The Outsourcing Excuse
I watched tonight as our Economics Development Office provided a litany of excuses for a poorly executed survey. Mike Jackson, the Economic Development Director spoke tonight about the decision that was made to outsource a survey to India. He felt that a language barrier kept results at bay. He talked about the fact that they spoke too fast, or with a dialect that people would be uncomfortable with.
CM Bertolini asked if they were capable of providing this survey in house. He answered her question affirmatively. He stated that he felt that an in house City representative would not be able to illicit answers as well as a third party. I disagree completely with this conclusion. People are disinterested in phone surveys as a rule. They will be more likely to disregard a survey coming from a source that they cannot fully and easily understand.
My verdict? A prime example of a waste of taxpayer dollars from a redundant department. Lets mark the Economic Development Office for a healthy budget trimming.
August 6th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Radioastro,
I could not agree with you more. This was a profoundly unsophisticated effort on the part of economic development. Some on city staff seem unable to admit a mistake. I made a mistake in approving the stormwater increase two weeks ago, but realized it conflicted with my core values of fical responsiblity and thus changed my vote. I freely admit my mistake cost the taxpayers for the notices sent out, but it did save 1.6million in increased fees. I will be much less likely to approve further studies given this performance and the fact that our building department is often working at cross purposes.
August 7th, 2007 at 7:59 am
I agree, this was a waste of money especially after learning last night for the first time that only 20 businesses were involved.