Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190026
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Give that county a gold star.
Its residents did.
Eight out of 10 households in Roanoke County are pleased with the level of service their local government provides, according to a recent survey.
And that's just one piece of the good news for county officials, who paid Martin Research Inc. $7,500 to develop a comprehensive "report card" of county services.
After obtaining a complete list of published and nonpublished Roanoke County phone numbers, the researchers polled 500 residents. The phone interviews were conducted during the first three weeks of May.
The survey yielded above-average marks in six service areas: fire protection, emergency medical services, garbage disposal, libraries, public schools and voter registration. All of these services earned grades of B+.
Most other services earned a B, while only three got a B-.
"We are very pleased with the results. I was pleased that the grades were consistent between the departments," County Administrator Elmer Hodge said. "I'd be concerned if one department got an A and others got C grades. What these results tell me is that residents generally think the county is consistently doing a good job, a very good job. That's great."
Hodge said the county will focus on ways to improve services in the lower-rated categories and boost quality in the areas citizens consider important.
The Board of Supervisors originally allocated $12,500 for the survey. The county plans to use the remaining $5,000 to hold focus-group sessions with six of the more negative respondents to gain more specific feedback.
"I want to make next year's report even better," he said. "Some of those B+ grades could have been A's, but this gives us room to grow."
The results say as much about the county's residents as they do about the local government. In addition to rating quality of service, the surveyors asked respondents to state how important each service was to them and how often they had used it in the past year.
More than 98 percent of those polled said police and fire protection, rescue care and garbage pickup were somewhat or very important. In contrast, 61 percent said cooperative extension services were somewhat or very important.
According to the results, county residents used the library system and county parks more than other services. During the past year, two-thirds of those polled said they had visited the library at least once; 58 percent had visited a county park once or more.
This is the first year Roanoke County has hired an outside consultant to survey its residents. In prior years, input was gathered by county staff and volunteers, Hodge said, adding that the current results are consistent with previous surveys.
County officials will use some of the information to set priorities for the coming year. Part of the survey asked respondents about their willingness to fund six projects under consideration.
Surveyors asked residents, "If your taxes were to increase by $30 a year, would you favor issuing bonds for [each project]?''
The responses were fairly favorable. Seventy-one percent said they would support improving school buildings, and 68 percent favored public safety improvements, such as jail expansion, emergency 911 upgrade or building new fire stations.
Only 35 percent said they would support building a new Cave Spring High School, although support rose to 40 percent among those who have children in school and to 55 percent for residents who live in the 24018 Zip Code area.
Polling experts say it is difficult to assess the accuracy of hypothetical questions about tax increases.
"What people say and what people do don't always have a 1-to-1 correspondence," said Alan Bayer, director of the Center for Survey Research at Virginia Tech.
But because the question ties the projects to a tax increase, Bayer said the results are probably more on target.
"That's a good way to word the question," he said. "It is a little ambiguous, because some people may read the tax increase as a given, but I think most people hearing that will think they are being asked if they are willing to pay $30 more a year for the project.
"That makes it more difficult to say 'yes.' It involves money out of your pocket."
The results have a margin of error of 5 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level. That means there is a 95 percent chance that, if all county residents were surveyed, the results would fall within 5 percentage points of those found in the survey. The margin of error is higher when the entire sample of 500 is broken into smaller groups, such as for the Cave Spring school question.
by CNB