Mission Statement

The mission of the Office of Public Information (PIO) is to provide timely, accurate, and effective communication with the public, the County Executive, departments and agencies, media, County employees, the County Council and other elected officials, businesses, civic groups, and every other segment of the Montgomery County community through the mass media, social media and Internet, presentations, publications and graphics, cable television programming, and telephone and electronic requests for information and assistance via the MC311 Customer Service Center.

Budget Overview

The total approved FY19 Operating Budget for the Office of Public Information is $5,361,431, an increase of $282,080 or 5.55 percent from the FY18 Approved Budget of $5,079,351. Personnel Costs comprise 93.79 percent of the budget for 68 full-time position(s) and one part-time position(s), and a total of 50.50 FTEs. Total FTEs may include seasonal or temporary positions and may also reflect workforce charged to or from other departments or funds. Operating Expenses account for the remaining 6.21 percent of the FY19 budget.

Linkage to County Result Areas

While this program area supports all eight of the County Result Areas, the following is emphasized:

• A Responsive, Accountable County Government

Department Performance Measures

Performance measures for this department are included below (where applicable), with multi-program measures displayed at the front of this section and program-specific measures shown with the relevant program. The FY18 estimates reflect funding based on the FY18 approved budget. The FY19 and FY20 figures are performance targets based on the FY19 approved budget and funding for comparable service levels in FY20.

Accomplishments

• Enhanced MC311's service capabilities by interacting directly with residents through community engagement team events held within the community. In addition to educating residents of the 311 business process through face-to-face interactions, MC311 team members are able to submit requests for service in real time by leveraging technical upgrades, using laptops and hot spots in the field. Residents visiting MC311 community engagement booth are provided the opportunity to submit service requests onsite or receive hands on instructions on navigating the MC311 Web Portal.

• To assure readiness for winter and summer storms, MC311 Customer Service Representatives work from home on a regular basis to assure readiness in the case of a natural disaster or public safety event.

• MC311 created over 4,400,000 requests for service since it's launch on June 17, 2010. Customer satisfaction overall remains high.

• MC311 recently implemented Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking. Not only has SIP Trunking contributed to cost savings, it provides a much higher voice quality and allows MC311 to scale up quickly by adding additional phone lines easily, without incurring high costs. As a result, MC311 can better plan for spikes in call volumes for weather events such as snow storms, or incidents that require an immediate increase of lines to the call center.

• Improvements were recently made to the MC311 home page by offering translations in seven different languages, to make the page more user-friendly.

Initiatives

• MC311's quality assurance manager increased the pool of respondents to the MC311 bi-annual customer satisfaction survey, by offering both English and Spanish language versions. Additionally, questions were presented in a multiple choice range format to provide for more honest and unambiguous responses, over other single answer type questions. This revised method ensures more accurate and targeted results to capture a broader sampling.

Innovations and Productivity Improvements

• MC311 is providing alternate ways of connecting with County Government programs and services. Service requests are received from customers via Twitter (@311MC311), Monday through Friday from 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM, and will soon begin to accept photos through that channel. Messages regarding County events, and promoting County services are pushed to a growing list of Twitter followers.

Collaboration and Partnerships

Program Descriptions

  Web Content and Graphic Management

The four major functions of this program include: Providing creative and technical support to Public Relations, Cable Programming, MC311, and to departments. Developing and overseeing the County's graphic identity program to ensure consistency in the County's printed communication for the public. The program develops printing guidelines for...

  Public Relations

Under this program, the Office of Public Information: Educates and informs residents about County issues, programs, and services through press releases, media advisories, news and public events, the County website, e-mail and online newsletters, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Works directly with media organizations to ensure that reporters and...

  MC311 Customer Service Center

MC311 is a key strategic, enterprise-wide initiative that provides the public with a single three-digit number (311) to call for County information and service. In addition, it provides the County with a sophisticated ability to count, track, and respond to resident requests. MC311 provides the general public with...