Title
National Citizen Survey (B)
This item seeks City Commission support to conduct a statistically valid citizen survey and benchmark the results with Gainesville's peer cities. The item seeks direction from the City Commission on custom questions to ask residents. *ESTIMATED STAFF PRESENTATION 20 MINUTES*
Explanation
The NCS gathers resident opinion across a range of community issues. Communities using The NCS have reported that the tool improved service delivery, strengthened communications with community stakeholders and helped leaders identify clear priorities for use in strategic planning and budget setting. The NCS is the only citizen survey endorsed by the International City/County Management Association and the National League of Cities.
The National Citizen Survey has been conducted in 350 communities in 48 states with thousands of survey questions dealing with resident perception about the quality of community life, community characteristics, perceptions of safety, community participation, public trust, services and impressions of City employees.
The survey and its administration are standardized to assure high quality survey methods and comparable results across NCS jurisdictions. Participating households are selected at random and the household member who responds is selected without bias. Multiple mailings, which include self-addressed and postage paid envelopes, ensure that each selected household has the opportunity to participate. Results are statistically weighted to reflect the proper demographic composition of the entire community.
National Research Center (NRC) is a strategic partner with Peak Democracy. Through that partnership, the City of Gainesville will have an option to extend their Peak Democracy contract to estimate opinions of the entire adult population of the City of Gainesville based just on the engageGNV participants. The City will also have an option to extend their contract with NRC to incorporate the NCS survey results into the engageGNV website.
These components, along with the fact that the NCS covers a large spectrum of municipal services, are why this tool was selected as the survey mechanism.
Fiscal Note
The cost of the basic survey is $10,900. Additional custom benchmark reports are $800 each. Staff recommends the City Commission fund through carryover from Fiscal Year 2014.
Recommendation
The City Commission: 1) provide feedback on custom questions to ask on the citizen survey; 2) direct the City Manager to initiate the survey process; and 3) approve funding the survey with carryover from fiscal year 2014.