Democracy on the Front Lines
City Administrator’s Blog
Walter Denton
November 16, 2009
At last Monday’s City Council Planning Session, we presented the results of the recent Community Citizen Survey. While the budget portion of the Planning Session was gloomy, there is good news in the Citizen Survey.
In general, the survey results were very positive and showed that residents are pleased with City services and enjoy living in O’Fallon. I believe this is the result of strong leadership by Mayor Graham and the City Council and hard work by City employees to provide quality services to our residents.
O’Fallon participated in a national survey program where we could compare resident opinions on City services with more than 400 other cities that have taken the same survey. We conducted the same survey in 2005 and 2007, and nearly all responses in the 2009 survey are similar or better than in 2007. In addition, the results indicate that citizens rate City services higher than in most other cities that have taken the survey. The complete survey reports are on the City’s web site.
For those who care about survey methodology, the survey was mailed to 1,200 randomly selected households. A total of 451 completed surveys were returned, providing an overall response rate of 39% (which is pretty good for a mail survey). The survey has a 95% confidence level, which means there is a 5% margin of error on the difference between the opinions of the survey respondents and the population as a whole.
Let’s get to the details:
- 77% are satisfied with the overall quality of City services
- 87% are satisfied with the overall quality of life
- 92% are satisfied with O’Fallon as a place to live
- 89% would recommend living in O’Fallon to someone who asks
- 82% have a positive overall impression of City employees.
All of these areas are above the benchmark average compared to results in other cities that have taken the survey. These are very good ratings and I am pleased that residents have such a high opinion of O’Fallon and city government.
Ratings also were high in specific service areas:
- 90% are pleased with the Police Department
- 95% are pleased with EMS
- 93% are pleased with the Fire Department
- 92% are pleased with the Parks and Recreation Department
- 90% are pleased with the O’Fallon Public Library
Other services received lower ratings but they are in areas that traditionally do not get high marks (such as code enforcement and street repair). However, our survey results still compared favorably to other cities.
Also as a part of the survey, we inserted some customized questions specific to O’Fallon. First, we asked a question about school consolidation:
O’Fallon currently has two K-8 school districts and one high school district. Over the past several years, there has been discussion regarding the consolidation of the school districts into one district for the purpose of streamlining administration, curriculum, and school funding. To what extent do you support or oppose the consolidation of all O’Fallon school districts into one school district?
Strongly or somewhat support: 84%
The second question involved curbside recycling:
The City’s current trash contract with Waste Management provides the option of curbside recycling pickup for an additional $5.48 per month. If optional recycling was eliminated and curbside recycling was provided citywide through the standard trash bill, how much of an increase, if at all, would you be willing to pay each month?
Nothing: 45%
$1-$2: 26%
$3-$4: 23%
$5 or more: 6%
In the third question, 91% of respondents supported the City spending money to encourage healthy lifestyles, such as walking/biking trails, sidewalks, recreation programs and other methods to promote O’Fallon as a walkable community.
So what do we do with this information? First of all, it is helpful to know that O’Fallon residents are pleased with City services and enjoy living here. In that respect, we are doing something right and we need to continue to provide excellent services to our citizens. It also is helpful to know why people live in O’Fallon and we need to keep those things in mind when we are making decisions for O’Fallon’s future.
We did receive some conflicting responses in the survey and we will definitely pursue why they occurred. In particular, the ratings on “Public Trust” demonstrated some curious opinions that we will have to analyze further. In my next blog, I will explore the Public Trust ratings.
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