Since the 3-1-1 hotline was established in January of 2006, the city-parish has resolved 170,759 of the 184,794 complaints received through the new system. That translates into a clearance rate of 92.4 percent.

“It’s an amazing statistic, when you consider the volume of calls that we’ve received,” said city-parish Public Works Director Pete Newkirk.

The most common complaint received over the past three and a half years has been toilet overflows or stoppages, which usually occur when excessive rainfall inundates the aging sewer system. A total of 26,401 complaints about sewage overflows have been received since January of 2006, and all but 10 have been resolved, a clearance rate of 99.9 percent. The city-parish is currently involved in a $2-billion revamp of the sewer system aimed at eliminating those types of overflows and other sewer-related problems.

The 3-1-1 system was created to provide a central clearing house for complaints that range from downed trees on roadside right of way to missed garbage pickup, Newkirk said. Medical and emergency-related calls are referred to the 9-1-1 call center.

The hotline system was initially implemented in 2006 to help track garbage pickup problems when Allied Waste began a new contract with East Baton Rouge Parish. The 3-1-1 system was later expanded to include all types of city-parish complaints, including sewer problems, impassable streets, potholes and burned-out streetlights.

Under the system, complaints are usually documented with photographs and then turned over to the appropriate city-parish department or contractor for resolution. Newkirk said that some complaints, such as downed trees on private property, cannot be resolved by the city-parish due to legal restrictions.

Common 3-1-1 complaints include missed garbage/trash pickup service (13,452), requests for garbage carts by new residents (12,336), overgrown weeds ((7,503), tree problems (6,664), and malfunctioning traffic signals (5,108).

Newkirk said city-parish complaint resolution employees are working to take care of the remaining unresolved cases in addition to the approximately 500 new cases that are received each week.

“While 92-percent clearance rate may be great, our goal is to go even higher,” Newkirk said.





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See attachment for breakdown of complaints by category.