Brick Building Inspectors Working Overtime To Catch Up Backlog, Mayor Says

Brick, NJ -- The complaints have been steady.

Delayed building inspections, plumbing inspections and electrical inspections have led to delays in further work, leaving many, especially families still recovering from Superstorm Sandy, to wait even longer to get back into their homes. Days of waiting began to stretch into weeks. Phone calls to town hall began to mount as frustrated residents complained.

More than 3,100 calls in April, May and June alone, Brick Township Mayor John Ducey said Tuesday night at the Township Council meeting.

To address the issue, township building inspectors have begun working extra hours -- primarily 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays, but some of them on Saturdays -- to get through a backlog of inspections so residents can get on with rebuilding their lives, Ducey said.

"We were way behind," Ducey said. "People were waiting a month for inspections."

The building department's inspectors have been taxed for months as hundreds of residents rebuild and raise their homes. Inspections on the building, the electrical installation, the plumbing work, all have to be completed, often with inspection of one portion of the work affecting another.

But with inspectors working extra hours and helping with the subcode inspections, the township is beginning to make a dent in the problem, Ducey said. The wait for building inspections is down to nine days, and electrical inspections is a seven-day wait. Plumbing is the longest, with a two-week delay, he said.

Doing the inspections on an evening or a Saturday means residents don't have to take extra days off from work to meet an inspector, Ducey said.

Ducey said part of the issue continues to be the aftermath of Sandy. Initially, the state sent additional inspectors to hard-hit towns to help them keep up with the pace of needed inspections while those towns, including Brick, sought to hire more inspectors.

The state, which paid the inspectors it sent, notified the township the program was coming to an end, Ducey said. Still needing the extra help, Brick asked the state if it could maintain the program if Brick paid the inspectors, Ducey said, and the township believed it had an agreement worked out.

That changed in early May, however, he said, when the state ended the program completely.

"On May 3rd, we had all these inspections scheduled, and the inspectors didn't show up" because the state had canceled the program, Ducey said.

That threw a monkey wrench into an already overwhelmed system, he said. Town officials realized they had to fix it, so they asked the township's inspectors if they would be willing to work overtime one night a week to help the township get caught up, particularly on plumbing and electrical inspections, Ducey said.

Inspectors agreed, and in the month since, have been able to cut into the backlog.

The township has hired an additional full-time building inspector and an additional full-time electrical inspector, giving the building department 10 inspectors, business administrator Joanne Bergin said. (The township additionally has two fire inspectors, she said.)

But the town continues to look for a plumbing inspector. After advertisements on the township's website and other local avenues last year failed to draw notice, the township advertised for a plumbing inspector in trade journals in January and February, Bergin said. That, too, yielded no prospects.

The township will continue to do inspections on Wednesdays (and Saturdays, for inspectors who prefer those days) for the time being, Ducey said.

"And we're still looking for a plumbing inspector, so if you know anyone, send them our way," Ducey said.

The volume of inspections needed as residents have rebuilt homes damaged or destroyed by Superstorm Sandy has put a heavy burden on the Brick Township building department's inspectors. Karen Wall photo