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Citizen survey will show Albany service problems

• Officials say a survey commissioned by the city of Albany will help improve services in the community.

Carlton Fletcher

ALBANY — Albany officials want to know what you think of the job the city’s employees are doing.

Some 3,000 citizens in the city were randomly selected by the National Research Center Inc. of Boulder, Col., to receive a City of Albany 2008 Citizen Survey that asks respondents to rate such factors as quality- of-life, crime, service and economic issues in the city. Those answers, according to Assistant City Manager Wes Smith, will help determine areas of need in city services.

“We’re absolutely doing this for the right reasons,” Smith said after all 3,000 of the surveys had been mailed to some 500 citizens in each of the city’s six wards. “We want to know what we’re doing well and in what areas we need to improve. It’s all about customer service.

“Once we receive the data from the survey, I envision us using this tool again in three years or so to see if we’ve improved our services.”

The citizen survey has been used by National Research Center since 2001, and more than 200 jurisdictions have employed it as a means of improving services, according to NRC Director Heather Locke.

“What we’ll do for Albany is provide the overall results from the 3,000 surveys, but we’ll also separate the data geographically by ward,” Locke said. “What we’ll be looking for is results that might differ from ward to ward to see if citizens in one area feel certain services might need more attention than in others.

“We’ll create benchmarks that we can compare to other jurisdictions across the country.”

Locke said that while the surveys are completely confidential and cannot be traced to individual respondents, the forms have been numbered by ward to allow for the citywide breakdown.

Albany Information Technology Project Manager Cindy Tiernan said completing the survey should benefit everyone in the city.

“First of all, any attempt by any city government to get feedback from its citizens is a step in the right direction,” Tiernan, who is completing the survey, said. “And after looking over this survey, I think it’s very important (for everyone who receives one) to fill it in and return it.

“If, say the police department, gets a different score in one area of the city, then the chief will have an idea of what area he needs to direct more attention. This is just an excellent way for department heads in the city to find out what the citizens are thinking.”

Smith said the fact that National Research Center is affiliated with the International City/County Managers Association, of which Albany City Manager Alfred Lott is a member, is a plus for citizens who might have questions about the company compiling survey data.

“That’s a huge plus,” Smith said. “ICMA is one of the most respected management organizations in the world, so the tool is going to reflect the quality of that organization.”

Smith said evaluation of the surveys will end in late June to early July, after which an NRC representative will discuss the results with city officials.

“We’ve talked with other communities that have used this tool, and the ones we’ve talked with love it,” he said. “Some communities have even altered their budgets based on the outcome.

“So we encourage all of our citizens who received the survey to complete it and send it back to National Research Center. It’s only going to make us better at doing the things we do for the community.”

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