I'm going to go to the post where I'm going to say 100% Okay. English, Phil, Newt, Plenty, probably gonna make that. Sorry, probably. I'm gonna leave that to you. And that's, yeah. I'm gonna see if I go in the live. What's the most I love when I go? Shh. I'll come up to my severe. No. That's the Debbie spot. I'm happy if I'm clean up. I'm happy to be there, but I prefer not to be on video. And it's all right. The way I'm representing my false., good morning. Thank you all for being flexible with this meeting, which has moved innumerable times. So, thank you all for applying us together. I'm excited to formally kick this off in Gavavs. This is a session which made us again, eagerily awaiting and looking forward to supporting. So start with roll call. Council Member Hardy. Here. Council Member Flynn. Here. Council Member Down. Here. And Council Member Chair Chant, Chances of God. Here. Right. Then later we move immediately moving on to Mr. Gallon? Yes, we are. And maybe just a quick little intro. We do, we're recording the meeting and we do have a guest on the meeting. So welcome, Richard, and appreciate your being here. there. The we also we guess here, hey, good morning. Yeah, good to see you. So what we want to discuss with Govoss is a roadmap for. Process improvements specific to the building's permitting process. But I think we can also just talk sort of more broadly some of the work we've been doing every the past 18 months, sort of lay the foundation for technology security, getting our network, getting infrastructure, core infrastructure in place that will allow us now to be to scale up with some new opportunities and how we use technology in the city we can provide some reports on that. One of our internal process improvements, those are payroll function, which we use through our ERP system and we've converted to a purely digital format for that and for employee self-service. And that's an example of how automation can help, it helps HR staff, it helps the payroll staff. It's in terms of a process improvement for the user, Just as an example, there is a learning process and there's some things about it that are good and some parts about it that, you know, we get some push back on. It is unquestionably better for the HR department. As we think about the permitting, we need to be sort of clear about what is it we're trying to do? Is it a lot of the software packages out there probably make things easier for the permanent text? What is the customer experience? How do you balance the two so that automation doesn't sort of get out a lot of the personal touch which is probably false churches highest marks that people interact with us when they're having a difficulty they pick up the phone and sneak with a decision maker, you know, they can sneak with the building official and that is something that's really powerful. But the ideal blend is to marry both. Marry both. That's right. So with ESS, the statistics in terms of all of the things that employees have been able to do to update their data or change their benefits or have that system work for them without having to go through the centralized process of spending an email to HR is really quite good. And so then HR's time is freed up marginally to be able to help employees when they have a hard case where they need that personal touch to get them through because all the nation has taken care of a lot of the routine stuff. We do have some handouts, so I will turn it out to... I think Jenny's going to talk to you a minute. Just in terms of any other highlights that you'd like to make in terms of process improvements more broadly. Oh, so I was prepared to talk about the psychology piece in terms of more broadly. So, why it had mentioned for the past 18 months working on foundation. So most of 2024 was spent on, I think, a pretty aggressive plan to update both the equipment so our hardware and then also our security as well and now they're working on our network infrastructure and that should be done fairly soon. And I'd like to say that this brings us to current plus, our IT director probably does not want me to, all the details away. And then that also includes one of our applications which is the enterprise resource planning system also known as Munis or EARP. So that officially got transferred ownership is now with our IT department and they are and I regular cadence of upgrades and updates. I'm not sure if it was not a vitality. It didn't really have a home. So a little bit with, mostly with our finance department, is some of the support or maintenance happening with IT. So officially, the owner is our IT department. So it is going to be housed there. We're looking at assessing that system and the outcome of that are roadmap for eventually moving to the cloud system. Seeing if that is something that we want to do and cloud-based media system, cloud-based enterprise resource planning system. Where's our data and how it's not in the cloud? It is on-prem. Here. Here. Circus. So, if I may, does that through a covered perspective? We don't have a backup location. We don't have a backup location, but it's also physical as well. Yes. Yes. There's the whole every time you move things to the cloud, whether on-prem or on-cloud, that's a discussion for every app that we have. We have a lot of meetings. It's on-prem principally for most of their clients, but they are encouraging clients to move to the cloud. And so that's something that's already exploring right now. Do you have funding for it in the budget in that point? 20 is not unusual. Right. So, or to be on premises. For government, but probably for the business world is unusual. That may be true. So yes, as in time entry, as Wyatt mentioned, is being implemented. So IT is also providing support for that as well. I would just like to build on what Wyatt said that our application and our software are just tools. So any process improvements that we do, it's nearing, and I think WSF is, it's marrying the process that we have with the tools that we either need or where assess that we need. So, a tool is not necessarily a magic bullet for a process. It can be, it can improve things quite a bit, it can automate things, So it is a marriage between those two things. So that's it. I mean, what's kind of that timeframe? So in I see on making the decisions on cloud, like this is the so we're using analytics or fiscal year 26. We're going through an upgrade. There are regular updates to the system. And then major upgrades to go to the next version happen probably I want to say every 12 months I think. So we're going through another one right now. That's kind of a more major upgrade. And then to assess the cloud, that's in process, right? And so that's the, that's in the technical side. And then I'm like the user side, just gonna pick on like Treasurer's Office. So we'll IT be working with the treasured's office to say, here are all the kinks in the system that we've experienced. And here's where areas of trouble are and what would be most helpful in terms of automation. And so is the IT, are you leading the IT to work with staff and identifying the gaps in their processes or not necessarily gaps, but where they encounter difficulties to ensure that the systems where everybody are meeting the staff needs, or send the presents. It's like how are we how are we mapping the depnates to the IT needs? So that will be right now they're focused on the upgrade. So the major of grade that will happen. And the idea is with the assessment that one of our vendors is completing is to look at a roadmap for not only the basis on also look at the modules. So different departments have different modules and then assessing whether or not those modules, if there are different things that need to happen, or if this enterprise