Report to transform L&I to be released Thursday

Where will the money come from to fix L&I?

That's the question that won't be answered in a blue-ribbon commission's special report to Mayor Nutter scheduled for public release Thursday. The report calls for breaking Philadelphia's much-criticized Department of Licenses and Inspections into two new units, creating a Fire Prevention Bureau, and hiring more staff.

The result of a 10-month examination of the department by a 22-member panel, the report also says L&I is underfunded and overworked - and suggests that staffers be given raises to bring their salaries in line with those in other cities.

The report, however, does not say how the recommendations would be paid for.

A cost-and-funding analysis for the recommendations was "too complex," Ned Dunham, chief of staff of the special commission, said Wednesday. "We thought it was beyond our mandate."

Nutter commissioned the panel in the aftermath of the 22d and Market Streets building collapse June 5, 2013, that killed six people and injured 13. An L&I inspector responsible for checking the demolition project later committed suicide.

The commission - led by Glenn P. Corbett, a fire-safety expert at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York, and Peter F. Vaira, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania - was tasked to review L&I's role in the collapse. The panel was also to look at L&I's overall operations, and come up with recommendations to improve or overhaul a department with more than 300 employees and an annual budget of $27.6 million.

As The Inquirer reported last week, the report outlines more than three dozen recommendations that would remake the often-criticized department.

The main recommendation is to break up L&I and create two new cabinet-level agencies: the Department of Buildings and the Department of Business Compliance. It also recommends hiring more staff, according to sources with direct knowledge of the draft report. At least 50 new inspectors should be hired for the proposed Fire Prevention Bureau, it says.

The report says L&I employees are on average underpaid by at least $11,000.

Source: Philly.com