Surveying Residents to Better Serve Their Needs

As you drive east on Route 130 in Butler County, you see a park that most kids would love: swings, monkey bars, slides, a baseball field.

Now imagine the 14 acres of fields just beyond that turned into a park that most adults would enjoy: fitness stations, benches, landscaping, a walking path.

The purchase of this additional land for the Hanover Township Memorial Park and proposed plans for the development of it is all thanks to a survey conducted by Miami's Center for Public Management and Regional Affairs (CPMRA).

In October and November of 2003, the Center formed a survey team that included founder and director Philip Russo, professional senior project managers, undergraduate interns and Hanover Township officials.

"The survey was written by the Center based on standard questions they knew to ask, and they also sat down with us to figure out questions specific to Hanover," says Township Trustee Timothy Derickson. The team wanted to assess citizens' feelings towards a variety of issues and services including public safety, recreational facilities and road conditions.

"The results of that survey will probably continue to help us for five or more years in our planning and in knowing what's most important to our constituents," says Derickson.   "It was a really good report card of what our township is doing and what people would like to see us do."

One thing Hanover administrators learned was the importance of the park to residents. As a result of the findings, officials made it a priority to purchase the 14 neighboring acres of the park when it came up for sale. They wrote a grant to the Department of Natural Resources and received half the money they spent on the property back from them.

"On top of that, we have written another grant to help us fund a walking path in the park and we're waiting to find out if we will get that money," says   Derickson. "It's just been wonderful to know how important these types of things are to our residents and be able to use their money towards things they want."

Surveys are just one of the many services the CPMRA, located in the corner of Harrison Hall's basement, offers local governments across Ohio. Community newsletters, conference presentations, economic development, land-use planning and zoning, personnel management, training for elected and appointed officials, standard operating procedures manuals and website development is just a glimpse of what the Center does.

"We are able to provide high-quality work that many small communities would not be able to do on their own," says Russo, who is also political science professor. "And what that means at the end of the day is that it's the residents of these areas that are reaping the benefits of a stronger local government."

Derickson cannot agree more.

"I cannot praise them enough," he says. "The Center provides a way to do the things we want to do based on all their experiences with other townships. None of us have enough money or enough expertise to do all the things we would like. That's where the Center comes in."

The Center's work is an invaluable tool for local governments. With the Hanover survey, the staff wrote the questions, mailed the survey to residents, had the residents mail the survey back to the Center, compiled everything and sent the results back in book form to the trustees.

"I would guess that the survey alone - which is just one of the services the Center does for us - would have cost around $25,000," Derickson says. "There's no way we could have afforded that and the Center was able to do it at absolutely no cost to us."

Funds for the CPMRA come from external grants and contracts from a number of sources including the United States Department of Commerce, the Ohio Public Works Commission, the Economic Development Program and the Ohio Township Association (OTA).

But OTA is more than just a funding source.

"One of the Center's highlights for me was when we signed the co-op agreement with OTA in 1995," Russo says. "That was a moment that clearly stands out as one that legitimized what we were doing because it meant 1,300 townships in Ohio wanted to formalize their relationship with us."

This year, the OTA's annual winter conference was held February 2 - 5 in Columbus. Russo led one of the leadership panels at the event.

"The OTA conference was a big thing to start off the semester," says senior public administration major Mike Dittoe, an undergraduate intern at the Center. "There were hundreds and hundreds of people there, and so many of them just kept coming up to Dr. Russo and the Center's staff to thank us for the things we do."

Dittoe learned firsthand about some of these things when he helped on a position classification project for the Village of Williamsburg last fall. The project managers at the Center went through and made a list of skills and abilities they felt were necessary for each of the 15 or so positions of the village's government.

"Then the other interns and myself compiled all that information and ranked them ourselves based on what we learned in our public personnel class as to whether one would need a high school diploma, a bachelor's degree, or a masters degree to be qualified for each position," Dittoe says. "Once everything was combined, the rankings determined the pay scale for that job."

This experience, as well as Dittoe's other work for the Center, has made him reconsider his future.

 "When I first came to Miami, I was dead set on law school," he recalls. "That's still a possibility, but now I'm also thinking about pursuing my Master's in public policy which will hopefully lead to a job in local government. That job would be a good start for me to eventually get into an elected position at the state level."

Russo agrees that the Center provides valuable experience for students.

"We have an established and well-directed undergraduate major, so for students to be able to intern at the Center is just another value added to their Bachelor's degree," Russo says. "Plus, it gives them an incredible leg up on the competition for jobs and admission to some of the best graduate schools in public administration and public policy."

Oxford's City Manager Jane Howington knows firsthand how important working at the CPMRA as a student can influence career choices. While in graduate school from 1994-1996, Howington worked at the Center as a research assistant on projects such as records management and personnel reclassification for various townships.

"When I was a student, it provided a little bit of balance between the 'real world' and the 'academic world,'" she says. "I left with not only book knowledge, but also with a lot of hands-on experiences. I learned my interests were not with teaching and researching, but in the actual application of these ideas."

Howington continues to draw from what she learned in her current position as city manager. She recognizes that it would be really easy for her to fall into patterns and let her mind get "out of shape" with new laws and new technology.

"The Center continues to help me because I continue to have a relationship with them that allows me to hear about the projects they're working on and what's going on with other townships across the state," Howington says. "It helps me to keep that exposure and to allow me to keep learning."

With the assistance of the CPMRA, local governments from all across Ohio continue to learn how to serve their communities best.

Read more of Juliet Thomas' articles:

Bursting the Bubble