resource system is the system, we would, is the tool, the outside vendor consultant who's gonna be the one, is doing specific, to the individual modules with those departments to determine that they support, or to the best. They're gonna be support. Yes. Okay, can I take a further question and step back? What exactly is the scope of the internal process? I heard the employees, they'll service with payroll. What are the other employee internal processes that we're trying to improve? And then separately, what's the scope of the external process of improvements? We've talked about permits a whole lot to be something you're gonna be care about. but as they were laid out, like, you're the five process we wanna prove internally. You're the five we wanna prove externally. Here's why they're important. external process improvements. We've talked about permits a whole lot being something you don't care about. But as they were laid out, like, you're the five process we want to prove internally, you're the five we want to prove externally, here's why there are reports where we just tackling them. Yeah, we have a list of baked internal process and presents that we're communicating to the whole organization and marshaling resources. And what am I eating? Well, our focus today is kind of on the ones that the castle has been mostly interested in, which are kind of more external focuss and talk about permits. So there's eight total across internal and external. I guess it would be helpful. I mean I'm just curious with the internal ones, ultimately councils desires to make sure they're efficient right, and that they create good employee experiences. People don't have read frustrations with So their job, they can work effectively efficiently. I think what we care about on the external side is very good customer experience. Ultimately, how do our residents and our businesses interact with government? I think in the past I have named, what are the five ways that people interact with? I think taxes get library books, sign for class and community center, register for camps. For all of those, be great to know what are the benefits and what are the benefits that they have to do? or camps, you know, for all of those, be great to know like what are the top five ways that people interact with? Like, Itaxes get library books, you know, sign for class, the community center, you know, register or camps, you know, for all of those, be great to know like, what are the top interactions? What's the customer satisfaction? What's the efficiency of those processes? And then beat thoughtful about where we want to tackle. We've probably got on permits because that's where we tend to get a lot of feedback. But I think having that holistic view of like scope of how government interacts in general with people and then methodically saying these are the reasons why we're tackling permits because we get mixed feedback or we really think it's important that businesses can open efficiently and effectively because ultimately that delivers bottom line does too. So I'm just looking for that broader like a good foot view of like how are we tackling business process improvement general because this is a whole whole discipline. So that would be helpful context. I think to set the stage before we like again, we care a lot about permits, but there's I think other things that should be in this broader scope discussion. So we've come up with a list of kind of eight areas of focus internal process process improvements if you want to call it that for kind of based on input from the different departments and the city leadership team. So couple examples of them that I think you'll be familiar with or whatever the resonates. So well you know you need a space plan for the workforce and how to tie together kind of the different needs different needs of the different departments and from the property yard to the space here at City Hall to the police department needs. So that's one of the things we're trying to get our arms around. One of the things I think we think is important that we want to do is a work order system. You, all these requests that come in from the community and from different departments and how do you have a system that makes that efficient? You can track that stuff and provide better status updates and things. Those are a couple examples. I don't think we're kind of set up here to kind of go through all of that with you today. I think one of the things we're wrestling with is it's a lot, right? It's a lot of stuff that we rip. Honestly, we don't have the capacity to kind of tackle all at once. And so some of what we've been working with the directors on is kind of how to prioritize and chip away at some of those. One of the other ones that I think we're starting to get some traction is is, you know, updating our administrative regulations. So that means less about a process per se, but there's a process to updating the administrative regulations. So our new HR director has been here five weeks. Yeah. So I think she's going to be a huge help to us as far as kind of laying out a process and getting through some of those things that Because I don't think we've had that process that's been struggled to kind of update kind of on in the more recent past so So So a lot a lot of things we could do we're trying to kind of I think what we've done is, I'm using the kind of input from our departments, you know, to come prioritizing what those things are, and I'm sure we can work on a way to update you all kind of as we go forward on each of these. I think if it's okay, maybe we can shift to kind of the permit process information. Yeah, I shouldn't let the a saying that I guess no one could ask the community boys to probably have a role in it too. Like based on anecdotal feedback of or data on, you know, where people again interact with government would be helpful thing to add to that. Remember if it's part of the community survey, there's like a question in the community survey that talks about like satisfaction. Yeah, but I just think that there was something like, you know, how many times if you've been to city hall or how many times have you interacted with someone in the city over the last 12 months or so? Yes, so you said yes. Yes, I was convinced from the survey. Yes, I think that's probably the closest thing to more holistic or comprehensive to set to answer your mayor's kind of question. So we'll be looking to that. I think that information's kind of together. We got to preview a little bit of it a few days ago. So. So. Yeah. So. So I've got a whole handouts and I think it's broadcast the one I'm just talking about. So the second one what the staple on it is more reference, not going to talk to it specifically, but that our ability to safety team puts together according the report on kind of all of their recent activities. And so there's some statistics on the front. There's kind of all of their recent activities. And so there's some statistics on the front. There's kind of some data graphs on the back as far as kind of how our workload has changed, kind of over the previous five years. And I think the middle couple pages talking about kind of specific projects that the team's been focused on building projects going on in the city. So when we've talked internally about kind of the permits process and kind of how to tackle this and think, you know, we talked around, talked around kind of, there's three parts of it, right? So to, you know, effects change kind of within the permits process. I think we want to think about three things. We want to think about the culture and the customer service that we're providing. Right. How we interact with the public. The process we use. Right. And when we think about process, it's not all kind of a a system