From the Office of the Sheriff Sheriff Dennis L. Dotson

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For Immediate Release

NEWS RELEASE

Date: October 12, 2007

Citizen Survey Gives Positive Results for Sheriff's Office

The results of a citizen survey conducted as part of the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office planning process show a large majority of residents continue to be satisfied with Sheriff's Office services.

"We are very pleased with these results and are proud of how residents feel we are serving them," said Sheriff Dennis Dotson. "We've been working hard at maintaining a high level of satisfaction since we conducted our first citizen survey two years ago and we are pleased we’ve been able to build on those results."

The results of the survey show that 81% of county residents report being either "Very Satisfied" or "Fairly Satisfied" overall with the Sheriff’s Office. That figure is up three percent from two years ago.

Other results of the survey included:

• Satisfaction with Sheriff’s Office services jumped an impressive 10% in the age group of 18-54 (at 84% now compared to 74% two years ago);
• More residents are getting information about the Sheriff’s Office from personal contacts than they were two years ago. Increasing positive personal contact with citizens has been an aim of the Sheriff's Office over the past two years.
• The Sheriff’s Office received high rankings in the categories of: Employee courtesy and demeanor (64%) and working in partnership with the community (60%).
• Investigating crimes still tops the list of important jobs for the Sheriff’s Office (as it did two years ago) with 83% of residents saying that it is important. That was followed closely by 1) Patrolling the county 24 hours a day, seven days a week (80%); and 2) Maintaining a high visibility in the community. (74%)
• Nearly a majority of residents (49%) say the Sheriff’s Office does not have enough funding to do a good job. An equal number also say the Sheriff’s Office does not have enough staff to do the job expected of them.

"We are using this information to analyze how we’ve been addressing community concerns and expectations," Dotson said. "We are now able to compare the information from two years ago to how citizens are feeling today and they are telling us we’re on the right track."

"We still have some work to do to keep more of our citizens informed about their Sheriff’s Office and the issues we face with providing quality public safety services to our county," he continued. "The information citizens provide us through these surveys, their letters, at community meetings, and in our day-to-day interactions is very valuable to help us plan for the future."

The survey was administered September 12-14, 2007 and polled a random sampling of adult citizens within the county. The survey was developed as part of the Sheriff's Office long-range planning process being facilitated by The Results Group, Ltd., a professional management consulting and training firm that specializes in strategic planning and community relations. The survey was administered by a telephone bank that randomly called 350 citizens to ask for their input. With interviews completed by 350 citizens, the Sheriff's Office received results that have a 5% margin of error with a 95% confidence level, and represent a statistically accurate sample of the community. This means if the survey were repeated 100 times, in 95 of those cases the question response would not vary more than the sampling error. The survey was completely anonymous.

Complete results of the survey were presented to the management team of the Sheriff’s Office and to Sheriff’s Office employees. The results of the survey will be used to help the County and Sheriff’s Office map out future plans for the Sheriff’s Office in a number of areas – from sustainable funding to how to deal with growth and changes in the population and a myriad of other issues. Currently, the Sheriff’s Office management team and employees are holding work sessions to analyze the results and make recommendations back to the Sheriff on action plans for improving some of the areas discussed in the survey.

As they have done in the past, the Sheriff's Office will also be holding community meetings to share the results with citizens and solicit additional input into the services they are providing. The community meetings are intended to give all citizens the opportunity to have input into the Sheriff’s Office plans even if they were not called as part of the statistical phone survey.

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