Des Moines Sun

The City of Johnston was honored during its Feb. 21 meeting for winning the Leading the Way Award from the ETC institute for 2022.

Jason Morado, vice president and director of community research from the ETC Institute, joined the meeting via Zoom to talk about the award and the results of a community survey the institute does each year. The survey measures residents’ satisfaction with the quality of city services, customer service, and value received from taxes and fees in the city. A maximum score of 100 was possible in each of the three categories, and it was based on surveys of more than 400 cities.

"When we conducted the City of Johnston's community survey last year, not only did you rate above the national average in all 41 areas that we assessed on the survey, but you also rated in top 10% of all communities across the country in those three core areas that I mentioned," Morado said. "So therefore, the city of Johnston is a well-deserved now-two-time winner of the Leading the Way Award. So once again, graduations to the mayor, City Council, City manager and all City staff on your outstanding accomplishments. This really is an award that everyone should be proud of."

The average score of cities across the survey was 176 points. Johnston’s score was 236 out of a possible 300, 60 points above the national average and in the top 10%, Morado said. The City also won the award in 2020.

"You know, we know that we have a great community here," Mayor Paula Dierenfeld said. "We know we have wonderful residents here. And we know that, you know, our staff does an incredible job of providing services to our residents. We're always proud when we get the survey results back. And so many of the results show us in the 80 and 90 percentile, some of them as high as 97 percentile in terms of the services that we provide."

Dierenfeld noted that the award is a "great representation" of City staff as well as "the great quality of service that they provide to our residents."

She added that the City Council "develops great policy to provide those services to our residents" and in support of the staff.