necessarily. There's a lot of different parts of the process that happen in different ways. And so overall, we want that process to be easy to understand with clear expectations kind of for everybody involved. And then finally, to be able to facilitate all of that, you want to if you want to kind of leverage technology. So, you know, with functionally accessibility and ultimately efficiency kind of been a process for it. And so, a lot of moving parts with this, a lot of different elements of it. And so, what we've kind of looked at is kind of, for what we're proposing to do is kind of start out with some assessments of kind of wherever, right? And so we've got a lot of thoughts on this. I've got thoughts on it, our building's official and the permits books down stairs have thoughts on it, but our customers have thoughts on this. And so how do we organize all of that input to kind of lay out a clear room now of what we want to do? So what we're proposing to do is kind of bring in an external consultant to kind of evaluate current state of services and can help us kind of identify the key areas that we can affect change and make some improvements on. We've had an opportunity to kind of kind of see an example of this has been done for kind of one of the neighboring jurisdictions in Virginia. And I think it does a great job of kind of helping align expectations and kind of activities, right? So, so you know, earlier we've got all these different stakeholders with all these different inputs how we pull that all together so everybody can understand where we're going to go. So they've said, you know, so I think what we're proposing to do with that is that engagement will include a lot of discussions with our staff engagement with customers. And as we talk about customers, we talk about the kind of particular permits process, there's a wide range of customers. There's people that are young companies and contractors that interact with the consultants or interact with our permit process every day. Right? And then there are folks that only use the process once. And so trying to get the perspectives of those different kinds of users upfront here with kind of to scope out what we're going to do. So I think we're intending to fund a consultant work with the permit fee reserves that we've got. So I think we've got a clear path to be able to figure that part out. And then second, I think, you know, kind of hand in hand with that is a technology assessment. So Jamie kind of talked earlier about the ongoing assessment for the city's EGRP system. And then, you know, plans to eventually migrate that to the cloud. We've got a number of different applications kind of involved in the permit process today. We need to take a look at those. And our team has been doing some of this. So we do that as well as kind of look at other applications that are out there that could potentially work for us. I think in those several, you've probably been involved in kind of IT system implementations in your, you know, previous roles in your careers and stuff, and it's complicated, right? And so whether it's making changes kind of with new modules and EURP or bringing in a whole new system, I'm going to think it through and I think my boardwipes talked an earlier thing through what we're trying to accomplish with from a customer and then a staff perspective. So that's what we're kind of proposing to do first and with the idea of jumping on that and getting that kind of done I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I've met so much, you know, I kind of done by, you know, a mid-summer. And then kind of the funnel would be, you know, in this first part kind of a play end of part of the initial assessment, but we're doing an end process. You know, map out the-end process of what we're doing. And I think a key part of this is connecting the different departments. When you can't talk about where people's permits are sometimes, there's a part that public works does. For grading plans, there's a part that the building official and his team do. There's sometimes the buildings of a public safety team can then firemarshaler use for certain things, for example, the planning department, you know, has something and so I don't think that integration is where we ought to be with some of that, right? It's a little disjointed and I think our our customers feel that. So. And then tying that into treasure and commissioner Fravino, worth a closing loop of making payments. So. So can I just ask a question? Like right now, individual employees are like people in that workflow. Do they have like dashboards at all? We're sort of like, you know, like DRC comments, let's even say. It sort of goes out and it says, please return to this, you know, planner by Xdate. And is it just like an email and the person has to review the material, and then they submit it, and the planner's like compiling all of it versus like a user goes into a system and they see in their queue. I have four different DRCs there in this order with these like return dates. I'm supposed to be doing them. Bye. More like the four. Okay. Got it. Yeah. So our building safety teams done some good things. I'm internally on their team like I can go down and talk to Steve Helfer and hope that. Yeah. It's it's friendship that they kind of keep on share drive that's pretty clear with you're a little electrical plan reviews that need to be done and everything that's not as well seamlessly and agree with the kind of people. People are some stuff that would go out then. Yeah. Okay, you have this doing seven days. You have this doing three days or yet. Okay. Right's all the ones that are overdo. Yeah. It isn't, it isn't. I know, but like, management for. Correct. And so when we talk about technology assessment, like all these vendors will come in and tell you, they'll do that stuff for you, but like, thinking through kind of how that works. And, you know, we've been focused on, There's some minus modules that can do some things for us. I don't know that it does all of the things we other need to do. I already say you need to address. Yeah, I hope they help the internal card. Yeah, then it doesn't provide good information to the customers that want to see a status, right? And so thinking about how those pieces kind of connect and work together. So I think kind of with that process mapping, we're in then we're developing an implementation plan. And so that's kind of prioritizing actions from the assessments on that technology related and some of it's not. Some of it's other things that we can do. Making sure resources are correct and some of those other kind of things. I should tell you, to work things on the website where that can be an external basic communication, which is where the majority of people start the process of understanding, you know, have to apply for permit. This is not much at cost. These are the permits that I need. And let's be right acrossrisk credit. You need all the things that are not currently there that are maybe easier to tackle than an entire unit. Like you can tackle it from the website communications to something. Yeah. Primary way of communicating that and then build it. But I'm sure you're right about it. I was just thinking about the other process we've talked about in DevOps, which should be the new website and how these two tie together in the near term and rebuilding entire technology behind it. Thank you. As you get further out, you know, I think this is a little bit more in work in process, but I think the goal would be towards the end of the year to be doing the technology acquisition that we need rolling out our initial round of process changes. And then we're really looking at the bulk of 2026 for what I'd say is a phased implementation process changes