Consultant: Olathe scores far above national averages in 2024 resident survey

Chris Tatham, chief executive officer of ETC Institute, told the Olathe City Council on March 4 that the city’s 2024 Direction Finder survey shows unusually high resident satisfaction with city services.

"The city of Olathe is at a whopping 92% satisfaction for the overall quality of city services," Tatham said, and he told the council that roughly seven in 10 respondents said city taxes and fees provide good value. The firm surveyed 2,034 residents over the course of the year, Tatham said.

Tatham said the survey identified traffic flow, maintenance of streets and public safety as the top priorities for residents and reported the largest year-over-year gains in those same areas. "The biggest increases this year were in traffic flow, street maintenance and public safety," he said. He also told the council that overall satisfaction in Olathe measured 44 percentage points above the national average on the benchmark questions his firm uses.

The consultant reviewed several comparative metrics the city uses to measure performance. He said Olathe scored well above the national average across many services — customer service, yard waste and bulky-item pickup, household hazardous waste, recycling and water services were among categories he cited as performing substantially above typical results for U.S. cities.

Tatham described the survey methodology in broad terms: ETC randomly samples roughly 500 households per quarter and aggregates about 2,000 responses annually. He said the city uses the block-level response map to target investments geographically.

Council members praised staff for the results. Council member Vogt asked whether the full survey would be posted; Tatham indicated the results would be made available (he acknowledged this with a thumbs-up exchange during the meeting). Council members also asked follow-up questions about trends and whether recent events might have influenced some year-over-year declines in areas such as perceptions of doing business and certain communications metrics.

Why it matters: The Direction Finder survey provides the council with a recurring, quantitative measure of resident priorities and service performance; Tatham told the council the city’s improvements in last year’s priority areas indicate staff and leadership are aligning investments with resident concerns.

The council did not take formal action on the presentation. The full survey will be posted, according to the presentation.