Council calls for better 311 reports

Almost a year after the mayor and the City Council amended the City Charter to require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT) to provide monthly breakdowns of 311 complaints and resolutions, the Department can only offer read-only general summaries and not detailed reports.
The reports are supposed to break down calls by type, agency, and time elapsed for disposition and were to go to the Office of the Mayor, the City Council, all the Local Community Boards, Public Advocate, and to the general public.
According to Nicholas Sbordone, DoITT’s head of external affairs, “…we believe this law provides the public with valuable information while protecting the privacy and confidentiality of callers to 311.” But he added, “It would be very challenging technologically – and in some cases not feasible – to provide information beyond zip code/Community Board/Council district level.”
Both Community Boards and City Council members are clamoring for information on the specific locations of complaints, especially noise, pothole and buildings, and reactions to DoITT’s proposed offering range from resignation, through disappointment to anger. One Queens Community Board Chair sniffed, “311 is Bloomberg’s private answering service,” and dismissed the reports as a “pretty dull tool.”
Councilmember David Weprin, who chairs the powerful Finance Committee, was left momentarily speechless when informed that the monthly summaries would not have address information or be in a more usable form, and promised to “hold their feet to the fire” during DoITT budget hearings this month.
The City’s 712-page, $50 billion plus budget, which at over $70 million a page is the most expensive menu on the planet, allocates over $270 million to DoITT, almost as much as the Parks Department and nearly half the amount spent on the City University system. Recently, the Council added a million dollars to the 311 system, to provide education specialists to help callers with questions relating to public schools. But when asked if the Council allocated money to help 311 comply with the reporting law, Sbordone answered, “No, it has not.”
A major stumbling block to more useful reporting turns out to be that the City computerized 5 agencies, Transportation, Sanitation, Environmental Protection, Buildings and Housing Preservation and Development before creating the 311 system, and 311 was “not originally built with the capability to extract information from, or input information to, these systems” according to Sbordone.
Councilman John Liu, Chair of the Transportation Committee, is taking the long view. Calling 311 “A work in progress,” Liu expressed concern that enabling full connectivity between DOT and 311 immediately would require the Department to “re-invent the wheel.” He expressed confidence that, “The legacy systems will be integrated when the time is ripe,” but cautioned that, “The system will never be 100 percent.”
According to Sbordone, “Since the passage of the law, we have worked diligently to prepare these reports,” adding, “we are committed to working with Community Boards, exploring ways these reports may be presented in different formats.”