The Cleveland City Council voted at a recent meeting to approve $4 million in spending to “revamp, expand, reconstruct” the city’s 311 service to manage citizen requests for non-emergency services.
In meeting notes, the city council said the 311 service “should be a one stop shop for all non-emergency City services, from pothole reports, building violations, animal issues, and tree-trimming requests, among others.”
As part of the spending, the city council will release a request for proposal (RFP). The council said the goal of the RFP is to secure a new platform that can:
- Expand access to 311 with the launch of new channels to submit and track requests;
- Collect resident contact information, complaints and inquiries; and
- Allow residents to check the status of requests by tracking number or calling 311.
The city council noted that after the revamp, residents will be able to contact 311 either online or through a phone call. The software will capture requests from the public via phone, internet, or other ways; manage the response to each request; solicit feedback from the public after addressing a request; and monitor the resolution of non-emergency requests.
Approval of new funding for 311 follows a 2022 report released by Councilwoman Rebecca Maurer. The Ward 12 Constituent Services Report outlines six months’ worth of call data and constituent requests to a council office. Councilwoman Maurer says the report “dives into critical next steps to building a more responsive, modern City Hall that truly works for Cleveland.”
The report found that councilmember offices receive significantly more call traffic than the 311 system, pointing to residents believing that the 311 service is not currently able to respond to their needs. Specifically, the report found that the Ward 12 office alone received 1,000 requests for service in the first 110 days, an average of 9 calls per day. By comparison, the 311 system averages about 5.5 calls per day from Ward 12 residents.
