Ripon, WI Successfully Streamlines City’s Decentralized Code Enforcement Efforts
Ripon is a city of about 8,000 people located in the heart of Wisconsin. Instead of having a centralized code enforcement department, the city operates on a split organizational model where the responsibility for different violations is divided up amongst key municipal departments. The city’s Department of Public Works handles violations regarding brush and trees, as well as snow removal issues such as people plowing snow out into the street. The Water Department handles illegal hookups and discharges, and the city’s building inspector handles building code violations. Meanwhile, the police department handles junk, litter and garbage, tall grass and noxious weeds, and anything relating to vehicles – all while acting as the central hub for incoming complaints from citizens.
We sat down recently with Ripon’s Chief of Police, William Wallner, to discuss the challenges with Ripon’s split organizational model for code enforcement and how they were able to streamline their internal processes to provide better service to the community and more accountability to their leadership.
Split Model Creates Challenges
While Ripon’s decentralized code enforcement model serves the city’s purposes, it does create some challenges for enforcing violations. Not only was there confusion among the different departments as to who was responsible for which violation types, but it made it difficult to track the status of citizen complaints for aboveboard visibility.
“A lot of complaints come to the police department, because people don’t know who else to call – and they know if they dial 911, somebody’s going to answer, even if it’s after hours,” said Chief Wallner.
If a complaint came in for a violation that another department handled, the police would forward it over to the appropriate department. From there they usually lost visibility on what was happening with the situation – but in the eyes of complainants and council, they were still the keepers of the problem. Often the complainant would call back a few weeks later saying “You haven’t done anything. Where’s this at?” Or they would reach out to a city council member who would turn around and address the police department for a status update.
“When you’re in public service, you never want to use the phrase ‘That’s not my department’ or ‘That’s not my problem.’ That’s not a good response to give to anybody that’s addressing an issue to you.”
Before the departments sat down to iron out responsibilities, they sometimes struggled with duplication of efforts, too, which created confusion for violators. “We’d go out and address an issue, and then two days later, a Department of Public Works employee would show up and address the same thing. So the person that you’re addressing now is confused and saying ‘Okay, who am I supposed to report to? Who’s handling this?’ There were all kinds of complications.”
Searching for a Solution
As most complaints concerning violations ran through the police department, Chief Wallner was the first in the city to take the initiative on the city’s ongoing problem. “I basically said to the other department heads, ‘We need to do something here. We need to look at something to simplify this process and get us all on the same page.’”
An important part of the process for Ripon was clearly outlining which violations each department was responsible for. From there, Chief Wallner began searching for a tool that would help the city get organized and streamline their enforcement processes. During the search process, Chief Wallner encountered Comcate and found that our code enforcement software fit the city’s needs and priorities.
Top Priorities: Ease of Use, Visibility and Affordability
Top-of-mind during the search was a tool that would be simple for all to use. “As police officers, we’re used to dealing with city ordinance violations, but somebody from another department may not be as well-versed because they don’t use the ordinances as often as we do,” said the Chief. “With Comcate, we have the ability to preload our ordinances into the system so you’re not having to look up city ordinances and search for your violation every single time. Now if I just type in the word ‘grass’, it gives me that shortcut to the tall grass violation. To have a program that is simple enough that you can just type in keywords was really something that we were looking for.”
The mobile capabilities of a cloud-based product that lets officers use ipads in the field has been helpful for all the departments. The ability to access GIS was also important for Ripon, as it allows officers and other officials to automatically display property owner information when in the field and then populate that information into templated notices.
“One other thing that has been nice, too, is if I have an officer that is on vacation, I can pick up the program and see if there is a follow-up that needs to be completed, review what he has already done, and then close out that case without his involvement,” said Chief Wallner.
As with all municipal organizations, cost is always top-of-mind, too. “Obviously you always have to look at the cost, too, so the affordability of the program really helped us in that decision as well.”
Streamlining Split Code Enforcement Efforts
Perhaps the biggest benefit of Ripon’s new software was the ability to provide high-level visibility on case status to citizens and council.
Once Ripon implemented the software, including uploading all the city’s ordinance violations into the program, Chief Wallner went about setting up and training the other departments on how to use the software. Now when a call comes in through the police department that pertains to one of the other department’s responsibilities, Chief Wallner’s staff can enter the submission in Comcate and notify the other department that they have a case to investigate.
“Comcate allows us to keep track of complaints for continued follow-up, to make sure that we’re responding to our citizen’s complaints about issues and that we aren’t losing complaints as they come in,” said Chief Wallner.
In addition to representatives from Public Works, the Water Department and the Building Inspector, Ripon’s City Administrator also has access to the program. “So if somebody calls up the city administrator and says, ‘Hey, I called the police department about this property two weeks ago and they haven't done anything about it, he can log into the system and tell them ‘It looks like they issued a warning on this date’ or ‘They’re in final notices and here’s what happens if they don’t comply.’ Having Comcate allows us to be more receptive to those calls.”
For city council, Chief Wallner is also able to easily create monthly reports that break down what issues his team has been working on. “When we get comments or concerns from our city leaders about different issues and priorities, we’re now able to generate reports that put the data in simple graphs and say to them ‘This is what we’ve done in the past month or couple months or even the year,’” said Chief Wallner. “I include that data in my monthly report to my city council, so now they can simply look at it and see what we’ve been doing on the issues.”
Improved Community Relationships and Increased Voluntary Compliance
Moving to Comcate has helped Ripon streamline its code enforcement services and create better service to citizens.
“With Comcate, we are able to avoid saying things like ‘Well, that’s not my problem’ or ‘You need to call this guy instead,’” said Chief Wallner. “It provides us an opportunity to be more responsive and address those concerns right away.”
Moving to Comcate has also helped create a more uniform experience for citizens dealing with enforcement issues. Before Comcate, every department handled violations in their own way. “We might put on a door hanger and send a letter, and it looked completely different than what Public Works was doing. Now with Comcate, it’s all consistent, so if they get a letter from Public Works on one issue and then turn around and get another letter from the police department on a different issue, it’s the same format.”
The ability to generate consistent, well-organized notices with photographs attached has also helped encourage voluntary compliance in Ripon. “It gives them clarification on what the issue is, what they need to do to correct it and how long they have to correct it. Often they correct the problem on their own because of the information we’re providing to them. The majority of our enforcements are voluntarily complied with.”
Why Choose Comate?
In addition to the affordability and functionality of the software, Ripon also appreciated the onboarding process with Comcate.
“What’s nice is that they supplied us with somebody to work with to get our account set up and our ordinances loaded in,” said Chief Wallner. “We would have monthly or bi-weekly meetings at the beginning to check in, see where we were at and what we needed, and to answer any questions that I had and walk me through the process. From that I was enabled to train my people internally on the program.”
His advice to other cities struggling with split code enforcement? “We’ve been really happy with Comcate. I would certainly encourage anybody that's facing similar issues with their code enforcement to take a look at this type of program.”
But Chief Wallner also emphasizes that work must be done internally to prepare for it. “There's some work on the front end for you as an organization. It’s also important when you use that model to identify who handles what so that you don’t have confusion or people from different departments handling the same issue. That was part of our training system with our city, was just to identify which department was handling which complaints.”
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