MPPS FAQs

The MPPS includes a core annual spring survey, and often includes an additional fall survey. Spring surveys contain several batteries of "core" fiscal, budgetary, and operational policy questions that get asked each year, thereby building up a time-series of data on fundamental issues and allowing tracking of change and continuity over time. Spring surveys also include batteries of questions on additional topics that change over time. Fall surveys also focus on specific unique topics that change each year, including issues such as workforce development, intergovernmental collaboration, performance measurement and management, civic engagement, etc.

The first two waves (and the overall startup) of the MPPS were funded by internal CLOSUP funds and a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Since then, MPPS activities have been funded solely by internal funds at CLOSUP. In the future, CLOSUP may seek additional external support from foundations or other interested organizations.

The MPPS is conducted in partnership with the Michigan Association of Counties, Michigan Municipal League, and Michigan Townships Association. The associations provide CLOSUP with contact information for the survey's respondents, and consult on survey topics. CLOSUP makes all final decisions on survey design, data analysis, and reporting, and receives no funding support from the associations.

The MPPS serves a wide-range of stakeholders in Michigan and elsewhere, including local and state policymakers and practitioners, nonprofit organizations, foundations, citizen groups, the media and the academic research and teaching community.

The MPPS also served as a model for the creation of the Canadian Municipal Barometer, an ongoing survey of cities across Canada, and looks to collaborate with other local government surveys and researchers. 

CLOSUP deposits MPPS datasets at ICPSR for other researchers to use. See more info.

The surveys:

• provide local public officials with a better understanding of the decision-making environment in which they operate, including the views, values, priorities and experiences of their peers across the state;
• enhance opportunities for regional cooperation and coordination with resulting cost savings and/or public service improvements;
• give state-level policymakers a better understanding of the policy priorities in different kinds of communities as well as the likely resistance or support they will find for various state policy options;
• increase government transparency and accountability and therefore result in better opportunities for high quality civic engagement by community activists, nonprofits, foundations and the public;
• provide unique and powerful data for academic researchers and students to better understand local government operations.

We are eager to hear your ideas about the surveys: the key issues or questions that should be included, the general topics that should be covered, the types of analysis and reports that would be most useful. If you would like to share your input, please contact Tom Ivacko at 734-647-4091 or by email to [email protected].

The sample for the MPPS includes two officials from each of the local general purpose units of government (83 counties, 279 cities, 254 villages, and 1,240 townships) in the state of Michigan. The sample frame includes, where the position exists and is not vacant, the top elected and top appointed official in each jurisdiction. For counties, this consists of county administrators and board chairs; for cities, mayors, city managers; for villages, village presidents and managers. Townships are a special case, in that, typically, their governing officials are all elected. Therefore, in most townships both the elected supervisors and the elected clerks are administered surveys; in the few townships with appointed managers, the elected supervisors and appointed township managers are surveyed. For cities and villages with no appointed managers, elected or appointed clerks are also administered surveys.
 

The MPPS is administered via two modes. For those officials for whom an email address can be identified, an email invitation is sent containing a url link to the survey instrument online. Officials with invalid email addresses are subsequently mailed hard copy questionnaires via USPS. For those officials for whom no email address is available, or who have indicated a preference for completing the survey offline, hard copy questionnaires are mailed out in the week prior to the launch of the survey via USPS, scheduled for delivery during the first week of field period.

Recontacts to non-respondents:
Non-respondents with valid email addresses are typically recontacted each Monday of field period by email to urge them to participate. Hard copy non-respondents may be mailed postcard reminders in some survey waves.

Partial responses

Partially-completed ("partials") surveys captured by the online survey software are included in the dataset if respondents complete through a significant portion of the survey.