By Seth Abrahamson, CVPost reporting intern, and David Gordon, associate editor
Eau Claire County has added a new tool this year to its efforts to increase citizen input into its budgeting process for 2019.
Since 2005, the county’s Finance and Budget Committee has used an online survey to help determine what its residents regard as budget priorities. This year, the county is unveiling a new “citizen engagement tool” called POLCO in an effort to enhance this process.
Kathryn Schauf, the county administrator, said in an email that the county is “piloting the POLCO product this year in tandem with our budget survey.
“The (budget) survey and the POLCO survey provide insight into thoughts and priorities of the constituency we serve,” she said. “Although it is not ‘scientific’ the county is looking for ways to engage with the folks we serve that does not require that they show up at a public meeting in order to be heard.”
Responses to both surveys can be provided online. The survey the county has used in the past will be accessible until Nov. 1, and is available here. The POLCO survey can be found at https://polco.us/groups/county/eau-claire-county-wi. It will remain online until at least Nov. 1, Shauf said.
At its Aug. 6 meeting, the Finance and Budget Committee endorsed the use of the new tool. Its minutes for that meeting note that “historical response rates to the Survey Monkey budget survey have been less than 1%. The Committee was open to trying this [POLCO] option for the 2019 budget and evaluating the value provided at the end of the process.”
Cassie Limbeck, assistant to the Eau Claire County administrator, said in an email that “both of the survey instruments we use are to gauge the input from the constituency we serve.”
“Since this is the first time we have used the POLCO survey, it will be used as a pilot to ascertain” whether it is more effective in producing citizen opinions about the budget, she added.
The new option for gathering county residents’ opinion about the 2019 county budget was developed by POLCO, which describes its product in the introductory material as “a Wisconsin-based civic participation technology platform.” It adds there that “Polco helps Eau Claire County officials present questions and background information to citizens and generate organized input to inform local policy decisions.”
On its website the company describes itself as “a team of economists, policy experts, software engineers, and entrepreneurs dedicated to improving the way our political system works” and notes that its focus is on helping to increase informed citizen engagement.
The surveys are a follow-up to a pair of public listening sessions that the Finance and Budget Committee held during the summer. One, in late July, was at the Augusta City Hall and the second was at the L. E. Phillips Senior Center in Eau Claire in early August.
Committee vice-chair Jim Dunning said it was remarkable to see how many different programs seniors can take advantage of at the senior center and added his reassurance that the county would continue its financial contributions to the center.
Dunning said all county departments will send their budgets to Schauf for review. He said the public’s next opportunity to speak about anything in the proposed budget will be in November.
Until then, of course, the two online surveys offer 24/7 opportunities for county residents offer their opinions.
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