Adee Athiyaman, Thebe Magapa
Abstract
The American Customer Satisfaction Index suggests that citizens are dissatisfied with services in their communities. Since one’s commitment or loyalty to a community depends on one’s evaluation of the community, it is essential that communities gauge resident satisfaction with public services such as garbage removal. This paper constructs a county-level public service satisfaction index for rural Illinois – counties with less than 50, 000 people. The satisfaction index is then employed to optimize public-service resource allocation. Results suggest that to maximize resident satisfaction, counties should spend 41% of their budgets on education, 12% on public safety, and around 32% on health-related welfare.