Survey says...citizen satisfaction

Tuesday, Jan. 5, the Perryville Board of Aldermen was presented with the findings from a survey conducted this fall by ETC Institute.of Olathe, Kans. It’s the third time this company has collected the opinions and feedback from residents as surveys were also done in 2010 and 2015.
“I think the overall scoring and how we rank and compare with other communities is pretty remarkable,” Buerck said. “Being able to benchmark our efforts here locally with whats happening in the region and country is very important. It allows us to continue to bring the service our citizens have come to deserve and expect.”
“We wanted to get a baseline and know how the citizens we serve wanted us to proceed,” Buerck said of the initial survey.
“The board has found it valuable enough to do every five years,” Buerck noted.
The city takes much of the feedback received into future planning. One such example is with parks and recreation.
“A reason they’ve improved to the degree they have is because we’ve moved forward with this survey,” Buerck said.

Robert Heacock of ETC Institute provided a few of the survey highlights at Tuesday’s meeting.
The city of Perryville was rated above the U.S. average in 56 of 57 areas and was rated above the Missouri and Kansas regional average in 55 of 57 areas.
The quality of fire service (94 percent), how easy city officials were to contact (93 percent) and as a place to live (91 percent), more than 90 percent of respondents replied with four or five on a five-point scale with five representing “excellent.”
As a place to raise children (89 percent) and as a place to retire (79 percent) both received high marks and saw increases from the 2015 results.
The survey could be completed with a sampling instead of surveying all residents, Buerck said.
“The mayor and the board have always wanted to give all residents a chance to respond,” he said.
The group wanted to get 400 responses. This time, there were 646 results.