The Lima-Allen County Building Department has made some changes that they're hoping will improve customer service in the upcoming year.
The department says they have been working to improve their services since January when Amy Harpster became building commissioner. They've acquired several new employees including a new account clerk in Kim Muleski as well as engineer Douglas Ditto and building inspector William Hedges. They are currently working on getting the new hires certified for a variety of different things. Harpster has acquired her building plans examiner certification as of this month in the hopes that it will reduce plan review turnaround time in the new year.
"The certifications and the knowledge that the individuals have will also help expedite the plan review," said Harpster. "We're hearing, you know even though the state requires 30, we're currently at 12.5 days in plan review, we also want to decrease that so this will help tremendously."
The current turnaround time for the department is about 12.5 to 13 days, just a little up from last year's average of 9.5 days. The announcement comes amid discussions from Allen County on the possibility of outsourcing their work to get building plans approved to Miami County instead of the Lima-Allen Building Department.
