Local code enforcement has never been more challenging. Staffing shortages, increased service expectations, and workforce needs are stretching departments thin.
Throughout the U.S., professional organizations have noted code enforcement capacity gaps. In the New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, for example, more than a third of today’s active code officials are retiring by 2029. Workforce development programs can’t keep up. In the Midwest, there’s particular concern that the scarcity of qualified code inspectors leaves rural areas vulnerable.
The Path to Proactive Enforcement
With limited staff, code enforcement often turns reactive. Inspectors spend more time triaging complaints than completing routine inspections, which can erode trust and create inequities.
At the same time, aging housing stock, stricter energy codes, and rising service expectations require new ways to meet today’s inspection demand. Automation technology can streamline intake, routing, and fieldwork so teams spend more hours inspecting and fewer hours chasing paper.
Creating Community Partners
Local governments can adapt by leveraging simplified citizen reporting to extend the reach of their code enforcement teams. Mobile and online reporting tools allow residents to document issues such as property maintenance violations, illegal dumping, or unsafe structures, directly from their phones.
That empowers residents become the “eyes and ears” of the community, with reports automatically flowing into a centralized digital system. There they can be prioritized, tracked, and assigned. This not only helps governments respond faster but also provides greater transparency for resolution.
Real-World Examples: Elizabeth, NJ and Big Bear Lake, CA
The cities of Elizabeth, NJ, and Big Bear Lake, CA provide strong examples of how technology can support overburdened code enforcement teams in different kinds of communities.
Elizabeth is home to more than 140, 000 people, the largest industrial seaport in North America, and much of Newark Liberty International Airport. Big Bear Lake is a small city known for tourism, with ski resorts and vacation rentals. Located in the San Bernardino Mountains, its year-round population is approximately 5,000 people, with surges on weekends and during peak travel times.
Both communities were able to transform code enforcement operations by using GovPilot’s Report a Concern module. The module allows residents to submit accurate, geo-tagged complaints online and enables local governments to extend the reach of code officials without overburdening inspectors.
The City of Elizabeth digitized inspections, citations, and reporting workflows to enable inspectors to manage cases more efficiently. By eliminating paper processes and moving to automated workflows, the city reduced response times and improved communication between departments without adding staff.
Prior to working with GovPilot, Big Bear Lake also had slow and cumbersome paper processes for government services. That became unsustainable with more than 2,600 vacation rental properties and the large transient population that comes with it. By implementing Report-a-Concern, though, constituents’ non-emergency concerns are easily tracked and resolved. Even better, officials can now instantly format relevant data into monthly reports for all to see.
“Prior to GovPilot, it would have been impossible to track fines and citations. We collected and resolved 1,700 complaints in one year with GovPilot, something that would have been impossible with a paper notebook,” according to Lawrence Vaupel, the Director of Tourism Management.
Multiplying Effectiveness with GIS Mapping
These examples highlight how Geographical Information Systems (GIS) provide a powerful civic engagement tool. Even more, they’re a powerful decision-making engine that can transform code enforcement into a strategic operation.
Here's how: code enforcement teams can visualize patterns that would be invisible in spreadsheets or paper files. By plotting complaints and violations geographically, department officials can identify hot spots that require systematic attention rather than one-off responses. For instance, clusters of property maintenance violations might reveal neighborhoods with aging housing stock that need repair assistance.
Deeper analysis comes from merging multiple data sets as GIS layers. Overlay code violations with property ownership records, and inspectors can quickly identify landlords with violations across multiple properties. Combine violation data with demographics, and departments can audit their enforcement patterns to ensure equitable service delivery. Add in infrastructure age, and teams can predict where violations might emerge before complaints arrive.
GIS can also add practical efficiencies to daily operations:
- Route optimization tools help inspectors plan efficient schedules, based on their proximity.
- Mobile GIS applications boost field inspector productivity:
- Access parcel histories on-site.
- Take and attach photos to inspection records in real-time.
- Update case files in the field.
Making Implementation Work
Of course, technology adoption requires more than simply purchasing software. Successful implementations share common elements:
- Leadership Buy-In: Code enforcement modernization requires support from elected officials, department heads, and IT staff. Before moving forward, build a coalition by demonstrating how technology addresses specific pain points each stakeholder cares about: constituent satisfaction, budget efficiency, and risk mitigation are good examples.
- Change Management: Your biggest hurdle may be human. Veteran inspectors may resist abandoning familiar paper-based workflows. Address this by involving frontline staff early in the vendor selection process, providing hands-on training, assuring everyone of ongoing support, and designating "champions" within the department who can support their peers during the transition.
- Quality Data: Your new system will only be as useful as the data you put into it. Before migration, audit existing records for accuracy and completeness. Standardize naming conventions, clean up duplicate entries, and establish data entry protocols that maintain quality going forward. Ask your vendor how they can help.
- Phased Rollout: Test new systems with a small team or specific violation type. This allows you to work out integration issues, refine workflows, and build confidence before full deployment. Document quick wins to build momentum.
- Ongoing Staff Training: Beyond software licensing, account for staff training time, data migration from legacy systems, ongoing technical support needs, and hardware training and maintenance needs like tablets or other mobile devices for field inspectors.
- Well Defined Goals: Determine success measures before implementation. Are you trying to reduce average case resolution time? Increase routine inspection completion rates? Improve constituent satisfaction scores? Having baseline data and clear targets helps you evaluate ROI and provide reports to constituents.
Remember that successful implementation will take months from vendor selection to full deployment. Partnering with the right vendor ensures measurable improvements within the first year.
Moving Forward
Ready to explore what's possible? Start by assessing your current workflows to identify the biggest inefficiencies. Talk to neighboring authorities that have modernized their code enforcement operations.
For local governments ready to take the next step, resources are available:
- Review local reports on code enforcement gaps to better understand workforce challenges.
- Examine case studies and ask vendors for referrals from communities like yours in size and composition.
- Connect with municipal organizations and professional associations like the International Code Council for peer insights.
- Schedule vendor demonstrations with specific scenarios from your daily operations
The communities that maintain quality of life standards over the next decade won't have to be the ones with the biggest budgets. They’ll be those that strategically deploy technology to make every inspection hour count.
Contact GovPilot to learn how code enforcement solutions can help your community.
Sources:
Code Enforcement Workforce Gap Analysis: New England and Mid-Atlantic Region. NEEP. 2024. https://neep.org/sites/default/files/media-files/neep_code_enforcement_gap_analysis_final_updated.pdf
2025 Midwest Energy Solutions Conference Cracking the Code: Rural Communities, Workforce, and Affordability. Cornelia Wu. 2025. https://www.meeaconference.org/sites/meeaconference.org/files/Jan28_A2_Wu_for-distribution.pdf
GovPilot. Customer Success: Code Enforcement (Elizabeth, NJ) https://www.govpilot.com/case-study-code-elizabeth
GovPilot. Short-Term Rental Property Registration and Report a Concern. (Big Bear Lake, CA) https://www.govpilot.com/case-study-short-term-rental-big-bear-lake
