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REQUEST FOR COUNCIL ACTION <br /> Date: August 20, 2012 <br /> Item No.: 10.a <br />Department Approval City Manager Approval <br />Item Description: Consider Conducting a Resident Survey <br />B <br />ACKGROUND <br />1 <br />This spring the Council adopted a Community Aspiration to be “Engaged in Our Community's <br />2 <br />Success As Citizens, Neighbors, Volunteers, Leaders, and Businesspeople” and specifically to <br />3 <br />“Routinely seek community input to evaluate and continuously improve city services.” This <br />4 <br />follows the Imagine Roseville 2025 strategy for Making Roseville a Welcoming Community: <br />5 <br />Benchmark and routinely seek community input to evaluate and continuously improve <br />6 <br />city services. <br />7 <br />8 <br />The City conducted a resident satisfaction survey in January 2011. The budget for 2012 includes <br />9 <br />money for another resident survey. Council members indicated that they would prefer to receive <br />10 <br />survey information in the fall of 2012. Thus staff expedited the timetable so that a survey could <br />11 <br />be administered after Labor Day and the data could be presented at the December 3 City Council <br />12 <br />meeting. <br />13 <br />14 <br />Additionally the State of Minnesota has created a Performance Measurement Program by which <br />15 <br />cities meeting the eligibility requirements would receive funding of 14 cents per capita, up to <br />16 <br />$25,000, and be exempt from levy limits if they are in effect. One of the requirements is that <br />17 <br />cities survey their residents about satisfaction with city services. <br />18 <br />19 <br />The City issued an RFP to administer a resident survey on July 13. More than a dozen companies <br />20 <br />were sent the RFP. Five companies submitted questions; three companies submitted responses: <br />21 <br />Accora Research, Cobalt Community Research and CJ Olson Market Research. A staff <br />22 <br />committee of Finance Director Chris Miller, Communications Specialist Carolyn Curti and <br />23 <br />Communications Specialist Tim Pratt interviewed all three companies on August 13 and <br />24 <br />prepared a ranked list of the companies including strengths and weaknesses of each company <br />25 <br />(see Attachment A). <br />26 <br />27 <br />The committee unanimously chose Cobalt Community Research as its top choice. <br />28 <br />29 <br />Proposal Highlights <br />30 <br />Cobalt conducted the 2011 survey and is familiar with Roseville and its needs. <br />31 <br />Cobalt has experience working with units of government on satisfaction with services and <br />32 <br />budget priorities surveys. <br />33 <br />Cobalt was considerably less expensive ($10,900) than the other proposals. <br />34 <br />Page 1 of 2 <br /> <br />