Covington officials want to get a sense of how the city is doing.

To that end the city is rolling out a survey, explained Karla Slate, the city’s community relations coordinator, in an email interview.

“This is a scientific survey completed by telephone and is conducted by a third party consultant,” Slate wrote. “Phone calls are made to registered voters in Covington who have a telephone number listed.”

The last time the city worked with a consultant — Elway Research, which the city hired again — to conduct a survey of residents was in 2009, Slate wrote.

“We use this survey as a way to gauge a few different things including how we (the city) are doing in each of our service areas like customer service, police response, code enforcement, permitting and more,” Slate wrote. “We also ask questions to help give us an idea of what our citizens feel should be the city’s priorities.”

The survey will begin at the end of this week, Slate wrote, and the goal is to complete it within two weeks.

And it’s not just limited to phone surveys.

“In addition to this telephone survey this year, our consultant secured grant funding to simultaneously conduct an online version of the survey,” Slate wrote. “We will mail an invitation letter to registered Covington voters who do not have a phone number listed.”

Gathering input on city services from residents is important and allows staff to collect information which helps them and the City Council make decisions on a variety of things going forward.

“We will get the top line data shortly after (the survey is complete),” Slate wrote. “And our consultant will prepare a more detailed report of the results to present to city council in June.”