Trust in the federal government is eroding, and that’s clear in nearly every way it can be measured. But many of us still have confidence in our state and local governments. Leaders could use that advantage by adopting a solution that’s available to every town in Michigan.

Only 17% of Americans believe Washington will do the right thing “just about always” or “most of the time,” according to the Pew Research Center. Public trust has been falling for years, says Pew, and the current measure is one of the lowest ever recorded.

The trend lines all go down over time, whether you ask Americans about trust in Congress, the judiciary, or state and local government.

But local public officials who want to do something about that mistrust still have an edge in public perception: They must work directly with their own citizens. Trust in local government is relatively high (65%) compared to other levels of government, according to Jeffrey M. Jones at Gallup.

Local governments are usually the first place residents go when they need help. Many cities, including Grand Rapids, use the 311 service for this. GR311 is a “convenient single point of contact for non-emergency government information about City of Grand Rapids services or programs.”

Need to report a pothole? Is a street light out? New to the neighborhood and need to start trash and recycling service? Call 311.

This is good, but cities like Grand Rapids could enhance their 311 services by publishing the data. Several major cities provide dashboards, metrics, map visualizations and data sets. In Washington, D.C., residents can view service requests by location, date and status. New York City publishes data on requests, customer satisfaction and mapping. Minneapolis residents can search 311 requests by year, neighborhood and topic.

Currently, if a resident of Grand Rapids calls 311, let’s assume the request is handled competently. But how responsive was the city? Was the request acknowledged? How long did it take for the city to resolve the situation? Was the resident informed of the resolution? Are response times getting better or worse?

We don’t know because the city does not publish the data. Residents can track the status of their own requests using the GR311 app, but a curious person would have to file an open-records request to get meaningful statistics. That can take weeks, and the data may not be in useable format.

Grand Rapids recognizes the value of public data — its Open Data Portal includes strategic plan metrics and a police dashboard. But 311 data stay largely invisible to the public.

The city should consider publishing a 311 dashboard, visualizing the data with a mapping system, or making the dataset available on its Open Data Portal. This would improve services in Grand Rapids. People would appreciate knowing how quickly service requests are managed. That transparency can improve accountability and speed of service.

Even better, it could provide a model for other cities in Michigan. Imagine city workers competing with other cities to improve their response times or customer satisfaction scores.

“Many factors affect trust in government; it’s easy to focus on higher-profile phenomena such as media coverage and political divides,” said William D. Eggers, the executive director of Deloitte’s Center for Government Insights, in a 2022 U.S. Senate committee hearing. “But our research shows that trust is fundamentally related to citizen beliefs regarding government’s competence and intent.”

Eggers recommends that local governments focus on the “customer experience” to build trust. Examples include getting a driver’s license, applying for a passport, registering to vote, and paying a water bill.

“Each citizen interaction is a micro ‘moment of truth’ for governments, and each has a wider impact on trust,” Eggers said.

Want to build trust? A 311 dashboard is a good place to start.

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