City promises to focus more attention on areas where citizens are dissatisfied

The City’s Citizen Satisfaction Survey shows overall improvement over last year and over 2005, a baseline year that most closely matches the 2011-2012 survey.

With the release of this year’s Kansas City Citizen’s Satisfaction Survey today, the city is promising to pay greater attention to important areas where residents are the most dissatisfied. The city’s performance management staff told a city council business session today that the latest survey, conducted between July 2011 and May 2012, showed significant improvement in 32 categories, no change in 29 categories, and a decline in six categories.

Areas showing the greatest improvement included leadership, city communications, parks and recreation, and solid waste. However, satisfaction declined in the quality of water utilities, the quality of public transportation, enforcing and prosecuting illegal dumping, the city’s youth athletic programs, city swimming pools and programs, and the quality of animal control.

Citizens Satisfaction Surveys used to be conducted by the city auditor’s office, but now the survey and follow-up have been shifted over to the city manager’s performance management staff.

“While the overall results of the latest survey are very encouraging and show we are making good progress during difficult times, we will keep up our momentum as we still have work to do,” City Manager Troy Schulte said in a press release. “This year’s survey results, combined with ongoing monthly performance data, provide critical insight that will help staff identify where adjustments are needed.”

Another change this year is a rating of importance for each item. Citizens were asked to rank which items should receive the most emphasis from city leaders.

“We’re paying particular attention to the correlation between resident dissatisfaction and importance,” said Kate Bender, performance analyst. “If an element is very important to residents as a whole and they are dissatisfied with it, we’ve recognized that this area is a priority for improvement.”

Stay posted. We’ll be reviewing specific categories of the survey over the next week.

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