State may take over inspections

By KEVIN YOUNG

GLASGOW — The Kentucky Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction may soon take over operations of all statewide electrical inspections.

The department currently utilizes nearly 300 certified inspectors and contractors, and it plans to employ only around 100 after the takeover is complete, according to Jim Griffin, Barren County Electrical Inspector.

Currently each county has at least one certified electrical inspector on staff and many cities, including Glasgow, employs a certified electrical inspector.

Griffin said the takeover would lead to higher wait times for those needing inspections, several lost jobs for current inspectors and the employment of unfamiliar workers coming into the county to conduct inspections. He said the state-employed inspectors would be overwhelmed with the workload as it is now.

“You’re going to deal with someone who’s in Barren County only about one day a week. I’m doing all I can now to stay up with everything everyday of the week,” he said.

The department made an attempt to take the same action in previous years through the state legislature but the movements failed after legislators blocked the proposed plan. The new attempt is moving through the ranks of the administrative regulations, which may make it more difficult to prevent, according to Griffin.

“They are saying it’s to make it better, but they just see it as a cost savings and it will stifle growth,” he said.

David Honeycutt, Glasgow city electrical inspector, said he is “totally against” the possible takeover and that it would make inspections in Barren County harder to come by.

“The city and the county for that matter would lose revenue, because that money from inspections would be going to the state instead,” he said.

Ken Leathers, Kentucky Chief of Electrical Inspections, said takeover talk is “just rumor,” but he said state control of electrical inspections would even out inconsistencies.

“It has some pros and cons. More pros than cons,” he said. “Customers would get a better rate, because right now it varies from city to city and county to county. So the rate would be consistent and also enforcement of the code.”

Currently, enforcement of the Kentucky Building Code is a shared responsibility between the department and local government building departments. Inspectors review plans and inspect new construction and renovations of buildings and houses across the state. According to KBC Section 104.1 local building departments are responsible for inspecting churches, small business and assembly occupancies, factories or industrial occupancies with less than a 100 person capacity and residential occupancies less than three stories high or fewer than 20,000 square feet. Larger structures fall under the responsibility of the state inspection department, according to KBC Section 104.2. After a possible takeover, all inspections will go to the state and fall into a priority system.

State Senator David Givens, R-Greensburg, said he has so far heard from concerned inspectors in Green, Simpson and Barren counties since talk of the takeover began.

“It’s not an issue we’ve discussed in the legislature in a few years. (State Senator) Gary Tapp proposed a bill a few years ago that would have done this, but I recently spoke with him and he said that he wouldn’t be proposing it again,” he said.

Givens said the concerns he has heard in discussions relate to whom he calls “rogue inspectors.”

“There are some types of concerns related to this discussion. One is that some inspectors in some areas operate under a different interpretation of the electrical code than inspectors in other areas. So there is not an equitable application of the electrical code across the state,” he said. “Another of the concerns was an uncoordinated response to the ice storm this past year and that some of the rogue inspectors were participating in price gouging.”

The department appears to want to move pretty quickly to complete the takeover, unless discussions with lawmakers can reach common ground, he said.

“I’m hopeful that we can find common ground in those areas. I don’t sense a groundswell of support to move this through the state legislature. And I’m most disappointed that the department may try another way to do it than in the state legislature. They may try to go through administration regulations, but I can’t see how they can do that without revenue support from the legislature. And if that’s something they can do, then I think the department is considerably over funded,” he said.

Givens said that the problems some communities are having with price gouging in other parts of the state are not happening in Barren or its surrounding counties.

“I appreciate the work our local inspectors do and I don’t sense that there are any of those problems here. If there was a burning issue I would have heard about it from the homebuilders association or some other group and I have not,” he said.

Attempts to contact George Mann, Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Housing, Buildings and Construction, were unsuccessful.

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