Anyone who is familiar with my blogging from The Next Mayor project knows that I am a big fan of statistical evidence. Brace yourself for the ultimate in stat-nerd awesomeness!
In today's Inquirer, the intrepid Patrick Kerkstra brings us an in-depth look at a system that promises to revolutionize the way people think about Philadelphia city government - 311 and "Phillystat."
As you can see, if it works, it's also got some great marketing and branding opportunity. City officials claim that this system (which Kerkstra explains and I will paraphrase) will be set up differently than any similar examples in cities such as Baltimore and New York. Therefore, if it works well, the word "Phillystat" could end up a household name among government innovators throughout the world. Can you say municipal government geek tourist destination?
So what is it? 311 is a phone number that goes to a single call center which will act as a clearinghouse for ALL non-emergency requests for city services and help with regulations. Such requests will be entered into a database that will track their final resolution. It will work in conjunction with Phillystat - a computerized system design to keep tabs on the performance of the various departments using carefully-measured and examined statistics.
Managers will be meet monthly in public meetings to have their dirty laundry aired and their performance reviewed. They will face tough questions about why there are so many potholes on 7th Street (if I'm asking them). Presumably they will also be congratulated if things are going well, perhaps with a gold star or smiley-faced sticker of some sort.
What does this mean for Our Money? Two things:
1. Nutter's latest budget address sets aside $2 million per year to get this in place and operating. They're probably going to need a little more given (a) what it has cost other cities and (b) the example set by the last software related "improvement" - the $18 million then more than $18 million water billing system that took longer to implement than it took water to create the Grand Canyon.
2. With such a system in place, we'll get a better sense of just how effectively Our Money is being spent to provide the services that we request. It will also force many mid and upper level managers to be more accountable for their time. Perhaps I'll try to get the snack stand franchise at the public meetings. The audience should be in for an entertaining time.
Comments (6)
Love the West Wing reference :D
Posted by Evan | March 24, 2008 5:23 PM
Hopefully the managing director's office will be better at requirement definition for whoever they contract to program the system than the Water Dept seems to have been with Oracle on that billing system.
The quality of the overseeing managers can really make or break a project like that.
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