Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Community Perception Survey topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
City officials hear 2025 community survey showing drop in resident perceptions; staff to run focused cross-tabs
Summary
City consultants told the Budget & Finance Committee that a 2025 Community Perception Survey shows a citywide downward shift in resident perceptions, especially on image, place-to-live and raising children; staff will run demographic cross-tabs and convene April–May focus groups to probe causes.
City officials on the Budget & Finance Committee received the results of Cincinnati’s 2025 Community Perception Survey on the committee’s agenda, where the consultant said the city saw a measurable downward shift in resident perceptions compared with prior cycles.
Ryan Murray, presenting for ETC Institute, said the firm completed 1,234 randomly sampled surveys across six geographic zones and calculated a margin of error of about 2.8% (rounded to 3%). "We feel very confident plus or minus that margin of error of about 3%," Murray said, adding the sample was stratified to ensure geographic and demographic representation.
Murray told council members the most pronounced declines were in overall image, "place to live" and "place to raise children," and that core service areas — especially streets and sidewalks, public safety and code enforcement — were high-opportunity targets for improvement. "These are the items that, if we're able to tug and pull on certain levers within the city to make sure that folks understand and see the improvement ... we then can say that should have an outstanding impact on perception," he said.
Eric Jamieson, director of the Office of Performance and Data Analytics, said staff will follow up with cross-tab analyses by race, ethnicity, age, income, years lived in the city and the six geographic zones that were used for sampling. Jamieson told the committee he expected staff could provide the requested cross-sections promptly and that focus groups were scheduled for April and May to probe the drivers of the declines.
Council members sought context and explanations. Council member Owens asked whether responses could be broken down by demographics and neighborhoods; Murray said the sample size supports those cross-sections and that staff would run the tests. Council member Jeffries and others asked whether the pattern mirrored nationwide trends; Murray said many large communities have seen downward shifts but recommended local focus groups and closer benchmarking with peer cities to separate national narrative effects from local service delivery problems.
The city manager framed the survey as one input in the budget process and stressed that the administration is using performance-based budgeting to pair potential reductions with explicit service-impact analyses. Jamieson said the survey results will be integrated into departmental performance agreements and budget materials.
Next steps announced at the meeting included production of demographic cross-tabs for council review and the planned focus groups in April and May; staff also committed to bringing any additional peer-city benchmarking data the council requests.
