Apr. 10—TUPELO — As Tupelo experiences continued economic growth, its Development Services Department has moved forward on a myriad of changes with its new administration following a report detailing a "toxic" environment and outdated systems.
In the wake of two high-ranking development services employees leaving City Hall, Development Services Director Tanner Newman said the city moved to diagnose potential problems through an independent review to assess the department.
Over six months later, consultant Shane Davis outlined a laundry list of changes he believed necessary to rebuild Development Services, commonly called the Third Floor because of its location in City Hall. These changes included an overhaul of the permitting system, alterations to the command structure and suggestions to help improve the overall morale of the department's employees.
Tupelo had seen explosive growth over the last few decades, and Davis said development services, arguably the driving force of economic growth for any administration, had not changed with the times, noting an artifact of that was the chief building inspector's overarching role in the department. He said it was not uncommon for small cities in the state to operate with Tupelo's old format, but as the city grew and needed more functions, the position absorbed too much.
While the administration believed the report was necessary, its critics — including members of the previous administration — have called it a "wasteful study" that did nothing but "justify changes they already wanted to make."
Report claims poor working environment
Davis' report, which included interviews conducted near the beginning of the new administration's term, detailed the need for the director to effect a change in attitude for the department. He said communication needed to be improved and clear expectations needed to be set.
"Staff morale and productivity have suffered because of a general failure to treat the staff members as qualified professionals and part of a team with common goals and purpose," Davis wrote.
The culture prevalent before the review was "toxic," Davis said, and the problem stemmed from management styles. But as he continued his report, the consultant noted that he saw a marked improvement under Newman's watch.
"A few bad apples can ruin the bunch," Newman said. "I had to make some difficult decisions ... This administration feels that the individuals that caused the poor work environment are no longer employed by the city of Tupelo."
Though Newman would not specify who the "bad apples" were, just one month after Newman took office, two Development Services employees left. Former Chief Building Inspector Jimmy Farnham resigned, and Redevelopment Coordinator Donna Jarrell Robbins was terminated. Both left with the city citing unspecified ethical concerns.
Although Newman declined to provide details on either former employee's exit, citing personnel issues, he said morale of the department has improved over the past nine months.
"We have taken huge steps to correct these issues," he said.
Former Mayor Jason Shelton, who did not seek re-election last year, bucked the report and Newman's claim that the department had a poor working environment.
"Every department has problems, but they did an excellent job," the former mayor told the Daily Journal.
Like Newman, Shelton declined to discuss any specific issues within the department but said he was happy overall with the work performed by Development Services during his administration.
"You can hire a man with a briefcase to come say whatever you want about a department, but they did a fantastic job during my administration," he said. "'Morale issues' is a term that gets thrown around usually when someone just wants to change something."
The report also noted the director's job was to help employees overcome obstacles. Davis said he added this to the report because the low morale led to employees either not getting certifications or letting their certifications lapse without renewing them because of lack of support.
Newman elaborated that, in the past, the department did not provide the assistance employees needed to further their careers. Specifically, he said building inspectors weren't provided with financial assistance or incentives to get certified in specific inspection fields.
Certifications are important to making sure inspectors are qualified for their positions, Newman said.
"One thing we discovered throughout the assessment phase was that there were employees that hadn't been offered the appropriate certification or training to perform their roles," Newman said. "This administration immediately took action to offer them the resources for appropriate training."
Complete overhaul balances division heads' power
The key change to Development Services spurred by the consultant's report was a hefty reorganization of the department's structure. Multiple positions were cut and new jobs added to fill empty roles.
Under the old structure, the chief building inspector was over building inspections, code enforcement and planning reviews. Whoever held that role supervised 12 employees, while other division heads were put in charge of just one or two employees each.
According to the report, this created a lopsided approach to management.
"It just didn't make sense to have rental and code enforcement inspectors answering to the chief building inspector when those are two different divisions," Davis said.
