City Services Satisfaction Survey 2013 City Services Satisfaction Survey | Page 30

Ratings And Perceptions Of Specific Services And Facilities City Services Overall. City services in Arlington generally continue to receive moderately high to high overall ratings, with about two-thirds of city services rated receiving a top-two-box rating (“good” or “excellent”) of 70% or higher. Fire services, library services/facilities, parks and recreation, and water utilities services continue to be rated very high, with most top-two-box ratings above 85%. On the opposite end, city services with less than 60% top-two-box ratings are zoning service, building permits, code enforcement and code compliance. Fire Department. Consistent with last year, virtually all of the users rate the fire department as “excellent” or “good” on quality of service and on timeliness of service. Top-two-box rating of community education services by the fire department (79%) is comparatively lower than ratings of the fire services above (90%+), but still viewed positively among citizens. Ambulance/Emergency Medical Services. Among users in the past 12 months, ambulance and emergency medical services continue to be rated high (75%+ top-two box) on quality of service and timeliness of service. However, compared to last year, both the ratings have declined significantly*, and indicate need for improvement. (*Note: This decline could be driven by data volatility due to small base sizes, n=59 in 2012 and n=45 in 2011. When looking at perceptions of ambulance/emergency medical services among 300 or more citizens, regardless of their past use of the services, ratings have been steadily high at 92% in 2012 and 94% in 2011. This indicates some degree of sample size impact, although past-year users’ experiences and perceptions may be real based on their actual incidences.) Police Department. Among users in the past 12 months, the police department is rated high with over 75% top-two box, in terms of overall competence of police employees, behavior/attitude of police officers, and quality of services. Compared to these areas, top-two-box ratings of timeliness of services (74%) and community education services by the police department (72%) indicate more room for improvement. Parks/Recreation Facilities. Consistent with last year, residents in Arlington perceive the overall quality of parks and recreation facilities very positively, with top-two-box ratings of all attributes at 85% or higher. Decision Analyst, Inc. 30