Online survey asks Ann Arbor residents for feedback on city budget
Do you have thoughts on how to solve the city of Ann Arbor's budget crisis? Council Member Sabra Briere, D-1st Ward, wants your opinion.
Council Member Sabra Briere, D-1st Ward, is asking residents for help determine where the community's priorities lie for city spending.
Ryan J. Stanton | AnnArbor.com
Briere has set up a brief online survey at Zoomerang.com that asks residents to weigh in on budget-trimming measures, ranging from closing fire stations and reducing police patrols to selling the farmer's market, airport and parks. The survey also seeks to gauge the community's feelings about raising taxes and asking employees to take cuts in pay and benefits.
All of those ideas have been floated recently as city leaders work toward closing an additional $5.2 million gap in the city's general fund budget for the fiscal year starting July 1.
"Last year at budget time, I sent out a survey on the budget," Briere wrote in an e-mail to residents. "I learned a lot from the responses, but I also learned that not everyone could use my self-made survey form. This year I've gone more high-tech. I hope you will help me with budget priorities by responding to this survey. There are no questions that can identify you, so please be as candid as you choose."
The survey is open until 11 p.m. Saturday. To take the survey, click here.
Briere acknowledges the survey isn't perfect and isn't intended to be scientific. But she says it will provide her with feedback on the budget priorities of city residents. She said she plans to take the results to the city's next budget session on Monday.
"I'm learning a lot about YOUR priorities for the city's budget. Your priorities really help me set mine," Briere wrote in an e-mail to residents this week.
Ryan J. Stanton covers government for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529.
Comments
BornNRaised
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 12:19 p.m.
Snapshot, we all know your position on Unions. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, you still avoid the facts here. Employees seem to be unhappy because they come to work everyday and are told EVERYDAY that they won't have a job. But the city keeps playing games with the dates. As far as unions taking a pay cut, well, again, opinions are one thing, facts are another. The FD did take cuts. Despite what the bloggers here think the cuts should be, the mayor asked for 3% and they took 4%. I look at what they did as 'testing the waters of trust'. They took the cuts, period. They knew the 13 were still going to potentially get laid off, but took them anyway. Before the ink was dry on the deal Fraser came out and said he was going to fire 7 more. Those are the facts. You can now insert all the opinion you want, but some simple questions still remain: 1) How do you ask other groups, union or otherwise, to take pay cuts when you see how the city spit in the faces of the first group to take cuts? 2) How are employees supposed to feel 'upbeat' about their jobs when they can't make any plans in their lives because everyday they read in the papers that Fraser wants them fired. 3) And the big one... while you call unions selfish... how much was the cut Fraser agreed to? How willing was you city council to all take a pay cut? You've been quite loud all along with your opinions, but time to face the music. It's getting increasingly hard to hide behind the smoke the city is blowing up everyones you know what. The facts are out there. How do you possibly think you can dispute these? I'm sure you'll try, but at least folks can see the true writing on the walls.
snapshot
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 11:20 a.m.