and then technology capabilities. And then I think, you know, Jenny and I've been talking about this one point she's made is making sure we've got a good kind of rhythm to kind of be checking in this these things come together and are we staying true to the. The goals and the objectives that we kind of laid out at the beginning. Yeah, so this is great. I'm even hungry for having this scope discussion. So just like when you talk about website, we're like, okay, just tell us what you're going to solve. What's the timeline on the legal loans? This is great to start that. For the purpose of our time, I guess, I think it's worth getting gov offses thoughts on your pillars and making sure for a scope discussion, we're all at the same page that we're going to talk about. So my first thought is excellent is great. Let's actually define what excellent means in terms of our expectations. And so I'm going to serve things out there. For me, I think it's efficient, it's predictable, and it's great customer service. And I think the predictable one is the one that I often hear from customers, whether it's again, residents or businesses, right? It's both expected timelines are like for this kind of project how long does it roughly take and then don't move the goal line on me. It's both expected timelines, like for this kind of project, how long does it roughly take and then don't move the goal line on me? And obviously there's sometimes there's exceptions, right? But that's what I define, next point customer experience as, probably should discuss as a group. That is that what we think? Excellent, I can agree on it for Dictville, and that's what I'm going back to the website and communicating what was required, what are the fees associated with it, and then general timelines with all the corporate caveats that if you need a lateral and you need to this and you need to that. I know that there are a lot of, and having these discussions before, folks who are going to that department, they're all these decision points and all these trees and all that well there has to be some top line level view that people can start with and then you can get into the details of why it might alter based upon your particular scenario. So I do think that predictability and timelines. If the timeline is, it takes 12 weeks to do something and that's the timeline. But if I don't know, it takes 12 weeks and I'm like, well, I just need to pay it for a tree bond. To me, the customer feels like, well, I don't know all the things that have to happen behind that bond, but it has to go through legal and finance and urban for whatever may happen. But if you tell me like 12 weeks, okay, well, now I know that. That's super specific, but just generalities of this is how long a process may take and This is how what an estimated cost is. I mean, this first credit keeps popping up in my mind that I know that something that happens around false church because we are all very close to Chesapeake Bay and that that is something that has happened both for the city and for businesses and residents. And it may have changed. I haven't gone back to the Westside, but I don't remember that being a checkbox on the process. So all that going back to predictability, people understand things, things, things, on people understand, but communicating that upfront is really part of great customer service. And I like our customer service to be great because they're helping the process at the front end of it versus customer service being like, oh, when I have a problem and I come in and they were, they handled it. Like, well, let's do it up front. So let's have great customer service up front, which makes the job more interesting and more enjoyable and more fun. And the great customer service is happening before there's a problem. Obviously, sorry. So obviously you want to handle problems with the great customer service as well, but like across several of these systems, like if you have much more fun job, if you play this out with friends and people are coming in and be like, hey, I've got a new idea and I want to expand my business and I want to do this and how can you help me do that? I think that jobs are satisfying, the customer is more satisfied. In the process, I felt more that cold-waste, right? When people have to back and resolve something, it's wasteful in the process because you have resources that are working and reworking issues rather than work on these stuff. I just do this for a little bit, it says, near and near. My last thing I would throw in there is transparency. It would probably be the fourth element of what I define excellent customer service fee. Like to know up front that here is the expected timelines, but then be able to check in along the way without having to bunk somebody because I get a lot of emails like, hey, what's the sound? It says, I haven't heard since I submitted this four months ago. Well, it would be creative. They either just check themselves or they knew that, hey, it's going to take four months and here's where it is in the process. I do find that I deal with people don't have to check in all the time because again, and it's wasteful to resources that way. Even when we have a number of emails answered and my 20,000 emails received and 14,000 sent out. How many of those could we nip in the blood if we have these things to find out front? I'm guessing just on a waste. And how many are automated? It's an automated response. It's like, thank you for submitting this. If you submitted this, your expectation of hearing from us is this or your expectation have said exceptional circumstances is this, right? Like that if someone feels it gets comes back to them and you don't necessarily have to have like, your email concerns this, but if you identify the top five things that people are emailing about, then, you know, making you have that touch point from the very beginning. Have to go back and forth. Sometimes on whether this sort out what needs to be done to move my permit forward. Yeah. 10 times probably isn't well, but ideally what we want. Okay. So I would say in terms of timelines, I think that's a great point. And of course have to bring up the baseball field, but I would say that one in an operating fingers and either a direction, but you know the baseball field has to be ready by this state. So to me like to sit down with the schools, I mean this happened I don't know, but to say a pill, it's work backwards. You want it, you want it ready by February of 2025. So let's work backwards. You know, to me, again, not quite fingers, but I think they submitted the initial permit too late to get that all done. You know, and so I think you have all the players in the room for these more high profile expenses. You know, this is obviously a very high profile that we're still dealing with, but President Ferry upset that the baseball teams having to travel everywhere to practice now. So, so you know, I think when, especially when these are more high-profile, maybe it's a dollar or not, I don't know, but I think sometimes there should be things that sort of trigger maybe an exceptional process that we need to get all the players in the room, it's fed up the timeline, and so people understand if you don't't meet this deadline, then this permit is gonna come in late. So, but- I guess but, I mean, in response to that, I mean, for staff, then it's also a question of like, I get the baseball fields high priority for the baseball team and the parents and the schools, but for staff, it's like, where's the baseball field fall in relation to like the West Falls development and get like, you know, economic developments and I'm getting movie theater and getting those, you know, economic development. It's a nice movie theater and getting those, you