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Council approves $400 payment for SurveyMonkey subscription after split vote
Summary
Council authorized up to $400 from the council operating budget to maintain a SurveyMonkey account with a 4-3 vote. Some councilmembers raised alternatives and process concerns; others argued preserving collected responses justified the expense.
North College Hill City Council voted 4-3 to authorize payment of up to $400 from the council operating budget for a SurveyMonkey subscription that holds responses to a citizen survey the council had begun collecting.
The motion, made by Miss Zorpe and seconded by Miss Gaston, drew objections from several councilmembers who said a free tool such as Microsoft Forms could replicate the needed functions and would avoid an additional yearly expense. Miss Chichester, Miss Alexander and Mister Wilson voted against the purchase. Councilmembers in favor said SurveyMonkey had already collected responses that would be lost if the account were closed.
Council discussion focused on two points: whether the software purchase represented an appropriate expense from the council’s operating line item (101.702.524.200) and whether the city’s existing Microsoft Office tools could replace SurveyMonkey’s paid features. Miss Gaston, who created the survey, said the platform is widely used and that data already exists in the account. City administration noted Microsoft Forms can produce charts and export to Excel but encouraged consideration of time and staff capacity to migrate or reissue the survey.
The roll-call vote passed 4-3; the minutes record the motion as “authorize payment of survey software out of council’s budget, not to exceed $400.” The council recorded that the purchase is a one-year subscription and that future surveys could be managed under the same account if the subscription is maintained.
Councilmembers who opposed the payment requested that future survey efforts be coordinated through the city’s regular channels and recommended using tools the city already pays for to avoid duplicate costs.
