Department of Fire, Building and Life Safety

The Department of Fire, Building and Life Safety includes the Office of the State Fire Marshal and the Office of Manufactured Housing. The Office of the State Fire Marshal has not been able to address long-standing problems in conducting fire safety inspections. Despite some progress, staff reductions and inadequate building records have negatively affected inspections. The Office of the State Fire Marshal should take several steps to better manage its fire safety inspection processes, and the Department should seek legislation to establish fees to recover inspection costs. The Office of Manufactured Housing regulates the manufactured housing and modular building industries in Arizona; however, in fiscal year 2011, it did not recover 95 to 105 percent of all regulatory costs as required by statute and should develop a structured approach to evaluate its fees to fully cover these costs. In addition, the Department has incorrectly spent some Mobile Home Relocation Fund monies in fiscal years 2009 through 2011 and should implement procedures to ensure it correctly uses these monies.