SCBC vote against outsourcing building inspection and permitting process

The Stephens County Board of Commissioners have voted to reject the bids it received to outsource the county’s building inspection and permitting process.

Originally, the commission voted to postpone making a decision on the topic during its May 10^th meeting; but, on Tuesday, the commission voted to reject all the bids.

At the May 10^th meeting County Administrator Phyllis Ayers explained that the costs to outsource the process would be substantially higher than what the county spends doing it in-house.

“We wrote an RFP to change building inspections and to outsource the in-house building permit process—certificate of occupancy—and we found out its way more expensive than what we do in-house. We have talked about this, I’ve sent you some information by email, our current residential building inspector cannot do the commercial, so we’ll have to have somebody else to do the commercial with her. But this will be an increase in cost if we go with any of these vendors, which, means you might want to consider increasing your building permit fees, we’re already at a loss with our building permit fees. So, it’s really up to you on the direction you want to go in, we can change it accordingly,” Ayers said.

Then during the most recent meeting, Ayers explained that during the budget planning sessions the commission decided against outsourcing the building inspection and permitting process.

Commissioner Dean Scarborough made a motion to reject the bids with Commissioner Michelle Ivester seconding the motion.

The motion was approved 4-0 with Commissioner Debbie Whitlock being absent.