2. Using a Racial Equity Toolkit in Data Analysis

3. Mission and Responsibilities
The mission of the Department of Licenses & Inspections (L&I) is to enforce the safe and lawful construction and use of buildings in accordance with the city’s Building, Fire, Property Maintenance, and Zoning Codes.
L&I’s Operations Division inspects the interior and exterior of residential and commercial properties. Inspections are done on both a complaint (service request) and programmatic basis. In 2016, the Division had 50 inspectors.
In calendar year 2016, Operations received 37,576 service requests and conducted 105,349 inspections.
Service requests come to L&I through 311, internal referrals, and direct calls and are assigned directly to inspectors based on the property location.
Inspectors are assigned to one of five district offices (North, South, East, West, and Central) and then to a varying number of census tracts within their District.

4. Scope of Data Analysis
L&I examined 16,668 “Maintenance Residential” (MR) and 4,723 Vacant House (VH) service requests received in calendar year 2016.
MR service requests – interior (submitted by rental property tenants) or exterior maintenance issues. Examples: leaking roof, overgrown lawn, plumbing or electrical issues, non-functioning doors and windows, or unsanitary conditions.
VH service requests – properties that appear to be vacant, with varying degrees of maintenance issues.
There is a ‘service level agreement’ (SLA) of 20 business days for all MR and VH requests, meaning that means inspectors are under obligation to answer every request within 20 business days of the initial call.

5. Goal of Data Analysis
Determine the average response time to MR and VH service requests in each of the city’s 380 populated census tracts.
Identify the census tracts with the longest average response time.
Determine what factors may contribute to the longer response time in these census tracts, looking at five specific variables:
(1) Race
(2) Homeownership
(3) Crime
(4) Poverty
(5) Service request and inspection volume

6. Methodologies
For each of five variables, calculate average length of time inspectors took to log a “first action” (FA) on each service request within each census tract.
Sort results from the census tracts with the longest response time (highest value) to those with the shortest response time (lowest value).
Isolate census tracts in the top and bottom fifths of the results – the top fifth being those with longest response times and the bottom fifth being those with the shortest response time. There are 76 census tracts in each “fifth.”
Determine the average response time for both the top fifth census tracts and the bottom fifth census tracts. Calculate the difference.
Determine whether any differences within each variable are statistically significant.
Control for any contextual causes.

7. Initial Findings Race – 3.7 day difference MR: 4.7 day difference.
VH: 2.7 day difference.
Homeownership – 1.9 day difference
MR: 1.8 day difference.
VH: 1.9 day difference.
Crime – 4.4 day difference
MR: 5.8 day difference.
VH: 3 day difference .
Poverty – 2.2 day difference
MR: 2.1 day difference.
VH: 2.2 day difference.
Service Request Volume – 2.2 day difference
MR: 3.1 day difference.
VH: 1.2 day difference.
On average, the census tracts that fell within the top fifth for each variable experienced a 2.9 day longer response time.
On average, response time for all census tracts, including those in the top fifth, fell within the 20 day SLA.

8. Variable #1: Race
Sorted census tracts by percentage of minority (non-white, non- Hispanic) residents. The top fifth had the highest minority population and the bottom fifth had the lowest minority population.
MR: 4.7 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest minority population.
VH: 2.7 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest minority population.

9. Variable #2: Homeownership
Sorted census tracts by percentage of owner-occupied housing units (as self-reported by residents in the ACS). The top fifth had the highest percentage of owner-occupied units and the bottom fifth had the lowest percentage of owner-occupied units.
MR: 1.8 day longer response time in census tracts with lowest percentage of owner-occupied units.
VH: 1.9 day longer response time in census tracts with the lowest percentage of owner-occupied units.

10. Variable #3: Crime Rate
Sorted census tracts by number of crime incidents per capita (data from the Philadelphia Police Department). The top fifth had the highest number of crime incidents and the bottom fifth had the lowest number of crime incidents.
MR: 5.8 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest per capita crime rate.
VH: 3 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest per capita crime rate.

11. Variable #4: Poverty
Sorted census tracts by number of residents living below the poverty line (as determined by ACS). The top fifth had the highest number of residents living below the poverty line and the bottom fifth had the lowest number of residents living below the poverty line.
MR: 1.5 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest number of non- white residents living below the poverty line. 2.6 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest number of white residents living below the poverty line.
VH: 1.4 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest number of non-white residents living below the poverty line. 2.9 day longer response time in census tracts with the highest number of white residents living below the poverty line.
Note: ACS provides poverty information in several different ways, but for the purposes of our analysis we used the fields ‘Below Poverty Level Percent White Only’ and ‘Below Poverty Level Percent Not White.’ We also combined females and males below the poverty line. Further analysis revealed that census tracts with the highest number of females of any race living below the poverty line had a longer response time than census tracts with the highest number of males of any race living below the poverty line.

12. Variable #5: Service Request Volume
Sorted census tracts by number of service requests received in the year. Aggregated by L&I District to show differences in volume.
MR: 3.1 day longer response time in census tracts with highest volume.
VH: 1 day longer response time in census tracts with highest volume.
District MR
% of MR VH
% of VH
All
% of All
Central
606
3.64 72
1.52
678
3.17
East
4,629
27.77
1,323
28.01
5,952
27.82
North
5,461
32.76
1,665
35.25
7,126
33.31
South
1,522
9.13
339
7.18
1,861
8.70
West
4,450
26.70
1,324
28.03
5,774
26.99

13. Context: Inspector Workload
Further analysis needed to put the findings in the context of L&I operations, including:
Not all service requests created equal – some require significantly more time to investigate and coordination with occupants and other City agencies. Example: Rental properties and rooming/boarding houses (30% of MR service requests), predominantly in North and East Districts.
Inspector workload – in addition to initial inspections from service requests, inspectors conduct roughly 68,000 reinspections annually. Volume varies widely and depends on external factors: compliance rates, time-sensitivity of inspections, enforcement actions needed (ex: cease operations), etc.
District capacity – there are 50 inspectors to do 105,349 inspections. An inspector being out of work for any extended period of time can cause a significant disruption to service request responses and timely reinspections. For example,

14. Inspector Workload District Active # of Inspectors
# of Assigned Inspectors
# of Recommended Inspectors
#of Service Requests
% of Service Requests
Service Requests Per Inspector
Total # of Inspections
% of Inspections
Inspections Per Inspector
Central 4 5
1,698 5%
425
5,132
1,283
East 10 15 20
10,591
28%
1,059
27,211
26%
2,721
North 13
12,345
33%
950
33,147
31%
2,550
South
3,636
10%
727
15,318
15%
3,064
West
9,306
25%
931
24,541
23%
2,454

15. Conclusions
On average, L&I responds to service requests in all census tracts within the 20 business day SLA.
Certain census tracts consistently see slightly longer response times across all variables – on average, 2.9 days.
The nine census tracts with the longest response times fall within the top fifth for at least four of the five variables analyzed. Of these nine census tracts, six are in located in North District.
Longer response time cannot be directly attributed to any one factor, so response times should continue to be analyzed across all variables.

16. Recommendations
Use analysis to inform ongoing effort to realign District boundaries to accommodate two new District offices and 20 new inspectors in late 2017.
Change existing procedures for periodic reviews of District SLA compliance and inspector workload for reassignment purposes to consider anticipated volume and other variables rather than geography or population alone.
Create real-time data model to identify changes in response time in any census tracts. This will allow us to quickly correct workload imbalance that may be slowing response time.
Conduct further detailed analysis of individual service request types to identify any trends indicating why they have slower average response times.