Approved: 2-year building code interlocal agreement between Bloomington, Monroe County
At its regular Wednesday meeting, Bloomington’s city council approved an interlocal agreement between the city and county governments that continues an arrangement first made in 1996, under which Monroe County enforces building code inside the city limits.
In recent years the timeframe for the agreement has been just one year, but the new agreement goes for two years, through the end of 2026.
At Wednesday’s meeting, the city’s corporation counsel Margie Rice told councilmembers that Monroe County government had suggested a five-year arrangement. But Rice said Bloomington was not interested in making the arrangement that long, because it would push past the end of Bloomington mayor Kerry Thomson’s first term in office.
Another new feature of the agreement is the requirement that the staff from the city and county meet at least quarterly “to improve and facilitate improved coordination between the City and County.”
Under the agreement, it is the Monroe County building department that is responsible inside city limits for enforcing all state building, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, energy conservation, and fire building safety codes—as adopted by the city of Bloomington. The county’s building department is also responsible for enforcing all of those state codes in the unincorporated areas of Monroe County, as adopted by the county government.
But under the agreement, the city government still administers planning, zoning, and subdivision compliance functions inside Bloomington.
The monetary piece of the agreement calls for the county building department to collect Bloomington’s zoning compliance review fees, and for the county building department to transfer those fees to the city.
The county’s building department also collects the county building permit fees, but under the agreement, the transfer of the city’s zoning compliance review fees are the only payments to be made by the county government to the city government.
Under the agreement, the county’s building department also has to collect and verify GIS data for the the city of Bloomington as it collects that information in connection with building permit administration and planning subdivision approvals.
The agreement also includes a fairly low-tech component, calling for the city’s planning and transportation department to send a staff person to the Monroe County building department “once a work day” to retrieve and return all permit application materials. That remains a requirement until the county’s building department has the ability to electronically transmit the materials directly to Bloomington’s planning and transportation department.
The county building department is housed in Showers North, which is the same building as city hall—so the daily expedition to retrieve the materials is not long.
Besides corporation counsel Rice, fielding questions from councilmembers on Wednesday night was the city’s planning and transportation director, David Hittle.
Hittle said that the permit numbers this year are running a bit ahead of last year. The count in 2023 was 636, but this year so far the count is 654, he said.
Responding to a request from The B Square, the city controller’s office broke down revenues through the interlocal agreement for the last few years like this:
2021: $235,848.87
2022: $388,297.28
2023: $80,679.37
2024: $134,228.96 (as of Nov. 20, 2024)
Hittle said the city staff work well with Bobby LaRue, who is the building commissioner for the county, and his staff of five building inspectors.
With Hittle at the mic, councilmember Matt Flaherty took the chance to indirectly revisit a topic from the council’s Oct. 30 meeting, when some councilmembers (including Flaherty) and Thomson’s administration clashed over pay for employees in the planning and transportation department. Councilmembers wanted to raise pay higher than what the administration had proposed.
On Wednesday, Flaherty asked Hittle: “Are staff turnover, or experience, …longevity, those kind of things, a pain point at all in speed or expertise for processing permits?”
Hittle replied: “It’s probably a three-year trek to become…a seasoned employee who is really able to work quickly and efficiently with the zoning ordinance—to review complex permit cases in light of the whole of the ordinance, and do it quickly.” Hittle added, “We’re just not often able to keep people for three years.”
Flaherty responded with a followup: “Do you think more competitive compensation would help with that challenge?” Hittle responded: “Yes, I do.” Having made his point, Flaherty wrapped up his turn, “OK! Thank you! Appreciate it!
