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Surveys

Key Documents

Resident Survey

Since 1996, the City has conducted a citywide survey of residents. The services residents expect from their government, like police and fire protection, road maintenance and water, are important for a healthy community but expensive to provide. Because there are many needs and a limited amount of money to meet those needs, the City asks residents to help set its budgetary priorities.

Throughout the survey, residents are asked several questions about different city services by considering how important it is that the service be provided as well as how satisfied residents are with the City's ability to provide it. Ideally, the areas which respondents rate highest in importance would also be rated highest in satisfaction. While this is true for many services, some areas have discrepancies between average importance and satisfaction ratings.

In earlier surveys, the City's sample population was selected randomly from the Utility Billing database, and participation is anonymous. Results are presented to the City Council, posted on the website and shared with the public through City communications. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the Priorities Survey please contact us at (630) 377-4422/CAO@stcharlesil.gov.

Business Retention Survey

The Business Retention Survey has been conducted approximately every two years since 1998 to identify and manage economic development issues and to assist the City in formulating pro-business policies. By better understanding issues that are important to business owners and operators, St. Charles can maintain its reputation as a good place to do business. The survey seeks to understand two things: the opinions of local business owners and operators about their experiences while doing business in the City; and upcoming plans for facilities, whether to expand, re-locate, or to remain at the current location.

The 2008 survey was conducted via e-mail for the first time. Over 800 businesses in St. Charles received the survey and the response rate was 26%, the highest response rate for the survey since 2000.

Participation is anonymous. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about the Business Retention Survey, please contact the Economic Development Department at (630) 443-4093 or by e-mail at econdev@stcharlesil.gov.

Police Incident Follow-up Surveys

In an effort to provide the finest police service to the residents of St. Charles, the Police Department implemented the use of the Incident Follow-up Survey as of January 1, 2002. This survey will gather data that will be used in combination with the information collected from the annual Priorities survey (see description above). The Incident Follow-up Survey asks residents about their experience with the Police Department. Each month, the survey is sent to every eighth person that has had direct contact with the department. Measures in this survey include the type of incident that was reported, the level of satisfaction with the department interaction they had, as well as some demographic information. As always, participation is anonymous. Annual results from the survey will be used to establish training and service criteria. The annual results for 2002 will be posted here in early 2003.

Internal Surveys

The City also conducts two internal surveys: the Internal Customer Survey and the Employee Input Survey. The Internal Customer Survey was developed because there were no existing tools to gauge internal customer/employee satisfaction with the services they received from the Finance, Information Systems and Human Resources areas. This survey is customer service focused and surveys all full and regular part-time employees on the quality of the service they receive from these three departments since they have divisions that only service internal customers. The Employee Input Survey has been conducted since 1996 in an effort to understand employee needs and concerns. In 2000, the City decided to administer this survey every other year. This survey measures satisfaction and understanding of compensation, performance evaluations, communication within the organization and so on. Results of these surveys are typically not released in public to ensure confidentiality and anonymity.

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updated Mar 23, 2018