The company that Streator City Hall hires for building inspections is raising its rates. That could raise the annual cost from around $84,000 to $100,000. So the city is looking into hiring its own employee for the work as a possible cost saver.
City Engineer David Plyman describes a couple options he says aren’t so good to keep the Safe Built firm. One is raising the fee builders pay for inspections. Another is cutting back the hours the firm works and having builders wait for inspections.
At yesterday’s City Council meeting, member Brian Crouch recalled the city switching to a third party inspection firm because of a directly employed inspector not doing a good job.
City Engineer Jeremy Palm says it’s possible a code enforcement officer would actually cost more than continuing to farm it out. There’ll be more to report on that after the city advertises for an opening and gets some responses.