New Orleans East resident Beverly Moore says she's been trying for two years to get her next door neighbor's house cleaned up.

“It hasn't been gutted out,” Moore said.  “Nothing has been done to it.”

Moore says she's called the city's 311 non-emergency service a few times, but each time she has received little help.

“They gave me a number to call somebody else.  I called that person, who told me to call 311 back again, which I did.”

New Orleans city council member Cynthia Hedge Morrell says the intention of the 311 hotline was to allow citizens like Beverly Moore to make and track complaints and get updates on the progress.

“It's not working the way it's intended to work,” Morrell said.

“Why is it you can call the operator, you can get to the operator, cause that’s a person you can talk to, you give the information to her, she calls the department and at that point it goes into a black hole?”

But while some council members call the system's inadequacies serious, they say the cost is even more startling.

“It's ridiculous,” said council member Shelley Midura.  “It's such a bad way to use public funds.  It's such a bad example of effective government.”

When asked if there were millions of dollars being wasted in this case, Midura responded emphatically “Yes!”

Last year, the city of New Orleans signed a contract with ACS State and Local Solutions, a company based in Dallas.  The total six-year contract is estimated to cost $32 million.

“That seems like a lot of money to me,” said Morrell.

“I would think we need to know what a comparable city pays for that, and are we getting the bang for our buck?”

To help find out the answer, Eyewitness News contacted Rutgers University-Newark professor Robert Shick, who spent one year studying 311 systems around the country.  Shick is Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers Newark’s School of Public Affairs and Administration and Managing Director of the National Center for Public Performance.  He says it's shocking just how much New Orleans is spending.

When asked whether, based on his observations, New Orleans is paying a lot more than any community that he studied, Shick replied that, on a per capita basis, the city is paying “a lot more.”

In his research, Shick says the average city paid $2.99 per citizen per year for 311 service.  San Antonio, Texas has the cheapest system, at just over $1 per resident.  Minneapolis, Minnesota is the most expensive, hovering around $7.  But according to Shick, New Orleans could be paying almost $20 per resident every year for 311 service.

WWL also had Shick compare the New Orleans contract with Solano County, California, since the same company, ACS, has contracts with both areas.

Shick says the California contract totals $3.9 million for 3 years.  The New Orleans contract is for as much as $17.7 million for that same time period.  Bottom line, it is the same company, with similar service and software at a $14 million difference.

“Solano County's cost per capita for their number of calls is $3.06,” Shick said.  “Right in line with our average and what our study found out.”

Shick says the main difference in the costs comes in the number of estimated calls.  The California contract charges for about 18,000 calls per month.   The New Orleans contract calls for 80,000 calls per month.

But according to council member Shelley Midura, the New Orleans call center averages 16,000 calls per month.  That is about 60,000 less than the contract says they're getting billed for.

“The question is really ‘Why?’  Is there a rationale for this?” said Shick.

To try to find the answer, Eyewitness News e-mailed Mayor Ray Nagin’s administration, asking for an interview with intergovernmental relations director Kenya Smith.  Months earlier, in front of the city council, Smith served as the administration's point man for 311 service.

On April 19, WWL received an e-mail, apparently from Smith himself but intended for the eyes of the city's deputy director of communications, James Ross.  Smith told Ross he did not want to do the interview, and in response to our request said "Let’s smoke him out.  Offer him Rhonda who manages the center."

Days later, the deputy director of communications, James Ross, did just that, e-mailing WWL to say that Kenya Smith wouldn't be available, but the 311 manager named Rhonda would be, at 2:30 the next afternoon in James Ross’ office.  But when our Eyewitness News camera crew showed up at City Hall, neither was there.

A staffer told us that Ross was not there, and the 311 manager, Rhonda, could not do the interview today but needed to instead talk to us the next day.  Further, she explained that Ross was at a meeting, not in the building, and said he would call us later to “figure out the time.”

But WWL never got that phone call from Ross and never had our interview with the 311 director.  Council members say they're not surprised the administration is dodging questions.

“They're not talking to us,” District D council member Cynthia Hedge Morrell said.

The administration's silence even has some council members determined to quit spending money on a system some say is broken.

“I'm not going to pour more money into this money pit, down the drain,” District A council member Shelley Midura said.

Back in New Orleans East, all homeowner Beverly Moore wants is for her tax dollars to help get her back into her house, a house she says is being taken over by the mold of her neighbor's ungutted home.

Earlier this week, the city did offer Eyewitness News an interview with the head of the office of public advocacy.

Eyewitness News declined the interview because the office head was not familiar with the details of the contract.

Eyewitness News contacted ACS, the company which has the 311 contract.

They provided us with this statement:

“Call takers are doing an excellent job of forwarding requests to the appropriate city agency and in providing information to residents checking on the status of their requests when information is available from city departments. It is important to recognize the enormous task the post-Katrina city faces in fulfilling the 311 service requests received from the ACS call center.”

While the city is not coming close to approaching the number of calls they requested to be in the contract, the rate that ACS is charging the city per call is a competitive rate and actually lower than many cities, according to experts consulted by WWL.

During a City Council meeting Thursday, a request was made by the city’s internet technology department for $180,000 of funds the council had put in reserve for furniture and furnishings for the call center that was sent back to the budget committee for review.

Click here to see Councilmember Shelley Midura’s statement regarding that request.