Harford County’s Department of Inspections, Licensing and Permits (DILP) presented its FY26 budget request, emphasizing personnel costs and operational changes that reflect workload and a recent fee adjustment.

Nut graf: DILP leaders said roughly 95% of the department’s budget is personnel, that hiring for skilled inspector roles remains difficult, and that a fee increase implemented earlier in the year has produced higher revenues in the January–March period — though permit volumes can fluctuate month to month.

Budget staff described transfers of two customer-support analyst positions from Planning & Zoning into DILP (shown in the proposed budget pages) to streamline the permit intake and review process. Director Rich Truitt said the transfers are intended to improve permit processing quality control and to reduce permit expirations; he credited the department’s business navigator position with a marked fall in expired permits after that role was added.

Truitt said the department issues roughly 16,000 permits annually and performs 45,000–50,000 inspections; inspection numbers showed a year-to-date increase of about 17.5% and housing/code enforcement investigations were up roughly 38% versus the same point last year after the transfer of some livability enforcement functions into DILP.

He also highlighted recruitment and retention challenges. The department said several inspector positions have been difficult to fill — an electrical inspector position in particular had been open for much of the budget year; the department reported making an offer the day of the meeting.

Truitt asked for continued support to implement the 2024 International Codes and the National Electrical Code updates (state-mandated adoptions), and he noted the department intends to provide free public access to adopted local code language and to purchase new codebooks/digital subscriptions for staff and public reference.

Ending: Council members discussed revenue figures from the recent fee increase; the department reported month-over-month revenue uplifts in January–March 2025 and said it expects to approach breakeven for the fiscal year, with future revenue dependent on permit volume and development activity.