Employees are unhappy and have low moral? They have great jobs, great salaries, great pensions,great medical, and a great working environment. What is there to be unhappy about? They act like taking a 7% across the board cut in compensation is the end of the world. I just don't understand how there can be so many issues in what I consider to be a simple decision of revenue to costs. What's all the arguing about? They need to do what needs to be done. Cut costs and live within their means. That means everybody from the top down needs to take a percentage reduction. It's fair, quick, and clean. What I see is the unions are providing a roadblock with their pettiness and finger pointing. I don't see what the problem is with an "across the board" percentage cut in compensation and spending that balances the budget. Why would the unions disagree with an across the board equal reduction by percentage? And please don't tell me the fire dept. already did it, I'm tired of that old song. It can be worked out that the FD gets "credit" so it's not an issue. I see city management trying to avoid the situation with passing the expense of their poor management on to the taxpayers. I see them spending money on their pet projects, money they didn't have. They have made poor decisions,made city government fragmented and lacking in accountability, and mortgaged the economic future of the city. I see the residents of the city complacent in their attitude towards city management. The residents of the city are mostly affluent and living financially stable lives so as long as they have their parks and restaurants they could care less what their government has been doing for the last decade. To recap, Taxpayers have not held their officials accountable, those official mismanaged the city's financial resources, unions and employees benefited from the situation. Everything went unoticed until the economy took a downturn and taxpayers saw their wealth disappear. Now it's time to pay the piper and no one wants to step up to the plate. Not the unions, not the taxpayers, not the employees. Management doesn't have a choice in the matter. What are they going to do? Walk away? What good will that do? All the folks involved have to come to a decision and like I said, it's a simple across the board reduction to meet budget needs. Otherwise, I think bankruptcy is the only answer. Put the city in a receivership, everybody involved in the "financial numbers game" has to testify under oath,(we'll see a lot of stories on "both" sides changing here) and then the judge makes the tough decisions. No negotiating, no squabbling, just the facts, the revenue available, and how it's distributed. Someone needs to take charge of this mess. There's so much misinformation, distractions, pettiness, and mismanagement it's like Detroit is becoming Ann Arbor's role model. We teach children to play nice and respect each other. Ann Arbor public schools brag about how good they are and the citizens they produce. How many of you folks are graduates? Team sports are supposed to build character for working together. How many of you folks are former athletes? Do you really think you're justified to ask for more tax dollars? Do you think the city is going to stop the existing construction projects and redirect the money to your salaries? Would that benefit the city? Taxpayers? Do you think firing Fraser is going to resolve your problem? Hiefji?
BornNRaised
Thu, Mar 4, 2010 : 9:23 a.m.
Obviously Ms. Briere reads the blogs. People have spoken in city council meetings. Surveys have been conducted in the past. What does it take for city council to wake up and realize the citizens are sick of spending money on the 'nice to haves' and want more focus put back on the 'need to haves'. Great, she's doing ANOTHER survey. How many more need to be filled out before council says, "Hey, I think the residents are trying to tell us something."??
Jack
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 11:16 p.m.
I would like to thank Ms. Briere for doing this. Of all the Council members, you seem to have the most integrity. Thank you. Alpha2, p u l e z e, get some perspective.
Moose
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 10:41 p.m.
Of course some posters here will find some way to use these "statistics" to support their desire to see American workers wages equal those of third world countries.
AlphaAlpha
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 8:32 p.m.
MJC - Thanks. This is exactly what I was referring to, but wanted to avoid stating explicitly: "Of course, you can't prevent people from responding more than once when you use the free basic service," It's easy to vote as many times as you wish...
sabra caroline briere
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 7:12 p.m.
681 respondents, 93% identifying themselves as from Ann Arbor. Thank you all so very much. (I know this isn't a scientific survey, as it's not a random sample. But it is really interesting to get an impression of what people are thinking.) Sabra
Moose
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 12:54 p.m.
As much as I appreciate Ms Briere's attempt. But to have any chance that her survey will be taken seriously and not be considered as a political stunt, I wish she and her advisors would put more thought and accuracy into the questions and how they are structured. Because of this her survey will be derided as useless and meaningless.
Mick52
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 12:11 p.m.
Perhaps I erred, the Q10 asks this: "Shall the city of Ann Arbor replace its property tax for general operations with a city income tax?" Perhaps the income tax will cover "general Operations" alone. Sorry if I was wrong on this question.
Mick52
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 12:03 p.m.
I was happy to see this at first but the questions are poorly constructed. Not to go into all the problems, I see, but one example is Q10: Should the city replace property taxes with a city income tax? My understanding is the city income tax would only lower property taxes, not replace them. The structure of this question may make residents very happy to vote YES on this. The city tax was only 1% for residents and.5% for non residents. Is she promoting a much higher income tax to "replace" the property tax?
Adam Jaskiewicz
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 11:33 a.m.
I would also like to know about these supposed "veracity issues" in Zoomerang. I've never heard of these problems, and was unable to find mention of them with a few quick Google searches. Zoomerang is a software-as-a-service product with many, many users; I doubt Briere has enough influence with the California-based company to effect manipulation of the results. Sabra used an off-the-shelf product to create her survey. She didn't hire a CS grad student and have him throw together a survey engine in a weekend for a couple cases of beer. There aren't really many opportunities for major veracity issues in a widely-used, mature, commercial software product; blaming dishonest survey-writing and/or result interpretation on the software is like blaming Excel for your bounced check.
