07/27/1992 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e B. EUQene Decisions: Results of Citizen InDut Barb Bellamy, City Manager's Office, said that the Council Committee on Eugene Decisions developed a process for working on a final strategy during August, which the council will have an opportunity to discuss on July 29. She said that will also provide the council with an opportunity to ask questions about the data presented this evening. She added that the committee will meet again on July 28 and can entertain questions and comments from the council then. Ed Weeks, University of Oregon, praised the collaborative effort on this project between the City of Eugene and the University of Oregon. He acknowl- edged the participation of Jennie Carmichael and Stephanie Buffum. Mr. Weeks described the methods used in gathering the data, saying that every Eugene citizen was offered an opportunity to participate and contribute ideas about service and funding strategies. The two sources of data used in this procedure were a tabloid questionnaire and a community workshop. The council also required a set of statistically representative data. There were two different instruments used for this purpose. The first of these was the budget-balancing instrument which presented to each respondent each of the elements included in the council strategy and allowed them the opportunity to construct a balanced budget from these components. The instrument was designed to avoid choosing mutually incompatible options. The other instru- ment presented the same basic information but in a multiple-choice format. It presented each respondent with the service changes included in each strategy and required the respondent to select that set of service changes they e preferred to balance the budget. This format included information on the impact to the household from options chosen. Mr. Weeks said the response rate to the budget-balancing survey was 61 percent (10 percent better than expected) and twice as many tabloid questionnaires as those received the first time were returned. He said the margin of error rates are 6 percent for the multiple-choice survey and 4 percent for the budget-balancing survey. Responding to a question from Mr. Boles, Mr. Weeks said the data can be trusted because there is consistency of findings, which attests to a well- designed survey. Mr. Weeks described the findings, saying that respondents indicated the least support for balancing the projected shortfall solely through service reduc- tions, preferring a combination of service reductions and funding through new taxes and user fees. Strategy A received the most support. The instruments were consistent in reflecting how respondents chose to balance the budget. All showed approximately $3.5 million in cost reduction through efficiencies and cost savings and approximately $7.5 million raised with additional taxes. Mr. Weeks reviewed service changes, grouped into six major service areas. Under Public Safety services, there is support for reducing animal control field enforcement and eliminating the spay/neuter clinic. There was very e MINUTES--City Council Work Session July 27, 1992 Page 2 5:30 p.m.