friend too.

Yes. When I see that list go well, the numbers going down of the changes and concerns.

Do have a 03:00 meeting?

Okay. Sorry. I you can we're good. I just I'm gonna keep you for two more minutes really quick just to continue the thank yous and and staff, Arman and David, and there was a couple other people that met with us in meetings. As Arman said, there's always room for improvement, and that's how they approach this whole thing. Like, never throughout it did we ever get the feeling like they're withholding or thinking we're wrong or you know, we had some debate for sure. You know? Say debate. I'll say debate. Few things. Not long, but pushback. But we had a very open, you know, at times spirited conversation, and and they were wonderful. I think it was a a real testament to staff's, you know, desire to improve things. And we wanted to say thank you to them. And housecleaning really, really quickly, the the audit of this process doesn't just end with the issuance of this report.

So what will happen is we will circle back to it. Probably, I would say, maybe next calendar year because I know we have some completion dates that are later this year. So we go back and say, hey. Here's what we said. We're gonna go back and do an analysis of just, hey. Did we meet that goal? Did we not? Yeah. And it won't it won't but there you go. Yeah. Follow him on it. So it won't perfect. It won't be in a format of, an audit report. We'll do more of just a a status rep to the committee, and we and we do that for all the work. So and then lastly, we are currently polling everybody's calendar, which is very difficult in the summertime, I realize, but we also have a completed audit to present to you on the city's power purchase agreement process.

And so that has been finalized. We're checking calendars, so that's to come. And then, also, I probably will get you together one more time because we have some kind of semiannual things that we go over with the committee. I try to hold them to an hour and a half max because I feel like that's a good sweet spot. Little little tough to go longer than that. So that's what's to come.

Well Sorry. I have

You always call it so much. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Thank you

so much.

And we never say that's all. We're

just No. Next chapter. There's always something. Yep.

Excellent.

Yes. And we we have another audit that we're we're Nick and I are kinda

Okay.

I would say 90% ready to come up with the draft that we would then submit to Jovan and management. So we're we'll have another one here in the coming period of time.

Well, if you notice, it says future committee meetings will be scheduled

Yes. There you go.

Later time and to be determined. So thank you. Legal staff, are we okay? Wait. Wait. We have to take action on the item. Oh, that's what I thought. Noted. We have to formally accept Accept the auditors the auditors.

And recommend that it be forwarded to city council. City council. I'll make a motion to accept the audit report and forward to city council.

Perfect. And I have a second there. Thank you. And all in well, I should say, is there anyone in the public?

Yeah. I

do not hear anyone. So everyone in vote. Alright. And that passes unanimously.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Thank you. Thank you for

the work. Yeah. Good news. I I have

to run, but we grab rice.