Survey costs rankle council

WASILLA — What had been proposed as a simply community survey has been anything but simple for city council.

Mayor Dianne M. Keller broke a 3-3 tie on the council last month to give the go-ahead for the city to spend $13,231 on a community survey. Now that the survey has been produced with a few tweaks made by city council, Dittman Research Inc. wants more money for the reworked opinion poll — an increase that’s not sitting to well with some on the council.

“I think this survey was mishandled from the word go and we were sold a bad bag of goods,” Councilman Steve Menard said.

Menard, along with council members Doug Holler and Dianne Woodruff, originally voted against the survey mainly citing concern over its cost. They also have questioned how useful the survey would be, which is proposed as a follow-up to one the city conducted in 2005..

Now, with the price tag increasing by $4,675, the councilmembers are balking.

Woodruff and Menard wonder why the price has gone up when a lot of the changes council wanted to make include information that should have been in the document to begin with. As a questionnaire that’s supposed to serve as a follow-up to the 2005 survey, the document lacked follow-up questions that could help gauge changes in community responses, Woodruff said.

“We voted to get the same survey and that’s not what we got,” she said.

Woodruff, who is an accountant, said the increase doesn’t seem reasonable for the changes made to the document. While some new questions and comment lines were added, the cost just doesn’t add up.

Holler also said he is concerned about how much the follow-up survey could cost and where from the city’s budget the extra money would come from.

City staff outlined four areas of the budget where the money could be taken from, according to a memorandum given to council. Those areas include the city council, public works, the library and police department. For Holler and other council members, two of those suggestions don’t work.

“Technically, three of us voted no and three of voted for [the survey], and it was a broken tie by the mayor,” Holler said. “To me, that means the council didn’t vote for it, so why is it coming out of our budget?”

Marvin Yoder, interim deputy director for Wasilla, said the list of funding sources relates to changes made to the document. With the council deciding to add questions about the areas like the library and police department, it seems reasonable to target those changes with money from those departments.

“Realizing that there were extra expenses we’re looking at where funds are available,” Yoder said. “Originally, it was funded totally out of the economic development budget and the general government budget, and so in the expansion it was decided to share that around.”

For Menard, pulling money from the library is a move he isn’t willing to take.

“What’s funny to me is that the library is kicking in $500 when we just gave them money,” he said. “It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul here people. It doesn’t make any sense.”

While some council members expressed serious concern with the new price tag, others were a little more accepting.

Councilman Kristofer Larson said it comes down to what changes were made and who made the changes.

“Council is going to start paying for some of it because we decided — we all pushed the button — and decided to tweak it a bunch,” Larson said. “We added a whole page.”

Despite the potential increase in cost, Larson said he still wants the survey to be conducted.

“I’m for it,” Larson said. “I think in a time when money is tight you need to find out where the owners of the money want it spent. And the people that live in the city are the ones who own it.”

As a compromise, the council decided this week to make a counter-offer.

“I’d like to suggest the middle of the road approach that says I would like to authorize $1,500, and if they can do it for that, fine,” Woodruff said. “But I really don’t feel like being taken to the cleaners by a survey company that already had all of the missing information on file and should have put it in there in the first place.”

In addition to authorizing $1,500 instead of the requested $4,675, the council also limited where the extra money would come from. In the end, members voted to divvy the $1,500 between public works, police and council budgets. The proposal will be sent back to Dittman for approval.

Contact Chris Gillow at chris.gillow@frontiersman.com or 352-2284.