Case Study — Kansas City, Missouri

“For local government leaders around the world, the first half of 2020 was both a time of devastating upheaval and one of rapid innovation…It’s time for civic innovators to catch their breath and take stock of what they’ve achieved and how it’s moved their cities forward” — Bloomberg Cities

Like many cities around the United States, the City of Kansas City, Missouri has confronted devastating health, economic, social and fiscal emergencies throughout 2020. In August, the City Council authorized a hiring freeze, employee furloughs and 4.5% budget cuts to most city departments (2.25% to public safety departments). More budget reductions…

Since mid-March, ETC Institute has assisted the City of Kansas City, Missouri in administering four surveys to better understand the varied impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for our residents. The latest survey, conducted from July 12–16 online to a random sample of 302 KCMO residents (margin of error +/- 5.9% at 95% confidence interval) captured the perspectives of residents as a second wave of COVID-19 cases within the City was becoming a heightened concern.

In the March survey, 2% of residents said that they knew someone personally who had tested positive for COVID-19. This number increased to 29% in April…

June 19th marks the three-month anniversary of the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s emergency employee teleworking program. Like many cities and organizations around the world, the past three months have been a high-stakes experiment in sustaining operations via a remote workforce.

Kansas City had zero teleworkers when Mayor Quinton Lucas declared a state of emergency on March 12th, 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a little over a month, 20% of the City’s 4,500 person workforce were registered to telework.

KCMO’s leadership faced a whole new set of questions with over 900 employees suddenly working from home with…

Last week, DataKC surveyed the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s work from home employees for the third time (find info here about the first and second surveys).

As discussed in our last post, the previous survey established a bi-weekly rhythm of surveys. This frequency allows us to add to our respondent base (we have been working in parallel to make sure our telecommuting employees are on the registered list) as well as add new questions that dig deeper into the work from home experiences of our employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. …

In late March, ETC Institute began surveying people on a national, regional and local basis to understand their experiences and perceptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Kansas City, Missouri, this initial random sample survey of our residents provided us with important insights and feedback about government services at a point in time when the initial response to the crisis was just unfolding.

Fast-forward to late April, the COVID-19 pandemic has now unfolded in a major way. KCMO, like many local governments, has taken significant steps to prevent and slow the spread of the virus, including a stay-at-home order that began…

As the COVID crisis continues, we are learning more about how our city government staff in Kansas City, Missouri is responding to our emergency telecommuting policy. In a previous post, we outlined our process for deploying a survey to hundreds of employees who found themselves suddenly working from home. Based on lessons learned from administering and analyzing that first survey, DataKC has collaborated with management staff to better define telework procedures and understand ongoing needs of employees.

Evolving Process Design

• Surveys are being sent every other week while the city’s stay-at-home orders are in effect.
• Each survey will have a…

The City of Kansas City, Missouri resident survey is much loved by city operations managers, policy wonks, and data nerds (like those of us in DataKC), because it helps us understand resident satisfaction with city services, their top priorities, and how these perceptions relate to demographics and other operational data. While resident opinion is not the only factor in changing city policy or programs, it’s always useful for us to be aware of where the public stands. …

If your city government is anything like ours, we went from nobody working from home to a few hundred over the course of just a week. DataKC was asked to survey this group of employees to get their feedback on what is working and what is not. We hope that this post is helpful for those who are trying to understand and support newly remote workforces.

Survey Method

We decided to email a Microsoft Form to survey employees for a few reasons.We are more familiar with Google Forms and Survey Monkey, but Microsoft forms had a few advantages that we like.

Pros…