Each day, hundreds of people with burning questions about Virginia Beach are turning to their phones for help.
But they’re not going to Google or Bing or the city’s website for answers. Their queries — When’s the trash truck coming? Who do I talk to about a parking issue? What’s that tax rate again? — are solved the old fashioned way. They dial them in, and a city worker takes the call.
That service — the city’s 311 information line — is about to change. Under a proposed budget cut, the call line will no longer be staffed on weekends, and its weekday hours will be scaled back to 12 from 16½.
The three-digit service has taken about 1.4 million inquiries since it launched a decade ago, replacing the city’s old seven-digit information line. In 2015, staff handled about 132,000 requests from people who called, walked in or used the service online.
“A lot of people just don’t think about using the web, or they’re just out and about and want a quick answer,” said Stephen Williams, director of the city’s Emergency Communications and Citizen Services Department.
On average, callers receive answers within two minutes of connecting with one of the two or three employees working the line. On a given weekday, about 300 people call in with questions that “run the gamut of anything that is a city related issue,” Williams said. On a Saturday or Sunday, an average of about 145 call in.
The line is open 16½ hours, from 7 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. every day — even Christmas and Thanksgiving.
The city manager’s proposed budget cuts out weekends and reduces operating hours to between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays, select holidays and during emergencies. The reductions amount to about $106,000 in savings, according to the budget proposal.
Williams, who took over Emergency Communications last year, and whose department also includes the 911 call center, said that’s OK.
Most 311 calls come during business hours. Even before budget goals for next year were set, the service reduction was discussed as way to minimize the overtime that operators work, he said.
The lines will still be manned on July Fourth, Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black Friday — three days that “for some reason have unusually high call volumes,” Williams said.
The reductions will bring the call center in line with centers in the region and nationwide for similar sized localities, according to an executive summary of the city manager’s proposed 2017 budget.
“VB311 will extend operating hours during emergency situations,” it said.
Virginia Beach started its 311 service about 140 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and almost a decade after two Stanford University students launched Google. Williams said the pending cuts aren’t a reflection of the service being used less frequently in the Internet age.
In fact, city information lines like 311 have been “gaining steam” and callers nationwide, Williams said. In Virginia Beach, the numbers have been flat over the past several years.
The department is working with telecommunications companies to allow cell phones to connect by dialing 311 instead of 757-385-3111. Some are on board, and others are expected to be by June, he said. The city is also thinking about adding a computerized system to help the center serve callers more quickly.
“That will be a big step for us toward becoming more available,” Williams said.
Have a story idea or news tip? Contact City Hall reporter Judah Taylor at Judah@wydaily.com or 757-490-2750.
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Southside Daily’s previous budget coverage:
- Oceanfront’s Atlantic wildfowl museum facing ‘devastating’ cuts
- Proposed city budget fills $33 million hole while raising trash fee and employee salaries
- Virginia Beach could begin earmarking about $2 million a year for beach replenishment
- Virginia Beach’s volunteer-driven EMS Department seeks paid position to grow declining ranks