know, understand that. Yeah, I'm saying. It's also that also it's not just the baseball parents. It's important. So there's no fireworks this year. Yeah. You know, it's not it's parts and wreck can't do things. So it's not just the baseball parents are the school. So and I understand what you're saying too. And maybe that's where, you know, the directors need to come in and sort of like prioritize or say to the schools like, hey, we're not having too much on our plate. Like, I don't know. But, you know, the expectations need to be clarified, I think, to be able to. You said four things about customer service. Yeah, I really only got the direct-to-divered efficient efficient, predictable, traditional, or small touch, mutually exclusive like I've been here they're like oh we we're little city we want first term like you can do all those things and sell the personal touch and efficient right. Another so I'm trying to take us back as I tackle these like what are our goals here? excellent customer service, which we're sending time to finding what excellent means to us. Is it reducing turnaround time? Is it making sure high profile projects get through? Like I think we should be thoughtful about what are we trying to accomplish? And then we could talk about the how and the what, right? Because I think that's when you talk about process mapping, as when you bring in consultants, that's when you talk about workflow management. Like are we on the same page about what we're trying to accomplish here? Is it just a more better process or do we have an ultimate goal of trying to reduce and turn around time for permitting? What staff stops on that? Yeah, I have my thoughts. That staff. I think one of the things Andy said is everyone has their thoughts on this. And so that assessment is a way to get clarity on that before you start launching a process improvement. But Andy, do you want to talk a little bit about what I think is spot on? I don't know that I can answer that, right? My gut says, yeah, we could be more efficient with the, I think, to the team's credit, like, the workload that our team has kind of worked through over the last several years has been nothing shorter remarkable. And particularly considering the technology limitations and tools that they don't have in order to manage the workload that they have. And so I think the spirit of kind of delivering, you know, great service. And I think you brought in the kind of conflicts from time to time in a process like this. But I think our team does a good job of trying to lean in and solve problems and help customers out. It's probably because you're excellent people. And that's in the case at Cross City Hall, right? Like we have great people doing amazing work delivering results like this. And I think the push from GoBops is like, how do you have great people angry at Cross-S? Because imagine the results would unlock. Yeah, I mean, it's not very, a happier staff, I mean, that where we hear from staff are often processed problems. So like if they're not answering problem calls, then they have space to come up with an more proactive, positive, organizational change, professional change, like all the things that make a job satisfactory become the priority and not handling complaints or dealing with technical constraints. And when you know, and even like thinking about, right, how we talk about this, right, we'll say, oh, let's streamline this, right? And it's like, what would a streamline mean? And to mean, like, it means, like, it's less disruptive, right? Like, it's less disruptive for staff, but it's also less disruptive or whatever, like in the queue. So folks could be be following whatever timeline, and then they're just constant, like, oh, no, do this instead or do that instead. And it's like, well, where did that even go? And now there's nothing like managing the workflow. It's just like a sign somewhere, not getting back into the queue, on any sort of like, in any sort of predictable, like, man, or because X, Y, and Z have sort of come up, right then put the person things that they're occurs to for the day right? I don't understand. It was one all the time, but when you're like, you know, when everything's dependent on like this project can't go forward and this is costing more because of this or this is yet my experience with city hall as an individual like resident, then you know, it's more frustrating than it needs to be for both staff and whether it's the commercial developer or whether it's like the residential homeowner or whatever. I think maybe my answer to the question would be like make sure we do some things that make it make the team more efficient because I think that will cascade into a better process and experience for the customer, but but I think it needs to start with, you know, Mark, the team will talk about. We still put stickers on stuff to say that the permit area that has been approved, he's like, nobody does that anymore, Like, and so, as we've talked some kind of at a higher level about the process, there's a certain amount of work in the middle of the process that has to be done. We have to have an engineer review the sprinkler plan from building to make sure it needs all the code requirements. You can do some things to make that more efficient. The team's adopted kind of disinfor plans, reviews and things that I think it's helped with that already. Where our challenges are on the front end and back end. This is right ingesting whatever everybody submitted and then kind of getting it to a place where the engineer can do the review, um, it's conversant. It owns it for end-end. Does anyone own it? Like, when it comes in to someone say, hey, I'm responsible for seeing it from here to there and obviously many people touch it along the way, but who owns it? Is there someone department that's like, I'm responsible for the intake and I'm responsible that it gets through the process of that. Yeah, I think the building safety teams are responsible for that. Right. Again, there's pieces that aren't that team and that are in integration of some of that, you know, can use some work. Right. But I think we're checking out the technology and being thoughtful about what are we asking for in why and do we need all these things we're asking for and some of those kind of process you know, improvement kind of steps you can go through. They can help on the front end and then, you know, on the back end, right? I've completed my review. It's good to go. And now I've got to submit it back through all these administrative hoops to be able to kick it out and give it to the customer so that they can move along with their project. And so those are just some of the conversations we have. And I think it gets to, we can make some of those things more efficient. The team can move quicker things while totally get done faster. And we don't have enough of that now, but I just want to get to be like,. Let's lay out what are we trying to accomplish, what are ultimate goals, excellent customer service, efficiency, reducing turnaround time, high profile projects, let's be clear, if I bring in the consultant, that will be important to frame up what we want them to do. It looks like we're going to benchmark how we're doing against neighboring jurisdictions. It could be that our turnaround times are great already, which again I think is a testament to the great people who are throwing in lots of effort to really punch up our weights and deliver the work we've done. But again, if we should just be thoughtful what our goals are, but to move on to the how and the what I guess I thought some those two. I just bad one more thing on the on the overall process. I think this is staff retention and recruitment too. If you're trying to bring in the top notch building