PERCEIVED QUALITY OF LIFE AND SERVICE LEVEL SATISFACTION RATE HIGH IN 2015 CIVIC SERVICES SURVEY

Perceptions about Saskatoon’s quality of life and satisfaction with the overall level of services provided by the City of Saskatoon rated high in the 2015 Civic Services Survey. Roads and sidewalk repair remain the number one issue among citizens who participated in the annual survey.

“We obtain valuable feedback on a variety of civic issues through the Annual Civic Services Survey,” says Catherine Gryba, General Manager of Corporate Performance. “All of the results are considered when we develop our annual business plan and budget. The feedback helps the City provide high quality services to meet citizen needs.”

When asked which methods the City could use to balance its budget, most citizens said they prefer a combination of increased user fees and property taxes over a reduction in services. On the topic of spending, citizens strongly felt more money should be allocated toward road maintenance, snow and ice maintenance, street crime, affordable housing, accessible infrastructure, growth planning, and traffic management. They would like to see less spending on arts and culture funding, renewing city centre and north downtown, and customer service initiatives.

When it comes to overall services provided by the City, satisfaction remains strong and relatively consistent with previous years, with telephone respondents significantly more satisfied than online respondents.

Other highlights of the 2015 Civic Services Survey include:

• Recycling is now considered a top area of citizen satisfaction. Drinking water quality, repair of water main breaks, garbage collection, electrical services reliability, fire protection and police services also rated high.
• The use of the City’s website continues to be the preferred information source for citizens.

A total of 500 surveys were completed via telephone and 821 surveys were completed online between May 11 and June 2, 2015. The margin of error for the telephone research is +4.4 percentage points at a 95% confidence interval (19 times out of 20). Margin of error for the online study is not applicable as online research is considered a non-probability proportional sampling technique. View the City of Saskatoon Annual Civic Services Survey in its entirety at www.saskatoon.ca.

The 2015 Civic Services Survey supports the Strategic Goal of Continuous Improvement and being the best-managed city in Canada.

For more City of Saskatoon Public Service Announcements, News Releases, Traffic Detours and Service Alerts, visit www.saskatoon.ca or connect with the City of Saskatoon on Twitter and Facebook.