By Moses Leos III
Despite mailing a survey within the utility bills of 8,549 residents, Kyle could only muster a miniscule 5.3 percent response rate from its citizens.
That’s the result of Kyle city staff’s household survey, which sought to gather public input on 16 questions relating to government spending priorities, quality of service, economic development and communication.
While the survey featured a 5.9 percent margin of error with a 99-percent confidence interval, City Manager Scott Sellers said the answers gave a “comfortable feel for those responses” and that they were “representative of the citizenry as a whole.”
Sellers presented the results during Saturday’s first budget workshop for fiscal year 2016. It was the culmination of a process that began in February. That month saw the city mail surveys within customers’ utility bills.
In addition, the city also placed the surveys online for apartment dwellers or those who did not request a paper bill. The city also promoted the survey via its website and social media as well as through the city’s E-Newsletter and media outlets.
But the results for the survey were “a little low” according to Sellers. Only 452 surveys were mailed back to the city. The majority of responses were submitted by residents more than 35 years of age and Sellers said the result is “common,” as he said the younger demographic is “less apt to fill out a survey in general” for a variety of reasons.
However, the majority of respondents were white men that have lived in Kyle for less than ten years.
According to 2013 Census Data, 46.9 percent of residents were Hispanic or Latino. Roughly 38 percent were people over the age of 35.
Kyle Public Information Officer Jerry Hendrix said in an emailed response that while the survey was designed to give a snapshot of the community, the city wasn’t “looking for the type of in-depth information that would lend itself to a statistical breakdown by specific demographic group.”
Street repairs and water, sewer and drainage infrastructure were several of the top priorities Kyle residents feel should top the city’s spending list.
While the answers weren’t surprising, Sellers said they followed the most talked about issues, including the road bond, water and infrastructure issues.
One-third, or 33 percent, of respondents indicated they spend their discretionary dollars in Kyle. The figure is almost double that of any other city featured in the survey.
Of that result, 40 percent of their dollars go to shopping in Kyle, while 38 percent goes to dining. Nice/Upscale/Sit Down Restaurants topped the list of what respondents wanted to see in Kyle.
While Kyle is the “largest benefactor of those discretionary dollars,” according to the results, Sellers said it establishes retail leakage in some areas. According to Hendrix, it will allow the city to improve as the city develops its workforce options.
But according to the results, 34 percent believed the city’s slice of the property tax pie is not enough. Of the city’s .5401 property tax rate, 19 percent goes to the city.
However, with tax increases looming due to the city’s road bonds, Sellers said there is a possibility of a flip in those results. However, Hendrix said Kyle residents understood it could raise their taxes.
“They are expecting taxes to go up on account for the road bonds,” Hendrix said. “That would mitigate the reaction.”
However, the information was not cross-tabulated with demographics or age groups. Hendrix said the survey “was designed to give us a broad perspective of the community as a whole.”
Hendrix wrote the city didn’t believe its margin of error was significant. Hendrix said the city used a 99 percent MOE, but “statistically 95% is also acceptable which would have brought the MOE even lower.”
In addition, Hendrix wrote that Sellers has used the survey in previous cities where he was city manager. Also that, with a few “minor modifications,” that it had been vetted through the Institutional Review Board.
“We put this survey out to the public in an honest effort to gather information from our citizens that could be used in developing our budget for next year and we appreciate all the citizens that took the time to complete it and return it to us,” Hendrix wrote.