Policies. Procedures. Controls.

Max Fernandez uses those three words frequently to describe the overhaul he’s leading at the city’s Community Development Department (CDD).

Fernandez, the new director of the department, sat down with The Sacramento Press this week to discuss how he’s changing the culture and tightening rules at the department after it faced a host of recent crises with fees and building permits. 

The CDD director job was a promotion for Fernandez, who was the former director of Code Enforcement. He started work at CDD in early July. 

“A big change that we’ve had since I’ve been here is we’ve implemented all these policies and procedures,” Fernandez said. “That was a big issue that the city manager’s office and City Council wanted to see.”

Fernandez took over the director job from Bill Thomas, who had been on paid leave for months before he resigned in March. In 2009, when Thomas was in charge, building permits for development in a Natomas flood zone were approved by a CDD staffer. The flood zone was under the jurisdiction of Federal Emergency Management Agency rules, which the staffer disregarded, according to city officials.

Fees and planning rules are linked to other problems at the department. Claims that the the department violated city planning rules and did not collect fees from developers are being investigated in a third-party audit. The audit from Sjoberg Evashenk Consulting Inc. of Sacramento is expected to be released in the next few weeks, according to City Auditor Jorge Oseguera.

On top of these problems, the landscape of the Community Development Department changed dramatically earlier this summer. In a budget-cutting move, city officials altered Code Enforcement to become a division of CDD. Several other departments consolidated, as well.

The city manager’s office and City Council members have said they want the department’s permit processing and fee collection to be “very regimented and accountable,” Fernandez said.

In response to their wishes, Fernandez said he’s working to tighten the rules at CDD. “We’re putting systems and controls in to make sure that people are processing the paperwork and permits appropriately and consistently,” he said.

The new rule changes represent a “cultural change” at the department, he said. He explained how the culture has shifted: “I think (it’s) the culture of having a policy and procedure, having something written down in black and white, whether it’s fees or processing paperwork, or processing a permit, is down in writing and there’s a way to do it ... without a lot of ambiguity, with a real clear direction on how this needs to be done. It just makes everybody’s job easier.”

Fernandez also said the department will pay attention to the results of the upcoming audit. The department is “going to use the audit as a map to make sure that we’re on the right track, that we’re going in the right direction, that we’re making the changes that need to be made ... and that if anything is identified that we don’t know about, that we go ahead and effect these changes.”

Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.