September 18, 2007

Study: citizens support human services funding
Significant support found in telephone poll

Video of Press Conference

By Applied Information Resources, Inc.

Cincinnati residents overwhelmingly approve the City of Cincinnati’s long-standing policy of financial support for human services. Ninety-four percent of the city residents who took part in a recent telephone survey said that it is “very important” or “somewhat important” that the City provides funding for these services (70.9% very important). In addition, eighty-seven percent of the survey participants favor the practice of spending a portion of the City’s general revenue on human services either “strongly” or “somewhat” (53.4% strongly favor).

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Conducted by the University of Cincinnati’s Institute for Policy Research, these survey questions were part of the Institute’s Greater Cincinnati Survey that took place this June. Representatives from AIR, Inc. and interested non-profit organizations and local human service agencies worked with Institute staff to develop a series of questions focusing on human services and the City of Cincinnati’s policy of supporting them with tax dollars. Beginning with the submission of the 2005 City budget, Council has cut the percentage of dollars traditionally allocated for human services (1.5% of the general budget) , and the question arose whether residents cared about city government’s funding of these services and whether they were aware of the City’s reduction of support.

Although the survey showed overwhelming support for the City’s funding of human services, only 36% of the residents surveyed said they had heard “a great deal” or “some” about the budget cuts. Over 34% said they had heard “not much” about the human service funding reductions, and 29% reported no knowledge of this change. These percentages indicate that a majority of residents possess scant to no information about the City’s shift in policy. Nevertheless, 62% of the survey respondents who indicated that they had heard “some” or “a great deal” about the reductions declared their strong support that a portion of the City’s general revenue go to human services.
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A more detailed review of the answers to the human service questions includes specific information about the diverse Cincinnati residents who participated in the survey and the different responses according to age, race, gender, education, and income. The Greater Cincinnati Foundation provided a grant to pay for the cost of the human service question component of the Greater Cincinnati Survey, and Applied Information Resources received the grant and worked with the Institute of Policy Research and human service representatives to refine the questions and promote this research.

For more information, visit http://www.airinc.org. Applied Information Resources (AIR, Inc.) is a 501 (c)(3) not-for-profit agency.

editors@queencityforum.com

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