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County staff ask council for $45,000 to pilot AI chat, texting and after‑hours phone service
Summary
Staff proposed a phased, countywide digital-services contract to add an AI chatbot, text alerts, after‑hours conversational phone answering and online forms; they requested an initial $45,000 scoping/implementation allocation and said full deployment would go out for bid and likely cost more depending on scope.
County staff told the Fairfield County Council on June 4 that a single-source digital-services vendor could consolidate web chat, text alerts, after‑hours voice answering and case-management features across departments, and asked the council for an initial implementation allocation of $45,000.
Presenters (introduced at the meeting) outlined a phased rollout that would begin with a website chat box and after‑hours voice handling, plus optional text-message and email alerting. Staff said the approach would reduce repetitive phone traffic, allow after‑hours callers to get immediate guidance, and provide a single dashboard to triage and route requests to the correct department.
A presenter cited an example from another county where a vendor’s system reportedly raised after‑hours answer rates from "0% to about 90%" (presenter-attributed vendor example). Presenters also said the county has discussed options with vendors and found packages that can be scaled; they emphasized that the project would be publicly procured and come back to council for final appropriation.
Council members pressed for procurement details, asked whether comparable counties had deployed similar systems, and sought a clearer explanation of what the $45,000 would buy. Staff said the amount would fund initial procurement scoping and early implementation steps and that if vendor bids exceeded that figure, the county would either scale back the initial scope or return to council to seek additional funds. Staff also described potential steps to phase the work into after‑hours voice, chat, text messaging and later form-based workflows for community development, permits and other services.
Next steps: staff will prepare a bid scope and return with more detailed cost estimates; the council scheduled a June 12 work session to continue budget discussions and follow up on the procurement timetable.
Key direct quote from the presenters: "We are asking for $45,000" (project presenters) and "we would start with the chat box on the website" (presenters describing phased rollout).
