De La Rosa questions outsourcing and King Teleservices contract

Do you know what's the starting salary for a co-sensor representative?

Thank you for that question.

Yes, I do.

It's $40,600 a year.

More than paraprofessionals.

Did the number of call takers change in the last two years?

Over the last two years, the budgeted headcount has been 248.

That's been consistent.

Okay, it's consistent.

And what about outsourcing?

Are call takers outsourced?

Thank you for that question.

The 311 call takers or call center representatives themselves are not outsourced.

However, the agency has a contract with an overflow vendor that's based in Brooklyn to handle calls.

Which is the vendor?

The vendor is King Teleservices, Inc., K-I-N-G.

Okay.

Tell us.

King Teleservices.

And then you said, so that's for an overflow if the number is higher than capacity.

Correct.

So we use that vendor as what we call our overflow vendor.

They are trained to do the same work that the city 311 call center staff does.

And when is that overflow triggered?

So they actually operate in a steady state.

So they take calls every day.

So in that way, we have a baseline that there's always going to be someone there.

The vendor serves as one of our backup locations, basically our content.

of operations plan.

So if something were to happen, we have the ability to have that vendor kind of hot and ready as opposed to having to stand them up so that they are in effect every day.

Okay.

Are those the folks who work for the vendor paid the same as the city workers?

I appreciate that question.

I don't have the answer on how much they are paid.

The city has a contract with the vendor.

We pay what we call a production hour rate.

So that's the information that we would have.

The vendor as a private company would work that arrangement with their employees.

Okay.

Was the contract, the contract term, we have information that the contract term was ending February 2026.

We're now in September 2026.

Was the contract renewed with King Teleservice?

That is a very timely question.

Thank you.

The current contract that we're in was extended last year for the period March of 2026 through February 28th of 2027.

26 to 12.

There is no extension on that.

Okay.

The expiration date is March 2027.

The current end date of the contract we're under ends in March 2020.

I'm sorry, February 28, 2027.

Okay, and what is the contract value?

Do you know?

The contract value, it's...

I would have to get back to you to the exact figure.

The contract has had different iterations over the years, so I would want to zero in on what the current one is.

Okay.

All right.

I'm going to stop there for now.