By Carol Coultas and Kathryn Skelton,Staff Writers

It’s just another busy day for Bill Kelley. His cell phone is programmed, his truck is full of blueprints, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.

By quitting time, Auburn’s inspection engineer will have visited 16 different building sites in Auburn, troubleshot dozens of problems with developers, calculated the math for three performance bonds (while eating lunch), left six messages with contractors and traveled 32 miles to inspect $4.2 million worth of new construction. The pace is not for the weak-hearted.

But it’s what Kelley and other inspectors are not doing on this day that concerns some people.

The Twin Cities have experienced unprecedented growth in the last five years:

• $8 million in 2000 vs. $102 million in 2004 in Lewiston;

• $18 million vs. $45 million in Auburn;

• More than $5 million in new commercial construction in Lewiston just this year;

• 350 new residential units in Auburn;

• And the distinction of leading the state in large development projects in 2002 and 2004.

Yet the size of the city staffs that oversee that development has gone down. The strain to accommodate the new development is pressuring staffs even more – staffs considered too thin back in 2000.

For instance, routine inspections for things like renewing day care licenses are taking a back seat to new-construction inspections. Over time, that could jeopardize public safety, inspectors acknowledge.

In Auburn, Gary Simard is the fire inspector, prevention officer and investigator, among other duties. He has to inspect each new building for fire code compliance.

He used to inspect existing apartment buildings annually; now he’s lucky if he gets to them once every five years, he said. And his position was on the chopping block last year during annual budget deliberations.

“We’re just strapped to the wall – I can’t finish half the projects I want to do,” said Simard on a recent morning. He had hoped to spend that morning finishing reports on juvenile fire starters that were a week overdue. Instead, he was called to consult on a design change in a hangar project at the Auburn airport.

The sound of staff stretching

No one interviewed offered examples of shoddy buildings or inferior roads because of slim staffing. Planning officials from both cities say streamlined procedures, cross-training and technology are ways they are trying to deal with the development influx.

But there’s a sense of divine intervention in the terms used by some city leaders to describe how their staffs are managing the load. In Lewiston, City Administrator Jim Bennett said his staff is doing “the impossible with next to nothing.”

It’s not a new thing for the city.

In 2000, city officials acknowledged they had neither the money nor manpower to enforce housing codes. In the words of some city code staff members: “There is a far greater demand for inspection services than a single code enforcement officer can provide. … Paperwork and follow-through have been an issue, and this is in part the result of a tremendous workload and understaffing.”

In 2000, the city of Lewiston had 8.5 staff positions to handle all planning and permitting. Five years later, with the amount of new construction rising 1,175 percent, the city has seven.

Auburn had 11.5 city staff for planning and inspection in the 1999-2000 fiscal year. Five years later, the value of construction had more than doubled to $45 million; staff had trimmed to 10.

Over the last five years, the cities have been able to respond to some housing concerns by streamlining, putting more pressure on building owners and razing the worst properties, officials say. But any relief has been swamped by new development, with developers taking advantage of low interest rates and booming markets, especially in residential and retail construction.

That new development represents new tax revenue in Lewiston and Auburn, cities with historically high property tax rates. The more development a city can attract, the broader the tax base, which presumably allows city officials to lower residents’ tax bills.

But that hasn’t translated into bigger planning and code enforcement staffs to handle the mountain of new development.

In fact, this year Auburn planners asked for $875,000 and got $694,170 – less than it had in fiscal year 2003-2004. David Galbraith, Auburn’s planning chief, said he’d have hired two more people at a minimum if the bigger budget had been approved.

In Lewiston, Bennett said he too would like to see more people in planning and code enforcement, but is still trying to shrink operational budgets.

“We have not added any staff positions,” he said. “We could use them, but we’re not ready to ask for (taxpayers) to pay for more.”

Gary Campbell has done new construction inspections for Lewiston for the past 19 years. One day in August, he spent 40 minutes checking out the new Northeast Bank building on Lisbon Street. He eyeballed ceiling tiles, sprinkler systems, stairways and hand rails, among other things, making sure everything was tight and to code. With the exception of a loose handrail in a handicapped bathroom and a couple of other minor infractions, it was.

But he’s realistic about what he can do and the time he can do it in.

“It’s not a fail-safe system,” he said. “I’m not going to sit here and represent I catch every single glitch that goes on in every building.”

A matter of timing

So far, apparently, there have been no tragedies resulting from the situation. Neither are concerns being raised that corners are being cut with new construction. Two statewide organizations that represent contractors said they aren’t worried about safety, nor is the Maine building inspectors association.

Part of that security comes from market forces. Developers are held liable for the buildings they build. If there’s a problem after the fact, they are the ones dealing with lawsuits and ruined reputations.

On large-scale projects, it’s not uncommon for a developer to hire a third-party inspector to make sure everything is being built according to approved plans. Wal-Mart hired its own inspector to oversee construction of the Lewiston distribution center.

And there are often redundancies with regulatory oversight from the state. The Maine Department of Transportation, Fire Marshal’s Office and Department of Environmental Protection inspect many of the same sites for state code compliance as municipal inspectors do for local codes.

Contractors say they have a very different concern: deadlines. In the construction world, time is money, and in Maine, the window for new construction is much smaller than warmer, less-snowy climes.

“What could end up happening as projects’ time frames lengthen, they could end up getting more expensive down the road,” said Scott Tompkins, deputy director of the Associated Constructors of Maine. “The contractors are going to build that (extra time) into the bid.”

That’s not happening locally – at least not yet. Several L-A contractors say the staffs in both city halls bend over backward to accommodate building schedules.

“The reviews are thorough and they ask the right questions,” said Dan Hebert, who’s been a local contractor for the past 35 years. “They’re trying hard not to slow down the developer and I think they’ve done an excellent job. Frankly, I’m amazed.”

Maximizing efficiency

Officials in both cities say tight budgets and staffing are pushing them to make the most of what they have.

As an example, the cities lend each other inspection staff when they can. And in Auburn, the department has begun to cross train inspectors so that one person can do multiple inspections. A health inspector is now learning to inspect plumbing.

Auburn is also consolidating all its permits into one database, so it’s no longer fragmented by function. For instance, plumbing permits have been kept in one place, electrical in another. Lewiston went through a reorganization four years ago, reassigning administrative duties to free inspectors’ time.

Despite all the efforts, city managers acknowledge they’re having to do more with less. “It’s a constant battle, finding the time to do the important, but not urgent, stuff,” said Bennett.

For people entrusted with a city’s safety and health codes, that means more risk.

Last year Auburn stopped funding a part-time electrical inspector’s position. Charlie DeAngelis, an electrical inspector there for 30 years, knows the importance of timely, thorough inspections performed by experienced inspectors.

“There are 1,200 changes every three years to the electric code,” said DeAngelis, who studies at home at night to keep up with the changes. He wonders about the value of cross training. “The quality of those inspections is questionable.”

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