Inweekly had Duwayne Escobedo look into the City of Pensacola’s 3-1-1 service, which handled a little over 400 calls a month last year–most of which were requests for city phone numbers or other agencies.
The closure rate of the two-person Office of Constituent Services is 92 percent.
The 3-1-1 system was first introduced in Baltimore in 1996 and won the Innovation award from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in 2003. Nearly 70 municipalities across the United States use the system. Another 20 cities in Canada have launched the 3-1-1 service. Pensacola implemented the program in July 2011 during the first year of Mayor Ashton Hayward’s first term in office.
The Office of Constituent Services handled 4,875 calls in 2015. Of those, 2,810 requests, or 57.6 percent, were for city phone numbers or referrals to other agencies.
During that year, only 154 of 1,910 remaining issues went uncompleted. That is a 92 percent success rate for those entries. Popular issues were potholes (156 calls), streetlights (123) and code enforcement (176).
The City has launched an app that lets citizens send requests from their iPhone/iPad, Android and Blackberry devices. The app can be downloaded from the city’s 3-1-1 page on its website.
Currently, requests for city services by the app account for about 8 percent of the total submitted. Although the city app is quick and easy to use, it has failed to catch on, so far. Requests through the city website – Pensacola311.com -make up 7 percent of requests for city services. Meanwhile, phone calls remain the most popular way to contact the city for services, totaling 85 percent of requests.
The article will be posted on Inweekly this afternoon at 4 p.m.
| 2015 3-1-1 Requests | ||
| Request Types | Submitted | Closed |
| 311 for City telephone number | 1983 | 1982 |
| 311 Other Agency | 827 | 827 |
| Request of phone numbers | 2810 | 2809 |
| Code Enforcement other | 176 | 165 |
| Pothole | 156 | 155 |
| Streetlights | 123 | 122 |
| Street signs/Traffic signals | 111 | 109 |
| Care of Premises complaint | 108 | 97 |
| Parks grounds/landscaping | 105 | 97 |
| Flooding/Drainage | 104 | 78 |
| Public Works other | 95 | 88 |
| Parks & Recreation other | 92 | 77 |
| General Information other | 92 | 92 |
| Total service-related requests | 1162 | 1080 |
| Total calls | 4875 | 4720 |