CANYON CITY — The lead building official from Harney County came to a special meeting of the Grant County Court Wednesday, May 29, to pitch a partnership for plan review and inspection services that could mean increased operational and cost efficiencies for the county.

The Grant County Court, while taking no action, listened to Harney County building official Richard Stauffer present a case for more efficient service for property owners and contractors, with potential savings for the county.

Stauffer and Grant County Planning Director Shannon Springer said the state currently takes 90% of building permit fees collected in the county in exchange for plan review and inspection services. Stauffer said he estimates Harney County could provide the same services for a little less money, roughly 85% of Grant County permit revenue.

“So I looked at the forecast for (fiscal year) ’24-25,” he said. “So that’s assuming $198,000 a year from now in total permits. So after we send 12% to the (Oregon Building Codes Division) for surcharges, that leaves us $174,240. And if we take 85% of the fees, that will leave $26,136 to Grant County to administer the program for what we do. So it allows us to provide more money to the county to administer this program.”

The Harney County building official also proposes in-county inspections two days a week instead of one, Springer said.

“We also feel that once we have a presence here, the contractors see a presence and they see they get a faster turnaround, they’re going to be able to do more work,” Stauffer said. “And there’s a lot of talk from contractors that there’s some roadblocks that cause them a lot of time, that they’re not able to complete jobs in the time that they should be able to.”

Grant County currently works with state building inspectors, mainly from Pendleton, who come here to do building inspection work once a week.

Officials said sometimes the plan review work takes more than the required 10 days for residential projects in a county of this size.

“If someone turned in a complete sufficient plan for a residence … that was a standard residence, that plan review should be accomplished in 10 days,” Springer said. “That isn’t something that the state has been able to comply with their own rule with regard to doing plan review. Right now, we tell people, plan on four to six weeks, which is not great, but not as bad as it had been. There were times when it was months because their staff was down.”

Grant County Judge Scott Myers asked Stauffer if this would reduce the likelihood of contractors building without permits or inspections.

“It will decrease the likelihood,” Staufer said. “The whole idea is that we don’t come in and do enforcement. We do enforcement by education. They see us here. They know they can call us and talk to us. They know we’re going to provide the service on a daily basis, whether by phone or we’re here a couple of days during the week.”

Springer said it would likely cost Grant County about $300,000 to $450,000 if it were to handle building inspections and plan review itself, instead of going through the state or Harney County.

“If we wanted to have our own, we’d need two or three building officials or staff people, and between the wages, the vehicle, the space and all the benefits, it’s probably reasonable to expect that to cost $150,000 per person,” she said.

Stauffer said he is hoping to come to an agreement on a partnership between Grant and Harney counties toward the service proposal within the next three months.

“I see the benefits of small counties like this working together because I think it would be good for everybody in the long run to pool our resources like that,” Stauffer said.