Comments on: Column: Survey Says, “Help Us Design One”

By: Karen Sidney

Karen Sidney — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 23:30:35 +0000

According to the memo, the actual cuts that are needed are 10% over 2 years but departments are asked to identify 15% in cuts because some departments will be cut more than others. The city spends about $150 million per year on operations, so a cut of 10% over 2 years is about $15 million, or $7.5 million per year.

About half of the $150 million is general fund spending so general fund expenses would be cut by just under $4 million. The 10% cut is based on the amount needed to close the gap between projected future revenue and expenses.

In the past, the city has predicted large deficits early in the budget process but ended up with large surpluses. For example, several months before the 2008 budget was adopted, Council was told there would be a 2.2 million general fund deficit. The actual results for 2008 are a general fund surplus of over $3 million.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 01:33:51 +0000

The idea of creating an open survey is great;
it’s sad that a vendor owns all this information and holds it ransom.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 17:06:27 +0000

The original memo regarding the request for ideas to achieve a 15% reduction in every department was originally an MS Word document, which I converted to .pdf

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:55:38 +0000

“If you have Fraser’s memo, could you post it?”

Yes, forthcoming.

By: Dave Cahill

Dave Cahill — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 14:47:42 +0000

Could you please tell us more about the proposed 15% cut? If you have Fraser’s memo, could you post it?

By: Al Feldt

Al Feldt — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:43:49 +0000

Although my survey experience is several decades out of date, completing a survey of 3000 households for under $20,000 seems pretty cheap. I recall cost estimates from the 1950′s that ran from $20 to $50 per interview. But a response rate of 38% does not seem very impressive to me.

By: Bruce Fields

Bruce Fields — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 04:24:13 +0000

Hm, so the city budget (http://www.a2gov.org/government/financeadminservices/Pages/Home.aspx) is something like 90 million? I'm not sure what "save 15% over the next 2 years" means, exactly. Seems like we're looking for millions more than 10's of thousands, though.

By: Dave Askins

Dave Askins — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:03:36 +0000

Results of last year's survey are available on the city's website. Among the links to .pdf files there, I found the most fascinating to be the verbatim responses to the open-ended questions.