MjC
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 11:15 a.m.
Veracity... sheesh, I had to look that one up! Zoomerang has been in operation since 1999. It's probably one of the best known online surveys out there. Best of all, it's free (unless you want to use the upgrade)! It's a simple way of trying to gather input from people. If you're worried about the veracity of the survey, try it out and see what results you come up with. Of course, you can't prevent people from responding more than once when you use the free basic service, but it should still give you a sense of how people are thinking (especially through the comment sections). In any case, I appreciate Briere's attempt to ask for our input. I'm guessing she's going to find us all a bit grouchy (sorry, that's the biggest word I could come up with).
Moose
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 10:11 a.m.
@Alphax2 "Significant specific issues pertaining directly to veracity" Could you please tell us what those specific issues are? And on a scale of 1-10 how significant they are? On what evidence are you basing your claims? I know that you are only seeking real and serious information in order to get us out of this financial mess that city workers got us into. So in order for us to determine the veracity of the survey and the relevance of it's results we need to know where you're getting your information.
Moose
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 10:07 a.m.
I'm with you, Hunterjim, but I'm not very confident that the results will be meaningful, much less read and considered by city officials. Several years ago. Roger Fraser hired Denison, a professional survey company, local I believe, to survey city all city workers on how they felt about their jobs, and the operations in city hall and their departments. As most might suspect, the results were dismally low in all categories. As required by Denison, there was a follow up some time later to gage any changes in the results that might have occurred from any changes that Fraser and mangers might have instituted. Committees were organized and there was some discussion of ideas and proposed changes, but little if anything constructive or permanent was ever instituted. Fraser and other managers tried to skew the results of the follow up by limiting which employees were allowed to be involved in the follow up. Even though the limited release of the results indicated that there were slight improvements, the results still indicated deep dissatisfaction. The Denison survey, which cost about $200,000 was Roger Fraser's report card. The results of the survey of city workers, union and non-union alike, across the board (except for the Attorneys Office and the DDA employees) there was (and still is) continued dissatisfaction, demoralization and outright anger at his administration. And this was long before any budget crisis, economic meltdown or talk of job and wage cuts. If one looks at the Denison Survey, conducted at some cost to the taxpayers, as Fraser's report card rated by those he leads, he failed miserably. I bet that the Denison survey and its results have either long since been shredded or are hidden deep in someone's desk drawer in city hall. I dare anyone, including A2.com and any concerned council member or citizen, to ask the City HR director and/or Roger Fraser to see the results of the Denison survey or inquire about any follow up or any proposed or attempted programs or processes for improvement in the operations or worker morale that was, allegedly the purpose of the survey.
Moose
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 9:27 a.m.
@Alphax2 "Significant specific issues pertaining directly to veracity" Could you please tell us what those specific issues are? And on a scale of 1-10 how significant they are? On what evidence are you basing your claims? I know that you are only seeking real and serious information in order to get us out of this financial mess that city workers got us into. So in order for us to determine the veracity of the survey and the relevance of it's results we need to know where you're getting your information.
Hunterjim
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 9:07 a.m.
As a resident of Ann Arbor I filled out the survey. I would very much like to see the results of this survey when it is done. I spent time giving my opinion in the comment sections. Not just riduculing City officials. I do hope the results are conveyed to the Administrator and Council, and I hope they listen, and not just act on their pet projects.
Regular Voter
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 9 a.m.
The AADL does an overall great job; The AATA is basically a money pit and an ego trip perfect for wolves in sheep's clothing like Jesse Bernstein serving very few; the $103,000 average city employee compensation and pet projects of the mayor's is where the real money is being overspent. Sabra sounds like a person of good faith; but we're keeping our eyes open as the truth of the city's financial freak show slowly is revealed.
sabra caroline briere
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 7:59 a.m.
