City 'displaces' five building inspectors
By The Bakersfield Californian
The city of Bakersfield has “displaced” — as opposed to laying off — five building inspectors in its Development Services Department, officials said.
Lack of work was the reason, according to City Manager Alan Tandy. The city was once issuing 500 building permits for homes per month and that’s down to 29 or so, he said.
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The term “displaced” is used because the workers could be hired back “for quite a long period of time,” Tandy said.
He said the annualized savings including salaries, benefits and vehicle use is about $450,000.
Per city code and union contracts, Tandy said, the cuts were made by seniority and position classification. The employees have two to three years of experience.
The workload has primarily dropped in building inspection, planning and development processing of public works, Tandy said. To deal with many of those drops, the city has transferred workers to other duties that need doing.
But the city did not have alternate work for the five displaced workers, Tandy said.
Homebuilders pulled just 50 permits last month to construct single-family homes, capping off a year when fewer than 1,000 such permits were pulled, the city’s latest building report shows.
It’s a far cry from the boom’s peak construction year, 2005, when more than 5,200 single-family permits were pulled. It’s also a significant drop from 2007, when about 1,800 single-family permits went out.
There are no other plans to displace workers now, Tandy said, but the city continues to monitor the state budget stalemate and other financial conditions that could change things.
Kern County has avoided layoffs.
Personnel Director Mark Quinn said all departments are looking at ways to reorganize and streamline operations. Some employees could move into other open jobs.
As budgets tighten, Quinn said, the county may consider furloughs or other means to save money.
But the goal is to avoid laying off employees, he said.
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