safety engineer or planner or whatever, we have lots of things that throw them in, but having a great process in place that allows them to focus on not putting the sticker on the page, but on their next, you know, taking their urban planning experience around the country or their masters or whatever and implementing it for for project things great to have recruitment and it has a staff recruitment and attention tool to have processes in place as well. And I think sometimes you don't think about that. When we're interviewing people, they're like, well, how do you do it now? And what's your plan for this? Those should be questions that people ask and they come work here, right? So with and with the focus on improving processes, it's more enjoyable to ask if people will likely stay longer. They're not frustrated by taking 50 phone calls in the middle of their day. So I think that means to also tie into this process and procedure when you're working with ARs and you're working with your HR department. Like these are things that can draw people into working and a small well run process oriented. In addition to the people that you bring them into joint, I think that's something I don't want to focus on too. That's a good point. If I could chime in as a guest, I know I'm a guest isn't my process, but I would like us to consider adding a fork pillar, which would be quality control. And making sure we have the checks and balances built into the process that allows the work to be highly accurate and true to the law and other requirements. The. And then if I were getting a wish list together, I would add to it. This is the people who review plans and permits base fee. They are the front lines and they see where the ordinances need to be improved. And if they would identify, keep a running list of that as they're encountering problems, it would be so helpful because it's work falls. Right. the story is where the apps, what's not written well, what's not understandable, what's causing problems, put that on a list, and let's make sure that that's getting fed up the chain so that we can deal with that in a systematic way. I think which, I think that what we do now is we work around it, we make do, we, you know, know and I'd like to get into a practice of identifying it and systematically addressing it. So to that end, one of the things we've been talking about recently is that you know, the team's been working on a little bit recently as mapping out updating our fees. We haven't changed the fees we charge on permits in like 10 years. And so, um, and, and, and, and, and, and part of that, and we can, you know, I think to what Sally is talking about some of what the, you know, they've identified kind of going through this is like, well, some of these fees don't make sense, right? We're charging people for things maybe that we shouldn't or we can, we can, you know, kindly or fly some things to make things more appropriate for what folks are asking for. And so there's some cleanup on that end that the team has been working on that speaks to something that's at least. I think that's a transparency time and actual cost incur and making sure they're covered. And yeah. But I mean, I'm even thinking, I mean, and maybe let's say another concrete example that comes to mind that when that like a permit came in, a T zone permit came in on a property that's a heart like a historic covered property. And it's like, OK, well, we have this ordinance. And now we have a seeming mismatch and the language and the ordinance for the zoning administrator to apply to a property like how does this work on a pre-existing like water whatever. And it's one thing and maybe it's not going to like come up but if it goes on the list of like oh this isn't a huge one. And that time we ought to figure this out. If we need to have a clean up on like that ordinance when it comes before us, these four things have come off that could be better that will lend clarity and you know make expectations across the board better and frustrated things like lessons because we dealt with this and we now can like do the like it's that sort of thing that when you have to get four people to look at something like well what should we do and the? And the purpose is this, but the language is bad. And it doesn't seem to fit that like should be going to you for the parking lot of Hinaq. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's just like our scheduling topics. You add the scheduling of those ordinance cleanups to our workflow for the council meetings., so where we have the parking lot for topics because that parking lot for ordinance. I like that concept of quality control because everything it goes back to the whole if it's done well up front, then it makes everybody's job downstream easier, better, more efficient,. Right, so we talked about what we're trying to accomplish. We defined excellence better. Some additional kind of like how and what ideas I have. So we talked about workflow management. And I guess I'll leave it up to the consultant or you all determine how to manage workflow. But I do think there's both an element for employees internally to be able to know where things are in progress as well as for the customers. And of another component is I think our reporting in general just needs to be better at how we look at how is the process performing. This is helpful to know like oh my god this looks like a bunch of work. Clearly we're doing lots of permits. There's 19,000 inspection across the city, But I have no idea if that's a lot, a little, how that compares with time, what that means. So in general, we tend to do point and time data reporting and not actually useful to make different decisions. So the back page gets at some of that. It's a high level and I think understand what you're talking about. Like totally there, but I think this does speak to some of what you're talking about. Just yeah, sorry, they've had to report it. Growing up, growing up, one big number, just kind of as a long off thing. It's like, yeah, that's a lot. But like what do you do with that? I think you want to be able to hand things over time and understand and you should work with them right now. I'm currently, I'm currently running to you. All right, the show. We're going up right now. I'm currently, I'm currently running the 29th, I'm going to shrink in, you know, those kinds of things. Yeah, they actionable reporting. So what do you do with like, don't have people kind of like, well, we're not counting these permits manuals, they we produce this many because that would be terrible use of time, but get actionable and then I Trying to not make your friends actionable and then Come back to it. Okay Well, I'll tie it back into staffing and resources and I mean like I'm you know you look at this in your 3,300 in year 23, each is 16,000 in calendar year 24. Well, we stepped up where we best use resources and as it kind of dropped down this 3000 the following year, now that we've done web stalls, whatever, how are we planning, staffing planning? According to that, those are the decisions of your point like your point in time versus longevity. It goes back to staff and we talked about that with. We talked about that, you know, doing that cross departments to make sure that we're staffing and you have a staffing plan of per three to four. The work that we're bringing in, the population we're bringing in. Speaking of staff, so obviously I was not on the council, but when this uptick with all the commercial development, did we increase staff? We did increase staff. Just something called a permacute reserve that we use. That's what you're proposing to use or the consultant. Yeah. And so that was what we used to. We anticipated that we'd have more until the permacute reserve