ALTAMONT — The village of Altamont has a new part-time building inspector and codes enforcement officer because of a new shared-services agreement with the village of Voorheesville.

According to this agreement, which became effective on Dec. 2, 2014, Altamont pays Voorheesville $10,335 a year, and, for that, according to Altamont village Trustee William Aylward, “We get the services of their building inspector, Glenn Hebert, and he fulfills the responsibilities of building inspection, code enforcement, and fire prevention.”

Under the agreement, Hebert works on-site in Altamont five hours a week.

Aylward said that the village is very pleased to have Hebert, who is “well experienced” and has been working as a building inspector for 14 years, including in Voorheesville and, before that, in Castleton.

“We’re very pleased with the work he’s been doing. He’s been doing a good job,” Aylward said.

Hebert agreed that the arrangement is working out well. He expects to be busier in the spring, particularly with work related to the Bozenkill Estates project.

Asked if five hours a week is enough to cover all the needs of the village, Hebert told The Enterprise, “Seems to be working right now. It’s the slower season, in terms of construction. We’ll see what happens come springtime.”

The new shared-services agreement was decided upon by the mayors of both villages, Aylward said, after a similar yearly agreement that Altamont had with the town of Guilderland came to an end last fall, and then was not renewed, in a decision that was “mutually agreed upon,” said Guilderland’s supervisor, Kenneth Runion.

The yearly agreement had come to a close in late summer or early fall, Runion said, and Altamont and Guilderland mutually decided not to renew it at the time, since Altamont was already in discussions with Voorheesville about beginning shared services. “We may have extended it for a month or two,” he added.

Runion said that an important factor had been the retirement of Guilderland Town Planner Jan Weston, who had been responsible for much of the coordination between town and village. She had also been handling some of the planning aspects, Runion said, working with the village’s planning and zoning boards.

But, even before Weston’s retirement, Runion said, Guilderland had been unable to cover the nighttime village zoning or planning board meetings. In addition, there had been some confusion when Altamont residents had to go from the village to the town for some of their services, such as talking to an inspector or filing applications, Runion said; village residents were then sometimes unsure whether the town or the village board would be the one to consider an application.

“So, for everyone, it seemed kind of a perfect match when the village had the opportunity to make the agreement with Voorheesville,” Runion concluded.

According to Aylward, the current shared-services agreement with Voorheesville is contracted for one budget year, to be renewed the following year. It is paid on a quarterly basis.