I was so pleased to see that my survey of some First Ward residents and friends had been published in AnnArbor.com. No wonder the number of participants has grown to over 500! I am so impressed. Thank you to everyone who is willing to share -- or has shared -- their opinions. I'll give the results (raw results) to AnnArbor.com as well as a report to my constituents. I'll also give the raw results and a report to my colleagues on City Council. This survey is open until 11 pm on Saturday. I hope to hear from many in Ann Arbor. Current statistics: Respondents from the First Ward: 98; Second Ward: 49; Third Ward: 67; Fourth Ward 95; Fifth Ward: 118; Don't know/didn't say: 105 Ann Arbor residents: 500, non-residents: 30
RU4A2
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 7:51 a.m.
Thank you Briere for giving tax payersb the opportunity to voice our opinion on this budget. Payroll is too heavy on management side. City workers do an excellent job maintaining the quality of life in A2 that I'm used to. Stop all the over spending on projects we don't need. Save for rainy days. A Lifelong Citizen
Ryan J. Stanton
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 6:42 a.m.
Also, here's the link to Briere's white paper on the budget: www.annarbor.com/Budget%20White%20Paper.pdf
Ryan J. Stanton
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 5:53 a.m.
A heads up to anyone who wants to hear more on the budget: City Administrator Roger Fraser is sitting down for a one-on-one conversation with Jim Blow, the moderator of "Conversations" on CTN. You can watch the premiere Wednesday March 10 at 6:30 p.m. on CTN's CitiTV 19.
Snarf Oscar Boondoggle
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 2:38 a.m.
at least she is willing to listen... more than i can say for the profligate-destructionists running stuff elsewhere. kudos to sabre.
TheGerman
Wed, Mar 3, 2010 : 1:42 a.m.
@packman If you cut the funding for AATA, their horrible service would be cut back even further. For a city like Ann Arbor to have such poor public transit where you can't even take the bus to grab dinner on the weekend, or go to the bar during the week and take the bus home, is pathetic considering how much AATA spends annually. Now the AADL, that's a completely different story...
AlphaAlpha
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 10:06 p.m.
The point of the question has quite been missed; there appear to be some issues with the survey software. Significant specific issues pertaining directly to veracity. No bother...continue the bliss.
Moose
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 9:45 p.m.
Veracity of the survey software? The honesty and reliability of the software... or the survey? Both? Geez, folks this isn't a Washington Post or CNN survey. It's only a few questions that Ms Briere is asking. At least she's asking. It's hardly more than another place online to complain to a councilperson. Any "survey" without having some idea of how people might respond is meaningless. Professional surveys are designed to elicit responses within a narrow set of parameters rather than asking wide ranging non specific questions that could be interpreted and answered any number of ways. It's only as honest as the answers people give and it is certainly non-scientific for those who live and die by their "statistics". People who don't even live in the city could take part. The results of this kind of survey can be easily skewed. It's basically a feel good exercise.
AlphaAlpha
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 9:25 p.m.
Can anyone speak factually as to the veracity of the survey software? Thanks
Moose
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 7:39 p.m.
This survey is not a City of Ann Arbor sponsored survey. Sabra Briere is conducting the survey on her own should be commended for showing some initiative and making the effort regardless of the outcome.
packman
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 4:15 p.m.
Reduce the budgets of both the AATA and the AADL.
snoper
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 4:08 p.m.
Why is it the City never surveys us when they have money to spend? They are simply looking to hide behind this survey when they have to make the difficult decision to raise taxes or cut services. Chapter 2 in my new book, "Profiles in Cowardice"
Adam Jaskiewicz
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 3:12 p.m.
I don't live in Ann Arbor (hope to move back soon, though) so I'm not going to vote in this. The survey looks pretty well-done. A lot better than some of the other surveys *cough*parking*cough*.
tdw
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 2:53 p.m.
Its really none of my bussiness as I don't live in A2, but does anyone think that they will listen or even care what you taxpayers think?
AAresident
Tue, Mar 2, 2010 : 2:44 p.m.
Hope the study helps Council to understand how people feel. One area not touched on in the study is that taxpayer debt has been increased by a large amount due to unnecessary City construction projects taken on as the economy collapsed-- Police/Courts building, underground parking at the Library Lot, proposals for a conference center and a transportation center on Fuller.