Agenda Notes:
On Wednesday, September 12th, the Transportation Committee unanimously endorsed the Urban Street Design Guidelines (USDG). The Transportation Committee requested that the USDG be presented to Council for action on September 24th.
Attached is information from the 2007 public involvement efforts, which included public briefings, a public comment session before City Council, and a web-based survey. The information (already reviewed by the Transportation Committee) includes public comments and staff's response to a number of issues. A few additional comments have been received since this information was compiled and we will forward those to you as part of Friday's Council-Manager memo.
The Council agenda packet for the September 24th meeting already includes: 1) the USDG Policy Recommendations Summary and 2) a list of revisions to the full USDG document. Council members previously received a full copy of the USDG document.
The USDG have been under development for over five years, with several cycles of staff and public review. Previous public review efforts (2002 - 2006) included small group interviews, public meetings, developer workshops, and a focused stakeholder group.
Last weekend's rain was certainly welcome, but clearly not a drought-breaker. Based on yesterday's water supply report from Duke Energy and the Catawba River Drought Management Advisory Group, lake levels continue to slip, and drought conditions show that additional mandatory water restrictions will likely be called for within the next week to 10 days.
By and large, customers have adhered to initial mandatory restrictions that have been in place in Charlotte-Mecklenburg since August 28. Average water demand is down 16.5 percent, well beyond our initial goal. But, the lingering drought and its continuing impact on regional water supplies means a shift in the regional drought management response plan to Phase 3 seems
imminent by October 1st, if not sooner. That change will, in turn, signal participating communities to enact further local restrictions on lawn watering -- or ban it altogether.
We are currently evaluating what additional mandatory restrictions would be appropriate in our community given these supply conditions and the near-term weather forecast, along with other issues including communication, enforcement, penalties and water use reduction goals.
In the meantime, we are communicating daily with local news media and customer groups to prepare them for these further water restrictions that seem inevitable. We join Duke Energy and others along the Catawba basin in strongly urging customers to delay discretionary lawn projects such as aerating, fertilizing, reseeding/overseeding and sodding until rain that can support such activities returns on a regular basis.
Over the past several months citizens have experienced longer than average wait times when calling 311. In addition, calls to 311 for specific requests such as delinquent water bills or to file a police report over the phone require callers to be transferred to Utilities or to the Crime Reporting Unit where they may experience additional hold time. To address this problem, the Manager's staff has been analyzing call volume and staffing trends and will be implementing changes until hold times improve. In the meantime, the following information is provided as a status of current conditions.
Council may recall decisions made to intentionally conduct a soft launch of 311 to allow time for conducting analysis associated with this service. 311 has proved to be extremely popular with citizens and the center experienced 23% growth in its second year of operation. This popularity has contributed to significant workload issues for a service that was created out of existing resources and 311 cannot currently meet citizen demands with its existing staffing allocation. The table below outlines this past year's experience and anticipated staffing gap for the current fiscal year:
FY07 Call Volume - 1,666,960
- Abandoned calls - 145,122
- Industry standard estimated calls per CSR - 21,000
- Average calls per CSR (if no vacancies were considered - 22.380
- Average calls per CSR - given vacancy considerations - 26,238
- Required CSRs for call volume - 79
- FY07 Actual CSR allocations (included trading 4 PT for 2 FTEs at year end) - 68
- FY Actual staffing allocation gap - 11
Based on allocations and considerations of vacancies along - not including absentee issues - current staff handled 25% (26,238) more calls on average than the industry standard (21,000).
FY08 estimated call volume
(25% growth - not including Phase II) - 2,083,700
- Required CSRs for call volume - 99
- FY08 CSR allocations (added 6 for Phase II volume which 311 is not currently handling) - 74
- FY08 estimated CRS staffing allocation gap - 25
In addition to increasing demands for service, there are other issues contributing to challenges for 311 service delivery:
- Technology & training: Unlike other 311 organizations of Charlotte's size, the City's operation requires competency in 13 different applications associated with the various citizen requests. This has a significant impact for initial training investments requiring eight-weeks of training before a newly hired agent can begin answering calls and continues to create challenges associated with ongoing training needed for various system changes.
- Workload stress & turnover: Current workload is excessive and is contributing to stress, error rates and staff turnover. Error rates require repeat calls for service and staff turnover contributes to fewer opportunities for scheduled time-off for vacation, training, and staff development opportunities. 2004 benchmarking studies indicate that turnover of full-time agents across industries (excluding credit card at 58%) ranks from a 4% low (government) to a 28% high (automotive). 311 call center turnover is currently 28% with an average of 10 months employment. The contact center has one administrative coordinator who is basically operating as a full-time recruiter.
- Pay & talent attraction: Customer Service Representative salaries are currently funded at 80% ($27,409) of market ($34,262) for hiring. The applicant pool for a psychologically stressful, technically complex position is very narrow and this is compounded by funding salaries at 80% of market.
Additional statistics are attached that identify trends in call volume growth, abandonment rates and average speeds of answer. We will continue to update Council on 311 progress.
In October 2008, Charlotte will host the North Carolina League of Municipalities' (NCLM) 100th Anniversary Conference. This centennial conference will be held at the Charlotte Convention Center. Initial plans are being made to commemorate the site of the first NCLM meeting, which was held at the Selwyn Hotel in 1908, located at the corner of Trade and Church streets (today's Marriott City Center location). The centennial celebrations will also include a 100th Anniversary Gala.
The Host Committee is being led by Denise Foreman (Utilities) and Katie McCoy (Budget & Evaluation). NCLM staff and the Host Committee are in the initial planning phase and will be discussing plans with the Mayor and Council this fall. This year's conference is October 14-16 in Fayetteville, during which Mayor Pro Tem Susan Burgess will be sworn in as President of NCLM.