helps pay for that. No, you should speak to that. That's very much. So we have nine employees in building safety two and an intake and seven that are in fire viewing inspections. And I don't have the number of those that are paid for out of that reserve. There's about three, but then I should have some other positions. I know the folks in the city. So it's about a million dollars. Well, it's been pulled out of the reserves to support that surge and traditions at it. Building permit fees for one big project, there's going to be $600,000 fee. And so you want that to be clicked. You know, this can be a four-year project. So we created what we call a virtual enterprise fund so that we store that money and then outlay it over multiple years. The goal is to always have enough money in the reserves so that we have a three-year buffer. So this economy slowed down, we have some time to be able to work. Yeah, we have some time to be able to work. staff and audience. we're in that now, right? We don't have anything, we don't have any big projects in Q account. No, no. There's two big senior projects that are very big, expensive projects. So I understand sort of that thought project. Like five years out I mean I guess it's like, yeah, it's for meeting, there's nothing you have to do. That makes through the, you know, Maple and Ann Dales, the only project, big project, it's sort of going in the beginning of the process. So that is exactly sort of the thought process. So I might be saying it's continual for the next three years, while the senior centers are building then because we don't have anything kind of queued up for five years from now and might get dipped and then hopefully another race. Well, I mean, he can do a track of this and using it to plan which you have. Those two big buildings, and I think one of the things that I'm working through right now is you have to fit out of all of these businesses and the buildings that have come on the of ERF are coming online and all of those are unique and complicated and require some work. So it's a follow-on sort of kind of a second wave of work associating with those projects that will play out like as well, I was saying, in the next several years, even if no other building starts, which we've got something that are going to, right? So, no, it's something I think we're thinking about a lot about how to kind of manage that. That's right, and we have our sort of contract. If there's something particularly challenging or we just have too much on our plate. So I think the team thus far is kind of used kind of on staff resources on the building safety side. And one of the things that we've adapted on this year is we're using consultants to help with some of the WDF work. So great. And the service kinds of things. We did staff up things on the DPW side to the same degree that we had on the on the majority of safety signs, which has been challenged. and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this do you do that? One more on the other one. Let me talk about some sort of work for managers and reporting, my hunch is I think we're gonna want some sort of self-service option. I think that's just what best practices needs is, but I guess I will look to again staff and the consultant. Let's know. When you say self-service, like someone can get a permit just done online and be able to like take care of it without some sort of an interest in interaction, like for the low, effort, low complexity things. Like I just wanna put a deck on, or maybe that's not an easy way, but I don't know, that's, to look to what the industry does. So we'll get into that with the assessment. And usually where these things are going is that all permits go into the portal. And I think we want to assess that carefully. Those portals tend to work for the big people, for the big corporations that have a junior tech, who figures your system out learns that to the 20th term head how to do it correctly, but your smaller, you know, electrician where experience and just talking regionally boy did they struggle with his morals. And so there's the right balance there and then sort of in the assessment process, we would hopefully navigate that so that we have a system that actually does truly work better for everybody. People fill out their permit by hand and then someone then types it in. I mean most of all of our technical review is digital man. From the customer perspective, like when they submit, I need a permit for this. Did they fill out a paper-based thing? I did. Yeah. It fits. Yeah. So it's self paper-based or PDF-based. And then you're correct. Like there's somebody's got to turn around and bad finger that in to assist. That seems like a good job. We've chatted order. This is that where I was talking earlier about like, our process challenges like gut says, and assess no help, but is like where we can make some effective change to help staff to everybody, and then the customer experiences on the front and back. But I mean, to get to your point and I mean, you know, I had a parent or even to a general contractor like under my very vocational school. Like, he wasn't like on the computer doing permits, right? You have to have to have him. Or even if I, yeah, I would have done the permit. Like I had the electrician for the house. I would have looked at the permit and being very comfortable with forms, but like what in the world am I supposed to be doing with this permit? So it is that kind of, you know, you may have the customer who could do the form, but they don't have the technical know how to complete the form. And then you have the traits person who may know exactly what they need for the form, but doesn't have the technology to like know how to do it. to do it so how do do you also do that? And it was great for us because they just walked in and talked to the permit desk people and it was super easy. But you don't want someone in there having a conversation for an hour. So anything staff is very, you know, and I mean, I can help it can happen with some of our people locally. And so, you know, staff is very responsive and like, oh great, we want to be helpful. But I think also about message of like, you can help and it's also okay to like shut the conversation and return to your work. That's a great example. We're trying to meet all those different things, right? That's right. You want to be efficient and you want to meet depending on the skill level of your spelling at the forearm and how you balance call that. But if you can... That's a great example where you're trying to meet all those different people, right? Yeah, right. You want to be efficient and you want to meet depending on the skill level of your spelling out the form and how you balance all that. But if you can also detect savvy people and get them doing it without the interaction, then you freed up a lot of space for those, you know, fewer and higher. It's going to be fewer and fewer over time. You can't exactly. personal and right-hand, because they're going to have to do that no matter what. When I think of the tension on it,, I'd expect like the never users in the free time. All the way to the frequent flyers. So there's a spectrum of front end users who are using this permit process. So you want the never users to be able to navigate the system just as much as the frequent flyers navigate the system. And I think this came from Andy, like how do we make the process so you can't do it wrong? Yeah, right. Not depend on people that they're not just great people, but you've been in process. That's right. Ultimately as you grow up in the city, you need both I yeah right. Yes. Choose your own adventure but you're all getting to the right. Yes. Yes. Choose your own adventure but you're getting to a successful. It's