City Council Study Session Agenda and Packet 2016 07 12

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City of Louisville Citizen Survey June 2016 Survey Background Survey Purpose The Louisville Citizen Survey gives residents the opportunity to rate their satisfaction with the quality of life in the city, the community's amenities and satisfaction with local government. The survey gathers community- wide feedback on what is working well and what is not and helps map out residents priorities for community planning and resource allocation. It serves as a consumer report card for Louisville; providing a check-in with residents to make sure the City policies and services are on course. This is the fourth time National Research Center, Inc. (NRC) conducted the Louisville Citizen Survey and the seventh iteration in a series of citizen survey projects completed by the City of Louisville since 1990. Survey Methods The Louisville Citizen Survey was administered by mail beginning in March 2016 to 2,000 randomly selected households within the City of Louisville. Each household received three mailings. Completed surveys were collected over the following seven weeks. The first mailing was a prenotification postcard announcing the upcoming survey. Over the following two weeks, two survey mailings were sent to residents; each contained a letter from the Mayor inviting the household to participate in the 2016 Louisville Citizen Survey, a five-page questionnaire and a pre-addressed, postage-paid return envelope. The survey instrument itself appears in Appendix F: Survey Instrument. Of those households receiving the survey, 790 residents responded to the questionnaire either by mail or Web, giving a response rate of 40%. Survey results were weighted so that the characteristics of gender, age, tenure (rent versus own), housing unit type (attached versus detached) and Ward were represented in the proportions reflective of the entire city. (For more information see Appendix E: Survey Methodology.) Understanding the Results Precision of Estimates It is customary to describe the precision of estimates made from surveys by a "level of confidence" (or margin of error). The 95% confidence level for this survey is generally no greater than plus or minus three percentage points around any given percent reported for all respondents (790 completed surveys). "Don't Know" Responses and Rounding On many of the questions in the survey, respondents gave an answer of "don't know." The proportion of respondents giving this reply is shown in the full set of responses included in Appendix A: Complete Set of Frequencies and is discussed in the body of this report if it is 30% or greater. However, these responses have been removed from the analyses presented in the body of the report, unless otherwise indicated. In other words, the majority of the tables and graphs in the body of the report display the responses from respondents who had an opinion about a specific item. When a table for a question that permitted only a single response does not total to exactly 100%, it is due to the customary practice of rounding percentages to the nearest whole number. cc Comparing to Past Years Because this survey was the seventh in a series of citizen surveys, the 2016 results are presented along with past ratings when available. Differences between 2016 and 2012 can be considered "statistically significant" if they are greater than five percentage points. Trend data for Louisville represent important comparisons and Report of Results ° 4