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 Loveland is a city located in southwestern Ohio, about fifteen miles northeast of Cincinnati. Loveland is named after James Loveland, who operated a general store and post office near the railroad tracks downtown. It was incorporated as a village on May 12, 1878, and later incorporated as a city in 1961. Loveland is known for its historic downtown area, the Loveland Bike Trail, and the scenic Little Miami River.
In this interview with Tom Carroll, city manager, we discuss the driving forces behind the City of Loveland's initiatives to provide e-government services, some of the challenges facing a small city in providing these services, as well as the mutual benefits to residents and local government.
What was the driving force behind Loveland's Electronic Government initiative?
Loveland is a bedroom community for Cincinnati, in other words, we have a number of residents who work outside of the city during the day. They want and expect to access information at any time, and that will probably be outside of our normal business hours. In terms of e-government, we want them to be able to get the information they need or conduct a transaction with the city at any time, and that's what e-government allows them to do. The other factor was that in Loveland we try to have open and transparent government. In our community we have a politically active culture, and we want meeting minutes to be available. If someone wants to find out what the City Council did a year ago, they can do that.
Did you conduct a citizens' survey to determine the requirements for e-government?
No, we didn't send out a survey, but we did do some research. We had some software that allowed us to track the number of hits on our web site. With over 200,000 hits, we knew a lot of people were accessing information on our web site. In addition, we tracked telephone calls to determine the number and types of requests.
Do the majority of your residents have access to computers?
Especially in our newer residential areas, we have a lot more people that have access to computers. But Loveland also has a lot of older neighborhoods with older residents, some who have computers and some who don't. One of the challenges that we face is that e-government is in addition to, not instead of, other forms of communication and business transactions. I think that is an important point. We are going to have to accept utility payments by check for the foreseeable future. But we have a number of residents that are out of the house by 7:00 a.m. and don't get home until after 8:00 p.m. They don't want to write a check, and they want the option to pay their bills online. We have to cater for both types of customer.
What do you consider are some the major barriers for small cites looking to embrace e-government?
In a nutshell, it's staffing and cost. Most small cities are adequately staffed to handle the day-to-day workload, but they are not staffed to implement new programs and change the way business is done. It's definitely a barrier. You can't ask staff to do more things without something else suffering. So the solution is to hire extra staff, and then it becomes a budgetary issue. Those are the two major challenges. You have to do either one or the other. It's either time or money, and most local governments have a shortage of both.
 How important is the web site to e-government?
The web site is the focal point of e-government. Most small cities or municipalities don't have full time IT resources, therefore it's essential that non-technical staff can maintain the web site. In Loveland we don't have an IT department, and a person from the city manager's office maintains our web site. We also have various departments maintain their own information. For example, the Public Works Department puts out information regarding special projects, road works, etc. The Police Department puts out information about programs such as neighborhood watches. Our Billing and Zoning Department makes available meeting agendas, minutes, case files, etc.
Did you experience any resistance to adopting e-government?
Everyone internally recognized that the demand for these services was coming from our customers, and we had to respond. The impetus for change also came from our City Council. Our Mayor works for General Electric, and he's asking us to provide the same type of facilities that he has at work. It's definitely easier to implement these types of changes when customers and the City Council are driving them.
What has been the reaction from the community?
They like it and want more! For an increasing number of our residents it's the convenience factor, and that their local government is more customer-focused. We are no longer limited to our normal 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. working hours.
What are the most frequently used services?
About 15 percent of our utilities bills are paid online. We have an online income tax tool. It's a calculation tool, not a filing tool, but it saves us time because if residents use this tool they're less likely to make mistakes. That makes our audit job easier. A lot of people use the Action Line for reporting problems.
What are some of the major benefits to the city?
If you look at the Action Line not as a complaint, but as a customer letting you know of a problem. We now have 12,000 people acting as eyes and ears that can let us know about a problem at any time of day. We can't be everywhere at once, but we have 12,000 people that are. That's a great benefit to the city, as we can't solve problems we don't know about.
Do you think that the adoption of e-government is increasing?
More cities are grappling with these challenges, and more residents are expecting these types of services. For example, one of the things we are looking at in 2007 is budget billing for our utilities. One of the reasons is that our gas and electric provider has that facility, and we want to offer it as well. More and more people are becoming tech savvy, searching the Internet for information, and paying bills online. They expect their local government to provide those facilities as well.
What are some of your future plans and how do you plan to expand e-government?
The next area where we are planning to introduce e-government is in the Building and Zoning departments. We want to give the public the ability to report code violations online. In addition, citizens will be able to complete permits applications online and the system will automatically calculate fees for different permits types. Applicants will be able pay fees through our online payment facility. In both cases our staff will be able to send predefined form letters or emails to property owners and attach pictures, plans etc. This will reduce the amount of paperwork and speed up the process.
Longer term our goal is for a fully integrated Customer Relationship Management system. I want our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to integrate with our other databases. Currently, Utility Billing, Police Records, Zoning and Building, are all separate databases—islands of information. We want to be able to access all the data regarding complaints, crimes, building requests, water main breaks, etc., that exists for a specific address.
One of the most frustrating things for a customer in dealing with local government is that they think the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Our goal is to develop the ability to click on a specific address and see that there was a high water bill two years ago, the trash wasn't collected, there was a police call, a new building permit issued, and have the ability to access all that information from one place using GIS. So when that customer calls or emails us, we have all that information at our fingertips. I think this is a common problem for local government, not just in Loveland.
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