BUTLER TWP — The Butler School Board will vote Tuesday about spending up to $10,000 to hire a research company to do a survey as part of the consolidation review.

The After-Action Review Committee on Friday morning discussed the logistics of hiring a contractor to do a survey to measure more qualitative data about the consolidation.

In May 2015, the district closed five of 11 elementary schools and then reopened one, Center Avenue, as an alternative education and emotional support school. In addition, the consolidation created a fifth and sixth grade middle school, an intermediate high school for grades seven through nine and the senior high school for grades 10 to 12.

Superintendent Dale Lumley told the committee there were three companies he spoke with about the survey: Campos, Schmidt Market Research and 360 Intelligent Marketing. Lumley declined to provide specific cost estimates from the three companies, but the prices ranged from $15,000 to $35,000, he said.

“The issue comes down to money,” said board member Nina Teff. “How much money are you willing to spend? I would fairly confidently say nobody wants to spend $35,000.”

For board member Suzie Bradick there is no question that an outside firm must be hired to write the survey’s questions.

“They are trained professionals. We are not,” she said. “There’s no way, any of us, we cannot do it. We are not educated for it. If (we) make the questions, I am not going to view that as useful.”

Bradick was adamant that the questions need to be written in a way to ensure no bias is introduced.

While the survey will definitely include parents and district employees, the decision to include community members was also discussed.

“What are they going to say besides, ‘Don’t raise my taxes?’” asked Jennifer Cummings, chairman of the ad hoc committee.

Lumley told the committee that only about 20 percent of the taxpayers have children enrolled in the district and the remaining 80 percent may feel as though their opinion on the consolidation does not matter to the board.

The board has yet to decide on what company it will go with, pending further discussions between Lumley and each company.

In addition to discussing the survey, basic data on student enrollment was presented by board member Leland Clark. In the past nine years, the district has lost 123 students each year on average, a 2.66 percent decline annually, Clark said.

The district has lost 364 students this year, a 5.07 percent decline that was experienced across all grade levels, Clark said.

The district had 6,813 students as of December 2015, with 6,870 in September 2015. In the 2014-15 school year, the district had 7,177 students, according to data from Clark.

He acknowledged that it is difficult to completely separate enrollment totals from other factors not related to the consolidation such as the increase in cyber schooling and regional population changes.

In the 2014-15 school year, 374 students were enrolled in cyber schools other than Butler’s, according to Assistant Superintendent Brian Slamecka.

This school year, 325 students have been enrolled, but Slamecka stressed that these numbers also can be impacted by factors other than the consolidation.

The board will vote at its 7:30 p.m. meeting Tuesday on whether to spend up to $10,000 on hiring a survey contractor. The meeting will be at the Harriger Educational Services Center, 110 Campus Lane.