Representative Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA)
Representative Gus Bilirakis (R-FL)
The office of Rep. Gus Bilirakis cultivates a culture of excellence and continuous improvement supported by formal procedures. These practices include: separate intake and casework manuals that outline constituent response time of 24 hours; utilizing a shared intake drive that is checked by five staff members throughout the day to expedite processing; legislative staff meeting weekly with district staff to identify trends; and tracking constituent feedback received through phone, letters, emails, outreach contact and satisfaction survey results. The office conducts at least 1 tele-town hall a month, usually on targeted topics. They are always looking for new ways to engage, including a “speed dating” concept where the Member takes five minutes to talk to a constituent and then meets the next person. Additionally, the team has five active advisory boards that are available to anyone in their community, with those advisory groups providing regular feedback to their outreach team about the needs of the community. For example, input from the Veterans Advisory Committee recently resulted in the creation of 15 policy recommendations to improve veterans’ care and services. This information has been shared with the House Veteran Affairs Committee to inform pending legislation. Other key metrics of the office’s success include: a 24-hour response time for initiating casework, a 48-hour maximum response time for responding to emails, with more than 13,000 successfully resolved individual cases and 725,886 responses to correspondence since 2018
Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA)
From the beginning of her time in office, Rep. Lucy McBath has inculcated in her staff a sense of shared responsibility for constituent service. Every member of the district staff handles casework, which the office feels affirms both internally and externally that serving constituents is the office’s number one goal. The office has a “living casework intake guide” that’s altered at least every quarter as agency processes change and constituent needs fluctuate. The guide includes every step of creating a new case and all questions that need to be asked at intake for each agency with which the office interacts. For every new staffer or intern, the office has a three-day training regimen led by the District Director and Constituent Services Director that includes casework, phone communication, field representation, event management, and office operations. Built into their first week is open time to meet with each district staffer and learn about their background and current work. The District Director does weekly check-ins with every staff member, and the Constituent Services Director monitors all case portfolios on a nearly-daily basis to make sure all communication to agencies and constituents is done in a timely, efficient, and thoughtful manner. In 2023, the office saved constituents a total of $5.2 million, completed a total of 1,918 cases. Rep. McBath conducts both in-person and telephone town halls, as well as mobile office hours at libraries throughout the district. Using Eventbrite to track RSVPs for events allows the office to yield emails for the newsletter, which is sent every Saturday morning. Beyond standard casework intake channels, the office also provides nontraditional constituent services opportunities, such as mobile office hours, federal agency support events, and multilingual outreach materials.
