As of April 3, the city planning and community development office closes at 4:30 p.m. daily.

The closure is due to the need for staff to reconcile all payments by the close of business at 5 p.m. daily.

The planning office will be open for all business from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Tom Micuda, interim planning director, said that before the change, the department policy was to stop taking money after 4:30 p.m.

“The issue we’re trying to address, which is similar in other city departments, is that we have requirements at each person who is handling money, for us that’s three permit tech staff, must balance individual tills of payments by end of business day. Because it is hard for the permit techs to simultaneously serve non-paying customers and balance their tills all at the same time, they end up having to stay after 5 p.m. to do that required work.”

Micuda said closing they’ll work with their customers to adjust to the earlier closure and “if we end up with significant problems that affect non-paying customers, we’ll adjust by…rotating non-permit tech staff to staff the front door to provide extra assistance.”

Micuda said the office is implementing a change that other city department have done to make sure money handling staff have the ability to complete their work by close of business.