Members of the Municipal Technology Committee said they will take a five-year technology strategy to town departments for feedback, coordinate outreach to point people in each department, and run the committee's citizen-satisfaction survey in the fall to allow for departmental input and to avoid survey fatigue.

Matt Stivers proposed the next step of walking department staff through the draft strategy to determine alignment and gaps. Committee members said some departments already maintain separate strategic plans with technology components and recommended coordinating with directors and department technology contacts rather than only contacting department heads.

Nut graf: The committee also decided to keep the NEARI (now described in the meeting as the preK–8 building committee) survey separate from the MTC survey because the NEARI survey is large and targeted; MTC members said merging the two could delay the broader town survey and contribute to survey fatigue during the summer.

Committee staff said the proposed 2025 citizen-satisfaction survey will reuse the 2024 base questionnaire to preserve trend comparisons and remove topics not relevant in 2025 (for example, last year’s MBTA-communities questions). Members were asked to work with departments to identify any department-specific questions that should be added without disrupting trend questions.

The meeting included a scheduling note: MTC discussed pushing the MTC survey to the fall, possibly September after summer vacations, and timing some questions to provide sentiment data ahead of an expected fall town meeting that may include a high-profile rezoning request for a development at Route 9 and I-495.

Ending: Committee members agreed to proceed with departmental outreach and to reconvene in early September for their next meeting to review departmental feedback and finalize the fall survey timeline.