The county received high scores in areas that majorly affect quality of life ratings, but many residents have concerns regarding road maintenance and new construction, an official said.
In a nutshell
Ryan Murray, director of community research at ETC Institute, presented the countywide survey’s findings to commissioners alongside Connie Odom, director of communications and media relations for Williamson County.
“Our mission is really to help you all make better decisions through statistically valid research,” Murray said.
ETC Institute sent the survey to 5,000 residential addresses and received 1,262 responses with both demographic and geographic representation, Murray said. The survey has a 2.7% margin of error, he said.
Diving in deeper
The institute’s analysis highlights items below average in overall satisfaction and above average in importance, Murray said, which include:
- Road maintenance
- New road construction and safety improvements
“County road maintenance, new construction and safety improvements is likely to have the highest impact on overall perceptions moving forward,” Murray said. “Overall dissatisfaction does not exist everywhere. It's really one part of the community.”
According to the presentation, road maintenance and new construction dissatisfaction exists in the northeast and northwest parts of Williamson County.
About 47% of overall respondents agree county road improvements are adequately funded, according to the presentation.
“New road construction ... is an area that we're working on,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Russ Boles said. “It takes years to address it, and we’ve started.”
Murray noted many Texas communities struggle with separating county, city and state roads, and respondents might not know the difference when taking the survey.
On the other hand
Most residents in Cedar Park and Round Rock were satisfied with county road maintenance, and Cedar Park residents showed high satisfaction ratings with new road construction and safety improvements, per the presentation.
Williamson County ranked higher on road maintenance satisfaction compared to U.S. and Texas averages of 40.5% and 25.3%, respectively, Murray said.
The county also excelled in a number of areas in the overall satisfaction survey, specifically in emergency medical services, he said.
“It was the No. 1 most satisfied [and] the No. 1 most important to respondents, which holds true with Texas trends typically, where police services are held in high regard,” Murray said.
The takeaway
Respondents were 86.4% satisfied with Williamson County as a place to live, again ranking the county higher than state and national averages, which are below 50%, according to the presentation.
County Judge Bill Gravell asked what counties in America exceed Williamson County’s overall image satisfaction rate of 71.1%.
“I want to know what they have that we don’t have because we can learn from others,” Gravell said. “We don’t want to be the average in America; we want to be the best.”
While the county is experiencing “growing pains” with road and construction projects, overall the ratings are relatively good, Murray said.
“It's clear and obvious from the results [that] you have high quality, high level staff,” Murray said. “Trust those folks, continue to make the decisions that you're making; you should see positive results.”
How we got here
Commissioners approved the countywide survey as part of the communications department’s initiative to receive more public feedback, Odom said.
ETC Institute received unanimous approval from commissioners to conduct the survey at a July 16 meeting, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
One more thing
ETC Institute’s full presentation on additional community survey findings can be found here.
