County job losses leave remaining staff stressed

EVAN WILLIAMS / FLORIDA WEEKLY County building departments were beehives of activity in the boom years. Today, reduced staffs have fewer customers but work just as hard. Like bars emptying out at closing time, the lobbies of Lee and Collier county building departments grew quiet. The crowds that came for building permits, the primary source of income for government building departments, started disappearing in 2007. The dramatic decline appears to be over, administrators say. But many remaining employees are left with a sense of uncertainty and anxiety from watching round after round of layoffs.

"Some had been there so long that besides just being co-workers, we were friends," said Wanda Warren, who has worked for Collier County's Building Review and Permitting Department for 26 years. "There was bond there. As the months go by, (you ask yourself) 'when will it happen to me?' And there were households where there was just one breadwinner. You don't know whether next month or next year, whether you'll have a job."

Ms. Warren, 55, supports three grandchildren and has become the primary breadwinner in her family. Her husband, a carpenter, is out of work. She is also working double duty by helping greet people at the front counter in addition to her other duties.

Lee County single-family building permits "I'm doubling up and tripling up on duties," said Joe Schmitt, director of community development and environmental services in Collier County. "We're still trying to provide the same services."

The same is true in Lee County. During the housing boom in the first half of the 2000s, people waited for hours to get permits in busy county lobbies, inspectors worked overtime, and administrators struggled to hire enough workers to meet the demand.

Now, after three rounds of layoffs since 2008, the Collier Building Department went from a staff of 296 to 185. The

Lee County Department of Community Development went through four rounds of layoffs starting in 2008, going from 261 employees to 145. Many were highly trained positions, including building and construction inspectors, zoning and site plan reviewers and permitting technicians.

Joan D. LaGuardia, communications director for Lee County Department of Community Development, remembered a scene from the boom years: a co-worker sitting at a desk surrounded by mountains of papers. "Now, of course, if you look around you're going to see empty shelves," she said. "Back in the heyday you could just come in here and there would be long lines. At one point, (technicians) were doing 1,000 or more inspections per day. It was huge."

However, the remaining employees are still staying busy.

"The (building inspectors) are still probably just as busy," said Ms. LaGuardia.

And the quiet lobby isn't entirely due to the downturn. More permits are applied for online. "We do a huge amount of permitting online," she said. "A lot of things can just be done online now."

The number of permits issued recently is back to late-1990s levels. But after having risen so high, the free fall was dizzying.

"It was insane (in 2003 and 2004)," Mr. Schmitt said. "We were inundated with work. In managing this organization and leading this organization, the difficult part was the growing phase. I was hampered by the budget development process. It took longer to ramp up than to ramp down because of the budget cycle, approval by the board, then the hiring process."

The total number of permits in unincorporated Lee County fell from 38,310 in 2005 to 13,652 in 2008. In Collier County, a different number tells roughly the same story: in 2006, technicians did 225,696 inspections on buildings. In 2008, they did 82,000 inspections.

Permits for new residential housing showed the steepest decline in both counties. In Collier, permits for residential housing units fell from 4,099 in 2005 to 917 last year. In Lee County, single-family home permits fell from 9,747 in 2005 to 482 last year.

"The good news is we pretty much have leveled out," Mr. Schmitt said. "And most of the work now is repair, renovations, replacements, the typical building-permit type activity. Interior work, interior buildout. Those kinds of things. It's not what I'd call a lot of new construction."

Cape Coral resident Tom Guthrie, 60, is fiercely optimistic that the economy has begun to expand again. His company, Guthrie Builders, hasn't built a new house in two years. In the meantime, he has done handiwork to get by.

But last week, he waited in the lobby of the Lee County Community Development and Public Works Center in downtown Fort Myers with a handful of other people.

Mr. Guthrie was there to pick up a permit for an addition to a house he had been hired to complete.

"It's a lot better than it was a year ago," he said. "At least people are looking."

.. staffing

>> The Lee County Department of Community Development had 261 employees in the beginning of the 2008 fiscal year. It currently has 145. >> In January 2008, 29 people were laid off and 35 vacant positions were eliminated. >> In August 2008, 20 people were laid off, 12 took an early-out program, and 13 vacant positions were eliminated. >> In February 2009, 20 people were laid off. >> In September 2009, 11 people were laid off and 11 vacant positions were eliminated.

— Source: Lee County Department of Community Development