Community Compass survey: Juneau residents prioritize roads, K‑12 and public safety while supporting measures to keep working‑age families

City communications staff and consultant Raincoast Data presented results from the Community Compass outreach effort and a municipal budget survey that drew approximately 4,400 unique responses and achieved a high statistical confidence level after weighting.

The survey asked residents to identify budget areas they most want preserved and areas they would be willing to consider cutting in the face of fiscal shortfalls. The top items residents said should not be cut were streets/roads/bridges and winter maintenance, K‑12 education support, and public safety. When asked which areas they would consider cutting if required, respondents most commonly selected tourism management/visitor infrastructure and climate/energy initiatives; however, several items such as recreation, parks and libraries appeared both among top 'do not cut' and 'willing to cut' lists depending on demographic cross‑tabs, reflecting divisions in priorities across age groups and geography.

Raincoast Data noted strong community sentiment for making Juneau a place where working‑age residents and young families can live and work as the single most supported community value. The survey included subgroup analyses by generation and neighborhood and published the full comment corpus (about 424 pages of open‑ended responses) in the packet.

Staff described outreach tactics that produced the sample: public tabling at markets and libraries, social media advertising, bus posters, radio interviews, and partnerships with community organizations. Communications staff said they will present full workshop results and community input to the Assembly on April 11 and host a listening session on April 15.

Staff noted caveats about representation (income was not used for weighting) and suggested additional targeted outreach to underrepresented groups in any follow‑up work. The Assembly praised the breadth of response and said the results will inform upcoming budget deliberations.