Complete Document - City of Auburn

City of AuburnAnnual Citizen SurveyMany citizens do not become activelyinvolved in local government affairs unless theyfeel they are directly affected. Sometimes itappears that citizen participation tends to bedominated by highly organized permanent orad hoc special interest groups. The views andinterests of many people remain unheard.In an effort to overcome this problemand to demonstrate its commitment to strongcitizen participation, the City of Auburn decidedto survey each year a representative crosssection of the community on issues ofgovernmental importance and communitypriorities. Auburn’s citizen survey is conductedeach year at the beginning of the priority settingprocess in preparation for the proposed budget.The first citizen survey in Auburn wascompleted in the spring of 1986. The City’sannual Citizen Survey was awarded a 1999City Livability Award by the United StatesConference of Mayors.The Planning Department administersthe telephone survey, hiring and trainingindividuals to conduct the random survey thatyields results with a 95 percent confidencelevel. Many of the survey questions haveremained constant, allowing the City leaders totrack public opinion over time. Other questionsare added each year to reflect public sentimenton current issues.Responses to the survey are enteredinto a computer database as the survey isbeing conducted, enabling the survey results tobe tabulated promptly. The confidence intervalcalculated for the 2002 survey using CreativeResearch Systems’ “Sample Size Calculator”indicates a 3.87 confidence interval based on a95% confidence level.Question 20 of the 2002 Survey askedthe citizens to give an overall rating to theservices provided by the City. The surveyresults reflect that 94.8% of respondentsassessed the City’s services as either excellentor good. In terms of funding priorities, 36.1% ofthose surveyed assigned top priority to schoolsystem funding. The surveyed citizens’ secondfunding priority was police protection at 21.4%and then street improvements at 12.7%. Moredetails on the results of the Citizen Survey areavailable from the City’s website atwww.auburnalabama.org.Once the survey results aresummarized and presented to the City Councilfor review, the Council establishes the prioritiesfor the next budget year. The survey results arepublicized through the City’s web page and thelocal media, which provides several benefits.The citizens who participated in the survey canrealize how their input was used and valued.Publicity makes the survey results available tothe entire community, which has helpedinstitutionalize the annual survey as a tool usedby the City Council and management toaddress the desires of the citizenry.The 2002 City of Auburn Citizen Surveywas conducted in February 2002 in preparationfor the FY2003 budget process. A randomsample of residents is selected from the City ofAuburn’s Water Board customer database. Inaddition to the randomly selected citizens,ninety additional residents, identified asAuburn’s community leaders, were added tothe database. These community leaders arecitizens who serve on various boards,commissions and committees in the City ofAuburn. The questions included in the 2002Survey are listed on the following pages.49