Some BOE Members Upset with $20K Survey

You may recall receiving a self-mailer, postage-paid survey from the Board of Education over the winter that asked your thoughts on Shelton public schools. Responses were due January 31, so there's no going back now, but the issue of cost was still being debated last week.

Last year's BOE approved a $20,000 contract with a marketing company; First Experience Communications was paid to create a two-part survey that was mailed to every Shelton household.

At last month's regular BOE meeting, held Jan. 25, newly-elected member James Orazietti took up issue with the surveys because he never voted on them, yet his name (along with those of other current board members who also did not vote on them) was printed on each mail-out.

"It's something I never knew about, never voted on because I wasn't a member yet," Orazietti said. "If you want to mail out the surveys, fine, but I want them to reflect that they were last year's idea."

Orazietti said he does not think the surveys will provide any beneficial information and that he feels last year's Board "essentially spent thousands of dollars for paper and ink."

The debate was moved to the BOE's Finance meeting, held last Wednesday night, Feb. 15. During this time, Superintendent Freeman Burr gave a timeline presentation of the initial meetings with First Experience Communications to approval of the contract (see .pdf for details).

Those notes show that the surveys were discussed in multiple public meetings dating back to August 2011. BOE Secretary Arlene Liscinsky said the idea for surveys was brought up after the Board realized they had savings at the end of the fiscal year.

"There was a whole litany of things we wanted to restore that we had lost from previous budget issues," Liscinsky said. "One of them was restoring some of the media people who had been laid off along with the enrichment specialist, and part of that also was to improve communications – improving the website, community output, etc."

This is not the first time the Shelton BOE has used surveys as a communications method.

"We have done two other surveys. One was based on facilities which was how we got our 5-6 [Perry Hill] School, and a community input survey was done back in 1999," Liscinsky said.

The results of this most recent survey have been collected but not yet analyzed, and Liscinsky said she does not know for sure what the response rate is, though typically it comes in at around ten percent.

Other BOE members to question the approval of the surveys were Kathy Yolish and John Francino-Quinn.

"Mrs. Yolish's concern was that she was not notified when the survey went out, but this had been in the works," Liscinsky said. "There may have been a communication lack somewhere thereof."

Francino-Quinn, on the other hand, "voted in the October meeting in favor," Liscinsky said. "He knew there was a certain amount of money going to Burr for communications."

Liscinsky added that because the BOE has nine voting members and majority rules, the use of surveys would have been approved anyway, regardless of Orazietti's complaints.

"You vote and move on," she said. "Maybe we need to do a better job of including newly-elected members. But I feel you should do your homework – research and bring yourself up to speed so you can speak to issues with credibility."