TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
THROUGH:
John Jalili, Interim City Manager
FROM:
Bruce Moe, Finance Director
SUBJECT:Title
Award of Contract to EMC Research to Develop and Conduct a Community Survey for an Amount Not to Exceed $20,490 (Continued from the December 3, 2013, City Council Meeting) (Finance Director Moe).
APPROVE; APPROPRIATE
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council: a) award a contract to EMC Research for an amount not to exceed $20,490 to develop and conduct a community survey, b) appropriate $20,490 from the City Council contingency account, and c) discuss and provide direction on the optional focus group and exit interview tools.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
No resources for this project were allocated in the fiscal year 2013-2014 budget. The City Council first discussed utilizing a survey in July 2013 after the adoption of the budget. As a result, if the City Council wishes to perform the survey, an appropriation of $20,490 is necessary. Staff recommends that the City Council utilize the Council's contingency account for those funds, which would have a balance of $104,310 if this is approved.
BACKGROUND:
At its August 3, 2013 meeting, the City Council appointed a Survey Ad Hoc Subcommittee (Mayor Pro Tem Howorth and Councilmember D'Errico) to work with staff to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to select a qualified firm to conduct a community survey. The purpose of the survey is to address effectiveness of, and satisfaction with, the City Council, Executive Management, departmental staff, and city services. It will also gauge residents' priorities for resource allocation (financial and human) on facilities and services (e.g., new pool vs. better maintained storm drains and streets). The survey will drive priorities, provide results which are actionable, measure the community's trust of their local government, identify the top issues from the residents' perspectives, and provide a current view against which future progress may be measured.
DISCUSSION:
The Ad Hoc Subcommittee developed the RFP which was issued in September. Thirteen proposals were received in early October after which the Ad Hoc Subcommittee met and identified four firms to include in an interview process (a list of firms responding and the final four interviewed is included as Attachment 1) . Those interviews took place on November 8th, at which time the Ad Hoc Subcommittee selected EMC Research as the best qualified for the City's survey needs. EMC was selected based upon their experience conducting over 3,300 opinion surveys, as well as over 450 focus group meetings. Additionally, EMC has a strong research team, and an excellent understanding and approach to the scope of work and the City's desired outcome from the survey.
If the City Council selects EMC Research, the next steps will include development of the survey questionnaire. Once those questions have been designed (EMC working with the Ad Hoc Subcommittee), the proposed survey will be presented to the full City Council for approval. It is anticipated that the survey will be conducted in January 2014 with results presented in February 2014. The timing is important as a budgetary tool since creation of the fiscal year 2014-2015 budget will be underway in January.
The survey will be conducted by telephone and will include a random sample of 400 resident registered voters (this will include both landline and mobile phone users based upon the voter registration information). This size is typical for surveys in a city of this population. The length of the survey will be determined by the design of the final questionnaire, and will last for 15-20 minutes. The cost of the survey ranges from $15,900 for 15 minutes, to $19,990 for 20 minutes. The survey will have a margin of error of +/- 4.9% at a 95% confidence interval.
Option #1 - Community Involvement (Focus Group)
Through the interview process with EMC, the Subcommittee discussed the importance of involving the community at various points of the survey. Those discussions led to the concept of having EMC facilitate a meeting with a preselected group of community opinion leaders (15-20) and other key stakeholders to hear their survey design input and research concerns.
If the City Council wishes to utilize this approach, EMC will work with the City on the invitation strategy, help with meeting logistical arrangements, attend and facilitate the session, take notes and comments, and incorporate the input into the research design. This added service can be accomplished with minimal additional expense for travel costs only (billed at cost from Oakland, California). The estimated cost for this option ($500) has been included in the not-to-exceed contract amount requested.
If City Council chooses this option, selection of the opinion group will need to be scheduled at an upcoming City Council meeting.
Option #2 - Customer Exit Interviews
Another option for collecting feedback on City services is to conduct exit interviews with City customers. EMC would work with the City to develop a telephone survey for members of the public who have used targeted city services. For example, residents and businesses having pulled building permits would be surveyed on their experiences with the Community Development Department (or utility customers on their satisfaction with the Finance Department, etc.)
As an alternative to the telephone survey method, an online survey instrument may be utilized. By collecting email addresses from customers at the time of service, a "rolling" study (where survey invitations go to those email addresses) may be used, with questions focused on the customers' recent interaction. This has the added benefit of being an on-going feedback tool as opposed to a one-time survey by telephone.
Estimated costs for these two exit interview alternatives are:
a. Telephone survey (100 interviews, residents/businesses, average survey length 10
minutes): $6,500
b. Web survey (rolling, ongoing interviewing, no limit on number of interviews, weekly invitations, monthly reporting): $2,500 setup, $2.00 per completed interview
Exit interviews were not part of the original survey scope of work. As a result, staff believes more research may be necessary before committing to this option. Further, this optional tool can track separately from the community survey, thus avoiding delays in commencement of the main survey. If the City Council wishes to pursue this option, staff will work with the Survey Ad Hoc Subcommittee to refine this alternative and report back to the full City Council in the near future.
CONCLUSION:
Staff recommends that the City Council: a) award a contract to EMC Research for an amount not to exceed $20,490 to develop and conduct a community survey, b) appropriate $20,490 from the City Council contingency account, and c) discuss and provide direction on the optional focus group and exit interview tools.
Attachments:
1. Survey Firms Response List 2013
2. Contract with EMC for Community Survey*
3. Exhibit A of Contract (EMC Proposal)
* While the contract has not been signed by the City Attorney as of the time of agenda publication, the City Attorney has reviewed and approved the contract as to form and will sign the executed contract.