High On the Learning Curve: A Survey of Our Readers

Are you an elected official?

The recent survey of Michigan Privatization Report (MPR) readers has yielded a bonanza of information. Of the 14,000 school board members, mayors, city council, legislators and legislative staff, as well as business leaders who receive MPR each quarter,

• Seventy-three percent of respondents said that MPR heightens their awareness of privatization and 83% said MPR makes them more likely to consider privatizing.
  

• Sixty-five percent noted that their organization or government had contracted for some service in the past three years.
  

• Seventy-three percent believed that their organization or government would contract out in the next two years.
  

• Sixty-five percent pass MPR on to a friend or colleague.
  

• Sixty-three percent control a budget that exceeds $1 million.

Nationwide, American governments annually contract with the private sector for $100 billion in products and services.

If not, are you a public-sector employee?

More images …

The survey confirmed that MPR serves an important role in facilitating knowledge of privatization and competition. The MPR staff has also learned a lot from the personal comments gleaned from telephone interviews.

• Phillip Settles of Kalamazoo suggested that we provide more in the way of follow-up stories to see how privatization initiatives pay off in the long run
  

• J.L. Stone of St. Johns believes that we could not improve on MPR: "You are 100% now."
  

• In a brief telephone conversation, Councilman Archie Crawford of Cement City noted that he throws MPR in the garbage as soon as he gets it.

The MPR staff couldn’t help but find it unfortunate for the citizens of Cement City that Councilman Crawford gives so little thought to powerful, money saving privatization options. Nationwide, American governments annually contract with the private sector for $100 billion in products and services. Savings of 15%-40% are not uncommon in the privatization of municipal services. MPR provides information about privatization successes and failures so that decision makers can make educated choices about how to allocate scarce resources.

Two other themes discovered in reader responses included requests for articles with greater detail and the desire for MPR to "get into the nitty gritty."

One recommendation—suspending the quarterly "interview" section of MPR—has been implemented with this issue.

The images show a statistical breakdown of important survey questions and answers by percentage.