almost 10 o'clock. It would be better there other feedback from the dev outs. Members and this discussion obviously it's an iterative one. We don't want to just have this and walk away. I mean, like, okay, great. Then we're out like we want to be here to support you. Whether that's like process, getting the right people into the discussions and helpful during the assessment, what financial implications there are, process and procedure implications there are. The council can help with. We're here to be part of the solutions and not just creating work and creating reporting timeline for, you know, for reporting safe, but actually giving feedback and hopefully something that is some insights from residents you might not hear otherwise. What do you all think next steps are and how counsel can help you? Have us or full counsel. Next steps for us. I think we just got some work to do. Right now I'll think in a short term when you know anything else. I think we'll. What do you think you'll look and timeline the higher the consultant. You would do it in the spring or the next July. Well, I think you wanted to order on the timeline. We laid out we got to get on it right? Right. So I think we're, you know, um, we've been talking to some folks already. So, yeah, we're going to do a little more deep digging before you've been hired. I think I'm right. And so you really understand. I think the key thing is just making sure of kind of world. What assessment is going to cover. We've kind of laid some of the work. People are happy to look at the scope of work. Make sure again we're on the same page. Right. What the goals are for the personal hired. Let's check in, I guess. It's breaking. I'm wondering if I can... breaking. I have a 10, but one just general over our two thoughts. As we talk about business process improvement, which Jenny were here. We are delivering amazing results for the city. I think that's evident by the great revenues, all the things we're bringing to town. And so as we talk about process and adding it's not because we don't recognize the importance of staff. I think it's had actually bring it to the next level. I like it too, and I've shared this with family girls. Raising teenagers, how do you prepare them for the big world? One of the things before they leave the nest, and it's helping the little city grow up. I want to make sure that at least the leaders in the room, it's not not counsel saying we're not doing a good job. I think we're doing an amazing bottom-delivered and great results. I just think. So I want to make sure that at least the leaders in the room, it's not counsel saying we're not doing a good job. I think we're doing an amazing job and delivering great results. I just think there's so much offers you needed to also think about the discipline and the process side of things. They have so much to say. Not so how we can help you all, you know, whatever we can do because it is coming out of a place of support, not criticism. you know, it's, it's just like we buy a set like the city's growing up and you know, it's and it's about more and more coming you know, and it's, it's just like we buy, so like the city's growing up and, you know, it's, and it's, we've got more and more coming, you know, over the years. So I think whatever we can do, and just to your point, like this is not, that any, this is just like how can we, and be part of the team and help you all, and you know, whether it's money for the control, whatever it is but you know it's been it's amazing what's been done to this point with you know with the processes and the staff and all that and all these huge buildings that have gone up and all that and we built a big, beautiful high school. So it is amazing. So but whatever I think interestingly, whatever internal processes we can improve are automatically going to help the external piece. So, but anyway, thank you. This has been really insightful and helpful for me, for sure. Thank you. Thank you all. You want to comment on the next chair? Yeah, just real quick. So, I've got experience in this. I helped set up the state of Arkansas and SAP. I set up BareFacts Water with SAP and I set up myal with Salesforce. And so everything I've heard here is great, but the one thing I would say that you could do before picking a system is you need to re-engineer your processes first because then you figure out what system you need. And you don't need that technical expert into it. You need a business process reengineering person to come in and help you figure those out. And usually we did that for a year to a year and a half before we've ever, like before the State of Arkansas picked SAP, we redid the business processes. Before Fairfax picked SAP, we reddid all of the business processes because you need to also know how the technology that you pick may also change those processes. Because sometimes the system just won't do it the way that you want to do it and you have to kick more. So just something to think about. We're on SAP H. Yeah, it's a great process. So green and green color. No, I'm like, I saw it in what you've done. I think you're thinking about that. Yes, please. Appreciate it. Thank you for lending your voice experience. And I know we. I think Richard is Richard so online. I have had one specific issue, and get ties in to just reviewing process and procedure and record keeping and quality control. And I just want to acknowledge that we understand your concerns with the quality control and the process and those are our goals in this overarching review and assessment. Thank you. Thanks for joining. If I could also just, as we're closing the meeting out just to amplify all the comments about our staff of, you know, all the things that keep me up at night, worrying about quality assurance out of this team is not one of them. These are really highly qualified, excellent, really professional people who are doing this building safety work led by John Russell and the whole team. Many of them have come from much larger to jurisdictions and they really enjoy the most church because it is small. You can get your hands around problems and make a difference pretty efficiently and quickly. So I think people are excited about the idea of improving our processes to have this great team be better served by our processes that we are in a great posture to serve the community. So good work Andy. Thank you for your work to sort of convene this and get this conversation and Jenny for all the work you've been doing to help us as an organization be more changed ready. That's a great work and I think people are really energized by it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do we think we should set a digital target for the next check-in? We see anything that's a good idea. There's a good idea, right? We can just general go into some instruments, but like early summer. Yeah, I mean, I would say give us a little bit of runway. We don't want to be spending all over time sort of on reporting. We do. Like general about fall. How about like as I check in on on our progress on this. Fall that sounds reasonable. One quick update. We had a, you know, we had a. webpage process, discussion with Govots, we're interviewing for Web Manager right now. We've got three really great candidates. I think the team is excited about that and appreciate sort of the affirmation and the push that this group put behind that effort. Is that personal that reports and very kind of very bad that that's right. Maybe like circulate the scope of work for the consultant and we're happy to check in and evolve on that. Okay. Yeah. Well, there will be engagement on that. You all are piece a co-vers in that. Thank you all That's both. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. Right. You're going sides. you