With the new structure, the chief building inspector is only responsible for planning reviews and building inspections, which reduces the position's supervisory role to just four employees.
The city has also added four more code inspectors to help fill out the city's code enforcement after multiple complaints from council members.
Though Shelton did not think a total restructuring was necessary, he praised the Jordan administration for devoting more resources to the Third Floor — something he claimed he could not do during his administration.
Newman said the change was important to setting a new tone and refreshing the department, leading to a more cohesive and dependable Development Services.
Permit fees operated on the 'honor's system'
According to the report, the Third Floor was operating with outdated permit processes, including payments based on the "honor's system," applications that were not up to state code and a lack of delegation that gummed up the works.
According to the report, the city's building permit fee system has a critical error. Permit fees are based on market valuations of a project, which the report noted was standard. But Tupelo's permit system also doesn't require detailed construction plans, which causes costs to be "difficult to accurately estimate" for staff and those seeking permits.
Newman said that while campaigning with Jordan, he had heard about several issues in the permit division, which led to its inclusion in the report.
"There were a lot of complaints from home builders and developers," Newman said. "The system that we work under is, frankly, outdated, and with any organization growth, there comes growing pains, and these are growing pains we welcome and are working through."
This system can lead to issues of over or undercharging, Davis said.
According to Home Builders Association President Kenneth Estes, the system the city currently has in place can cause bad estimations ... a headache for local contractors.
"You had to guess at what the fee was going to be and hoped you estimated correctly," Estes said.
Estes, who has been remodeling homes in Tupelo since 2002, said he and the association brought the issue up to the city and worked with it on the solution.
Newman said a more specific grading system for fees will be put in place soon, but his priority was hiring division heads.
How did it get like this?
The problems facing the Third Floor, Davis said, have been built upon years of minor changes and the weight of a top-down approach to management. It's led to employees feeling disrespected and has damaged confidence, he said, resulting in a lower overall standard of work.
The Daily Journal was unsuccessful after multiple attempts to reach former employees to speak about the issues with Development Services.
Davis said the issues with the Third Floor were often seemingly small on their own, but amassed into something that weighed down the department and some of its employees.
"It was a general tone that developed over a period of years, small things that would shake the confidence and make them second guess themselves," Davis said. "Unfortunately, it appeared that the staff members no longer took as much pride in their work. That dovetailed into a lack of professional development maintaining credentials and certifications."
In his decades working with the staff from the Third Floor, Davis said he had noticed this decline from an outside perspective and was pleased to be part of the solution.
The lack of respect led to a lack of leadership, Newman said, adding roles were not clearly defined, which led to even more confusion for the staff.
"The morale was poor, and there seemed to be little trust amongst the employees," he said. "As I dove into the history of the department, those things are not the result of one particular purpose or one particular thing. It was a history of poor leadership and, in some instances, lack of leadership amongst previous division heads in the department."
Shelton, however, does not agree. He said there was no history of poor leadership.
"To say that the Third Floor was anything less than a resounding success is just not an accurate statement," he said.
Instead, he said more resources could have benefitted from additional resources.
The future of the Third Floor
The recommendations laid out in the report were just a recommendation, but they are changes Newman said he intends to mostly follow. He said his primary goal after finishing the reorganization of the Third Floor is to "keep the city moving in the right direction."
"The right direction, to me, is ensuring that Tupelo continues to grow commercially and residentially, that commercial growth follows residential growth, and that neighborhoods have adequate opportunity to purchase land and thrive," he said.
The report also detailed the possibility of changes to the department based on the city's projected growth. It projects the city will need to add a building inspector, receptionist, assistant city planner and assistant city engineer within the next five years.
Those are good issues to have. Once the staff is built out and acclimated, Newman said he plans to set his sights on his department's namesake.
"I will continue to be hands on," Newman said. "But long-term, I want to focus on moving toward the economic and development."
caleb.mccluskey@djournal.com
