The Taveras administration in Providence is hiring two contract employees to bolster the staff of the Fire Department office that reviews and approves building projects for compliance with the state fire safety code.
The move coincides with a short-term surge in applications for proposed projects that public safety officials say is a possible harbinger of post-recession economic development. In January and February, there were 67 applications for commercial and industrial projects, compared with 41 for the same period in 2012.
By hiring two contract employees to work fulltime as fire prevention inspectors and plan reviewers, the administration is contracting out work that is otherwise done by employees who are labor union members.
The goal, according to Public Safety Commissioner Steven M. Pare, is to prevent a recurring backlog of applications for plan approvals by developers and building owners -- a backlog that slows business activity.
As of December 31, after a concerted effort to whittle down a backlog, there were 12 applications for plan reviews pending at the Fire Prevention Bureau. As of March 1, there were 22.
The fire safety code, effective this year, imposes revised time frames on cities and towns to process applications. The code states for example that a project valued at less than $500,000 should be reviewed in less than 20 days and a project valued at more than $10 million, within 40 days. There is no penalty in the code if a municipality is slow.
The Fire Prevention Bureau currently operates within the time frames, Pare said.