
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991                   TAG: 9103200559
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: FAIRFAX                                LENGTH: Medium

BUILDING INSPECTION ERROR COSTS FAIRFAX

Officials at the Fairfax County Fire Department say they have refined their bill-collecting system to ensure that they don't forget again to bill people for hundreds of building inspections.

The department failed to collect an estimated $500,000 from August 1988 to January 1990. The department blamed the problem on an error in record-keeping.

"Our goal is 100 percent," said Stephen Smith, deputy chief for the Fire Prevention Division. "We've got a certain problem due to the fact that some of the people have gone out of business."

The billing process is relatively new for the Fire Department. The current Board of Supervisors, elected in 1987, started a policy that bills the cost of inspections to those seeking site plans.

So the department had to set up a system to bill companies and individuals for inspections it performed. Smith said the system has been refined and fully staffed so the same mistake will not be repeated.

Smith said it will take another seven to eight months to mail all of the late bills.

"It was clearly an error on our part," said Fire Chief Warren Isman. "I need to take some of the blame. It is significant. I don't want to make light of that at all."

At the same time the bills were unpaid, the county has had to limit salaries, cut programs and delay the purchase of firefighting equipment to make ends meet.

Fire department employees are looking through more than 4,000 file folders to see who they missed and try to recover the money. Those bills range from $30 to $17,000, employees said.

When a home or office building is built or renovated in Fairfax County, the Fire Department inspects the plans and later visits the site, at a cost of $76 per hour.

A personnel shortage and lack of proper computerization caused hundreds of follow-up inspections to be performed without the residents or businesses being billed, Isman said.

Isman said his office discovered the mistake when it found revenue was not matching the department's projections. A subsequent search turned up the problem, and in the past few months more than 700 bills have been mailed.

Fire officials could not provide figures on how much money has been recovered, although they indicated most of the bills sent have been paid.

by CNB