Denver 311, city agencies need better coordination to improve services

Denver 311, city agencies need better coordination to improve services

Published on August 21, 2025

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DENVER - Denver 311 and partner city agencies lack a coordinated approach to effectively manage and resolve resident requests submitted through Denver 311, according to a new audit from Denver Auditor Timothy M. O'Brien, CPA.

Because a lack of oversight over the process for managing and resolving resident requests remains since our last audit of Denver 311 in 2012, our audit recommends the Mayor's Office identify and define oversight roles and practices.

"When residents contact Denver 311 with a question or complaint, they expect timely service. It's unfortunate the city still has a few problems with efficiency and accountability for 311 request resolutions after we identified this issue 13 years ago," Auditor O'Brien said.

Denver 311 is a central access point for residents to navigate city services and connect with the right agency. Denver 311 agents work to resolve residents' requests themselves. But if an agent cannot address a resident's need, they connect them to the appropriate city agency. Denver 311 uses Salesforce as its customer relationship management system to create, manage, and route service request cases.

City agencies that work with Denver 311 through Salesforce are called partner agencies, although not all city agencies use Salesforce.

For this audit we looked at how Denver 311 works with the Department of Transportation & Infrastructure's Solid Waste Management Division, the Department of Community Planning and Development, and Denver Human Services.

In our first finding, we found the city's informal and siloed approach to managing and resolving 311 cases affects efficiency, accountability, and communication to residents.

For cases transferred to partner agencies in Salesforce, Denver 311 does not perform service work, close service request cases, or send case resolution messages. Instead, the city agencies responsible for performing the service work complete these actions. Because Denver 311 does not supervise agencies, it cannot confirm that agencies are responding promptly to residents or whether agencies are communicating relevant and helpful messages to residents when request cases are closed.

There is a lack of formalized agreements between Denver 311 and partner agencies.

Our 2012 audit recommended Denver 311 establish agreements with partner agencies about mutual goals. Although it agreed to the recommendation at that time, those agreements still do not exist today. Instead, Denver 311 depends on city agencies to voluntarily collaborate and communicate with 311 staff. Some agencies proactively notify 311 about changes to an agency's service, some do not.

"Having the latest information from partner city agencies is fundamental for a customer service department like Denver 311," Auditor O'Brien said.

We found some residents are receiving insufficient case resolution messages. For example, we reviewed 1,165 cases where residents received a message related to compost bins from Solid Waste and found 459, or 39%, of these cases did not relate to compost bins. Separately, when we reviewed 11,229 cases involving Community and Planning Development, 2,972, or 26%, included a resolution message that contained service timeline information. The other 8,257 cases, or 74%, did not have that information.

Residents receiving unclear resolution messages about their cases are calling Denver 311 again to learn more about their case.

We identified 2,257 Solid Waste and 334 Community Planning and Development instances in which cases were closed, but additional case comments were added later. We found 2,055, or 91%, of these cases for Solid Waste did not have a specific case resolution message the resident received before the case was closed. For the Community Planning and Development cases, 206, or 60%, of these cases also lacked a specific case resolution message before the case was closed.

"Every contact with a resident is an opportunity to demonstrate accountability and build trust. The number of people who are frustrated or dissatisfied with receiving inadequate or even unrelated information should not be downplayed," Auditor O'Brien said.

Denver 311 does not have the authority to enforce agency accountability for case management and resolution. And a lack of oversight over the collaborative process between Denver 311 and city agencies has made this issue worse. Therefore, we directed recommendations to the Mayor's Office to address these gaps.

Although the Mayor's Office agreed with our six audit recommendations, its responses do not clearly indicate it plans to pursue more formalized collaboration and centralized oversight mechanisms to ensure a positive resident experience associated with cases 311 agents create and partner agencies resolve.

"The responses from the Mayor's Office do not inspire confidence that meaningful and necessary action will occur," Auditor O'Brien said. "Leadership is needed to improve this meaningful, front-facing city service."

In our second finding, we found Denver 311 agents are relying on some resources and tools that are inaccurate or inconsistent.

When a Denver 311 agent receives an inquiry they cannot resolve themselves, they route the case through Salesforce to the relevant partner agency. If the case is routed to the wrong city agency, has missing information, or relates to a matter that is outside of the city's jurisdiction, the agency receiving the case will reroute it back to the 311 agent so the issue can be addressed. Of all the calls Denver 311 received in 2023 and 2024, we found 540, or 0.09%, were rerouted.

While Salesforce is a useful tool for documenting and managing the resident inquiries and requests received, inconsistent guidance within the platform may have led to incorrectly routed cases that require more time and attention from 311 agents and supervisors.

Denver 311 provided us with a list of agencies that it partners with through Salesforce. We were told the list was collected from Salesforce and contained only the agencies Denver 311 partners with through the platform. However, we found instances where this list, and another document listing points of contact in each partner agency, were inaccurate and incomplete. We learned there is no formal process in place to regularly update these lists.

We also learned there is no requirement for agencies to provide new points of contact or updates when changes occur. Denver 311 does not have a formal process that establishes structure and accountability for maintaining the partner list.

Denver 311 agreed with all five recommendations to improve on its internal resources and tools and proactively work with partner agencies to improve communications and expectations.

"Even though we recommend the Mayor's Office take the critical action to provide guidance for Denver 311 and city agencies, Denver 311 still has the ability, authority, and responsibility to improve inefficiencies. I am pleased that Denver 311 is taking steps to remedy these gaps and has described how it will address outstanding issues," Auditor O'Brien said.

In the coming months, we will complete a follow up report to review whether the Mayor's Office and Denver 311 have implemented our recommendations.

AUDITOR TIMOTHY O'BRIEN, CPA
Denver Auditor

Denver Auditor's Office

201 W. Colfax Ave. #705 Denver, CO 80202 Email: [email protected] Call: 720-913-5000 Follow us on Facebook Connect with us on Twitter

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