The calls start coming almost as soon as the workday begins.
One resident needs a missed trash pickup. Another wants to report a stray dog roaming the neighborhood. Someone else is looking for a garage sale permit.
Inside San Antonio’s 311 call center, tucked inside the city’s Emergency Operations Center, customer service representatives spend their days fielding thousands of questions and service requests from across the city. While many residents think of 311 as the place to report potholes or code violations, the service acts more like the city’s nonemergency front door.
“If you see something out there and you don’t know who to call, but you go, ‘Why is that like that?’ or ‘Somebody needs to be doing something about that,’ but I don’t know who to call. Start with 311,” Program Director Paula Stallcup said during a recent tour of the call center. “Let us figure out where we need to guide you.”
The department’s staff has access to more than 2,400 knowledge articles that act like what Stallcup describes as an “internal Google” for city programs and services, allowing representatives to answer questions ranging from library hours and neighborhood pool locations to starting a business or finding the right department to handle a concern.
While the department fields thousands of questions each week, Stallcup joked they try “not to be the Pizza Hut information line.”
“Anything city-related or government service-related, we’re going to be it,” she said.
If an issue falls outside the city’s jurisdiction, representatives can often direct callers to the appropriate agency instead.
During the busiest months of the year, representatives answer about 60,000 to 65,000 calls each month. Stallcup said call volume begins climbing shortly after daylight saving time each spring as residents spend more time outdoors and notice issues such as potholes, overgrown lots, loose animals and damaged infrastructure.
From June 2025 through July 2026, residents placed more than 51,600 requests for missed trash pickup, 47,200 reports of overgrown yards and trash, 39,346 requests for damaged trash carts and 34,370 requests for dead animal pickup. Another 24,998 callers reported lost or stolen trash carts, making Solid Waste Management the busiest category of requests handled through 311. Animal-related calls, including stray, aggressive and injured animals, also ranked among the city’s most common requests, alongside potholes, traffic signal maintenance and graffiti.
But routine neighborhood complaints make up only part of the workload. About 56% of calls are residents looking for information about city programs and services, according to the department.
Representatives regularly answer questions about everything from library hours and neighborhood pool locations to brush collection schedules and city permits. They can also point aspiring business owners toward permitting and financial resources, direct callers seeking social services to United Way’s 211 helpline or help residents navigate city government without needing to know which department is responsible for a particular issue.
Whether it’s a traffic signal in Leon Valley or a code enforcement issue in San Antonio, Stallcup said callers shouldn’t have to sort out which agency handles what before picking up the phone.
“Citizens shouldn’t have to know all of that,” she said.
The service also plays a behind-the-scenes role during emergencies. After the tornado that struck northwest San Antonio last month, 311 coordinated reports of storm damage with city departments, helping connect residents with damage assessments, debris removal and other recovery resources. Stallcup said the center has also coordinated wellness checks for vulnerable residents and connected caregivers with city resources when callers weren’t sure where to turn.
“We’re going to do what we can to try to put eyes on it and get them help,” she said.
Residents don’t have to wait until Monday morning to make those calls. The service is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with live representatives available until 11 p.m. each day to handle urgent issues such as malfunctioning traffic signals or animal-related emergencies. At least one Spanish-speaking call taker is available at all times during operating hours, but Stallcup says many of the department’s 39 call takers speak Spanish.
Service requests can also be submitted around the clock through the city’s website or the free 311SA mobile app, where residents can report problems, upload photos and track the status of their requests without having to make a phone call. Stallcup said the app is her preferred way to report issues because most requests can be submitted in seconds.
That assistance doesn’t always end when a service request is submitted.
If residents believe a problem wasn’t resolved, a quality assurance team reviews the case, researches why it was closed and works with city departments to determine whether additional action is needed. Sometimes that means explaining why a request couldn’t be completed. Other times, it means reopening the case and advocating on the resident’s behalf.
The city added another tool in 2023 with the launch of an artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant that answers common questions before transferring callers to a representative when needed.
The system handles frequently asked questions such as where to obtain a garage sale permit, what belongs in recycling carts and where residents can find brush collection centers. According to the department, the virtual assistant now resolves about 19,000 to 21,000 additional calls before they reach a representative each month.
Stallcup said the city occasionally receives complaints from callers who prefer speaking directly with a person, and staff review those interactions to improve the system. She recalled one recent complaint involving a caller trying to report a malfunctioning traffic signal after the virtual assistant interpreted the word “light” as an electrical outage and routed the caller to CPS Energy instead.
“When we get those, we’re going to look into them,” Stallcup said. “The system only learns as much as you call it.”
The department credits the virtual assistant with helping raise its call answer rate to about 97%, up from the low 90% range before the technology was introduced, by allowing representatives to spend more time assisting callers with more complex requests.
Whether someone is reporting a pothole, asking about library hours or trying to find help after a storm, Stallcup said the goal remains the same.
“We want to be the city’s first point of contact,” she said.
This story first appeared in the San Antonio Report.