Hello all,

We have had to go to 3rd party plan review for a lot of larger commercial projects in the past couples years as not only did we lose our in house reviewer but the other we have isn't quite as versed on larger projects as he would like to be. We are in contract with 3 different companies but wanted to get an idea on what other jurisdictions are doing on their billing side of things.  At one point, we had a Building Official that had us sending some larger reviews out using hourly billing because our permit costs are based on 2% of the value.  So with that said, we had a $14 million dollar project and if we billed the 3rd party on a fixed rate they would have received $48000 where on an hourly they got closer to $10000.  Do you always send it out as a fixed rate, pick and choose, never use hourly unless it goes past allowed reviews; how is everyone handling this? We have one consultant that is pushing us for all fixed rate reviews but I only see that as giving away so much annually that could be put to better use here in the city.  I was in the private sector for a long time so I may think a little differently but wanted to get a feel for what others are doing.  Thank you in advance.