Medford, OR – January 11, 2006 – When Paul Korbulic took the job of Director of Roads, Parks & Planning in July of 2002, he recognized that the future challenges his departments faced were daunting—rampant expansion, diverse environmental and economic issue management, and the complicated application of state land use law. To meet the fundamental needs of Jackson County in the next decade, Korbulic, along with the rest of the senior County management and the Commissioners, recognized that among other affected County services, Planning, Building, Environmental Quality, and Code Enforcement needed to embrace an intense departmental rebuilding effort.

A strategic planning process was begun with the staff to identify how to address operational issues between the development services programs in the department. Together they successfully developed and began implementing a technology improvement plan. They also put together a Business Practices Advisory Group of developers, contractors, land use consultants, architects and other building professionals to research and propose changes in process to move applications through consistently, and efficiently.

“We have accomplished a lot, with the diligent efforts of the staff and the input from our advisory group, but we realized we couldn’t do this all on our own,” Korbulic explains. “We needed an independent third party to look at areas we still thought needed fixing…to help confirm the approaches we were taking…to evaluate our lingering concerns, and to help us discover our ‘blind spots’….That’s when we brought Citygate Associates, LLC into the process.”

The county has long included performance audits in its regular course of work.  Planning processes have been a concern for county administrator Sue Slack and auditor Debbie Taylor.  “I knew Paul was the right person for the planning job when I appointed him five years ago.  This audit report demonstrates his willingness to examine all aspects of the process and to subject ourselves to criticism in the spirit of improvement,” said Slack.

Citygate, a respected consulting firm, expert in analyzing policies, procedures, management and operations, was selected by the audit team to perform this audit.  This morning, at the Jackson County Commissioner’s Meeting, Citygate presented its findings.

The rigorous data gathering process performed by Citygate included staff and managerial interviews, document review, and focus groups with customers to obtain their perspective on working with these departments. According to Citygate auditors, Jay Corey and Pat Comarell, the level of cooperation, dialogue, and openness from county leadership, management, employees and customer groups during this process was exceptional. Pat volunteered, “We found a very strong commitment to public service among staff members… and a steady course of improvement already in place.” In their work with focus groups, Citygate was gratified that contractors and other professionals involved in the process offered constructive suggestions and expressed genuine appreciation for the efforts of everyone involved. Commissioner Jack Walker expressed his enthusiasm for the whole process, “I appreciate the fact that we have a third party validating the things Paul, his staff and the rest of us have been thinking.” Contractor Reed Murphy, RA Murphy Construction explained that Citygate’s ultimate value to the process has been their “ability to compare our processes to the best practices around so we know what we really have to work on.”

The Citygate team, the Commissioners, County management and advisors all agreed that Oregon’s challenging land use laws put a greater burden on planners in this state than their counterparts in California and other western states. However, the Citygate report does provide examples of best practices in other Oregon counties that can be adopted once Jackson County gets a little farther down the road in their improvement process.

Though Citygate offered 39 specific recommendations, the five most critical steps they outlined were: 1) The integration of Planning, Building, Environmental Quality, and Code Enforcement into one new Development Services Department with a dedicated Director; 2) Hiring of a Planning Director who can be dedicated to current and long range planning; 3) Stabilizing the workforce by reducing turnover; 4) Moving the combined department into facilities more conducive to professional service delivery; 5) Developing an effective case management program to expedite major projects. They are convinced that combined improvements in these five areas will substantially improve customer service by building consistency and efficiency in processes, rekindling staff enthusiasm and streamlining the steps required to get projects through to approval.

Korbulic, who grants that there is still substantial work ahead believes, “this puts us on the right track….It was the right thing to do.” Citygate Senior Associate, Pat Comarell cautions, “Everybody needs to give the County time to implement these changes…this won’t happen overnight.” Nevertheless, Citygate’s experienced team is confident that this continuing process begun by Korbulic in 2002 and focused by their studied recommendations can make the development process faster, easier and measurably better.

Next Tuesday, the County Commissioners meet with the county staff to demonstrate their support and commitment to this process. “We are going to do everything we can to make these important changes possible,” affirmed Commissioner C.W. Smith, “We owe it to our developing community and our committed county employees.”

Click Here to read the performance audit report.