4 Pain Points of Decentralized Code Enforcement
Every municipality has its own way of handling ordinance enforcement. While some have a dedicated code enforcement team that covers all ordinances, others spread the work out amongst a variety of relevant departments.
A decentralized code enforcement model makes sense in many regards, as it allows departments with specialized knowledge to handle violations that fall within their expertise – but it also comes with a number of challenges. From issues with communication and coordination to lack of visibility, let’s take a look at some common pain points in a decentralized code enforcement model – and how municipalities can overcome them with the right tools.
Pain Point #1: Lack of Coordination Between Departments
When the responsibility for handling ordinance violations is split amongst several departments, it’s not uncommon for a lack of communication and coordination between departments to lead to a duplication of efforts. This happens most often in situations where the delineation of duties isn’t clearly outlined, but even with a clear delegation of responsibilities, situations that fall into a “gray area” can pop up. A citizen calls in with a complaint, and two departments respond on different days – creating confusion for the violator, and time wasted for the city.
Solution: Unified Software Solution + Clear Outline of Responsibilities
The best way to get multiple departments on the same page is to get them all in the same program, literally. When everyone has visibility on the city’s different ordinance violation cases in progress, it’s much easier to avoid a duplication of efforts – and can also create uniform procedures for handling cases that can help to streamline city services in general. It’s also crucial for the departments to sit down and clearly outline who handles what, and how any “gray areas” will be covered.
Pain Point #2: Confusion for Citizens Calling in with Complaints
A common challenge for many citizens who want to contact their local government about an issue is figuring out who to call. If a citizen suspects their neighbor has installed an illegal water hookup, their first instinct might be to call the water department – but for many other types of complaints, the appropriate contact might be less clear.
Without a centralized code enforcement department, citizens may have to call several departments before they find the right one, resulting in wasted time and a frustrated feeling of “getting the runaround” that can discourage citizens from performing a vital role in keeping their community clean and safe.
Conversely, if the first department takes the complaint and passes it along to the right department, this makes tracking the case difficult in instances where the citizen calls back in. Often, when citizens don’t know who to call, their default is to call the police department – resulting in extra work for law enforcement. (But more on these two situations later.)
Solution: Customer Portal + Knowledge Base
The best way to encourage citizens to participate in the upkeep of their city is by making it easy for them to find the information they need and to report violations. Citizen request management (CRM) software provides two solutions that can help with this. An easy way to provide citizens with a self-service option for finding what they need is by publishing a knowledge base or “help center.” This feature can be linked to a city’s homepage and allows citizens to browse frequently asked questions or search for a topic by keyword.
From the help center, citizens can also access a citizen portal that allows them to submit issues to the city and even attach files such as images and videos to better document the issue. Configurable workflows within the software can auto-assign cases to the correct department, saving citizens the hassle of the runaround to determine which department to contact, and saving government employees the manual labor involved in taking down the submission and forwarding it to the correct department.
Pain Point #3: Lack of Unified Standards = Confusion for Violators
Voluntary compliance is the end goal of any ordinance enforcement effort. While there are many factors that play into a citizen’s willingness and ability to voluntarily comply, from financial resources to physical ability, a surefire way to discourage compliance is by creating confusion for them about why or how to fix the situation. When citizens are dealing with more than one department on correcting multiple violations – and each department handles things differently – citizens can become confused, which hinders both their willingness and ability to comply.
Solution: Improved Notices
Education and relationship building are both important tools in fostering voluntary compliance. For most ordinance violation cases, education begins with the written notice. The easier it is for the citizen to understand the ordinance, how they are in violation of it, how to rectify the situation, and the consequences of not doing so, the more willing they will be to comply. Notices that include photographic evidence of the violation in question can further “make the case” for the citizen by making it hard to dispute the violation.
When all departments in one municipality can use the same template for generating notices, it creates unified standards that make everyone’s job a little easier. And with a software solution that lets you attach photos and generate notices with one click by pre-populating information from the case, it lets employees spend less time on paperwork and more time on fostering relationships within the community, which in turn can also help to improve voluntary compliance.
Pain Point #4: Lack of Visibility into Citizen Complaints
One of the biggest challenges with a decentralized code enforcement model is the lack of agency-wide visibility into case status. Consider these scenarios:
A citizen calls in to the police department with a complaint. The police department turns it over to the appropriate department to handle enforcement, but after handoff, has no visibility into what’s happening with the case. A couple weeks later the citizen calls back to the police department complaining that nothing has been done and asking for an update, which the police department can’t provide without making a few calls first to track down the information – not the best use of their limited time.
A city council member receives pressure from the community about an ongoing issue. They turn to the relevant department heads, but with each only handling a portion of the overall issue, it’s hard to provide a unified story about the city’s efforts in tackling the problem.
When multiple departments perform similar functions but lack efficient means of communicating and coordinating, it’s hard for a municipality to get a comprehensive overview of ongoing efforts – but it’s equally difficult to track individual cases as well, impeding efforts at good customer service.
Solution: Case Tracking Software with Reporting Features
When every department operates in the same program, it’s easy for any user to look up a case – regardless of that case being assigned to their department. This allows municipalities to better track individual cases and provide better service to those citizens calling in with complaints. Users can simply go to the case overview dashboard and either filter by category or employee, or search to find the case in question.
Another benefit of software programs is their ability to collect and aggregate data across multiple departments, then distill that information into easy-to-create reports that provide an overview of the city’s efforts as a whole to leadership roles like city council, mayors or city managers.
Real-Life Success: Streamlining Code Enforcement in Ripon, WI
Like many municipalities, Ripon, WI split the responsibility for enforcing violations among different relevant departments: the Department of Public Works for brush and trees, Police for abandoned vehicles and junk, the building inspector for building code violations, and so on. Tired of facing some of these challenges common to a decentralized code enforcement model, Ripon’s Chief of Police set out to find a solution.
In addition to getting all the departments in one room to iron out responsibilities, the Chief also procured code enforcement software for the town to better track individual cases, provide transparency to their leadership, and make the process easier overall for everyone. Read Ripon’s story.
Unify Decentralized Efforts with Code Enforcement Software
One of the best ways to unify decentralized ordinance enforcement is by having all relevant departments in the same software program. Code enforcement software like Comcate allows municipalities with decentralized code enforcement the ability to:
Consolidate case management: Employees across multiple departments can store and access case data for all open cases within the application.
Easily find open cases: Custom filters and personal dashboards make it easy to pull up and review cases.
Quickly generate notices: With GIS integration and pre-uploaded templates, staff can generate notices on an open case with a single click.
Create reports quickly: Because the software aggregates data across multiple departments, department heads can generate reports on city-wide ordinance enforcement to better track issues and demonstrate each department’s efforts to leadership.
Learning new software can sometimes be difficult for employees – which is why we designed ours with an intuitive interface and easy-to-use features like the ability to search for violations by keyword.
Interested in learning more about how code enforcement software could streamline ordinance enforcement in your municipality? Fill out the form below, and one of our consultants will be in touch!
Schedule a Meeting with Comcate Today!
Learn how Comcate can help make government delivery simple, and offer a modern digital experience to help you increase transparency, efficiency, and performance across your departments. If you have any questions about implementing our software, please fill out the form below or call us directly at (415) 632-1248.
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