City Council approves mayor’s budget for three more officers

Rick Kriseman has moved forward with plans to enforce the rules in St. Petersburg, and the city council has agreed to spend it.

The city has seen its Codes Compliance Assistance Department shrink since 2007, when Mayor Rick Baker cut the staff by about 25 percent, including getting rid of eight of the city's 30 codes inspectors. That means 22 compliance officers routinely handle about 7,000 code violations cases throughout the city, ranging from yard maintenance to abandoned homes (a problem that really increased during Mayor Bill Foster's term, which coincided with the recession).

Kriseman promised to increase the number of officers as soon as possible, proposing three more officers in his fiscal year 2015 budget. The city council approved a version of his proposed budget on Sept. 18, 2014, including more than $160,000 to hire three more codes inspectors. The budget took effect at the start of the fiscal year in October.

The city will have 25 inspectors now, which is still down from when Baker was in office but are the first new positions for that purpose since the 2007 cuts.

Kriseman said he would add codes compliance inspectors to make up for the losses during the recession. The cuts under Baker happened before the recession kicked in, but the result is the same: The new mayor said he would make codes a budget priority and he has, increasing funding to hire more inspectors.

We rate this a Promise Kept.