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Continued from page 1 housing, the number of volunteer organizations, opportunities for politi- cal participation and with cultural and arts offerings. · Public and leadership re- spondents were least satisfied with job opportunities, assistance for the eco- nomically disadvantaged and crime prevention. In both groups, about one- fourth were very satisfied with the quality of education. · Community leaders and the pub- lic differed on a series of public policy choices that measure willingness to shift spending priorities within key categories. Some of these differences may surprise readers of this report. · Leaders and the public agreed that education and jobs are the top two priorities for improving the quali- ty of life for the community, although leaders made jobs their number one priority, while the public placed the greatest emphasis on education. · The quality of life for children and senior citizens in the metropolitan area was rated higher by leaders than by the public. COMMENTARY: The Business Since the early 1970s, First Bank System has sought to identify and understand our communities' most pressing needs. We enlist our corporate resources, including professional community affairs staff and employee volunteers. We talk to our colleagues in govern- ment and non-profit agencies. We publish these quality of life trend reports. And we examine our lending and purchasing programs, charitable giving and business relationships in relationship to community needs. In short, we make knowing our communities our business. By providing a snapshot of where we are today and a view over time, this report can help leaders and citi- zens draw conclusions about future needs and priorities. This report seeks to examine the quality of life here. How are Tv,in Citians affected by trends such as the aging of our cities and inner ring sub- urbs; the ever-v, qdening marketplace for labor, services and ideas; the gray-' lng of the population? It is not surprising to learn that in our metropolitan community, both leaders and the general public ranked education as their highest priority. W-hile 29 percent of the public say they of Community are very satisfied with the quality of education, only 10 percent say public schools do an excellent job of prepar- ing children for the future. Public spending priorities for education are challenged, though, by the increasing cost of human services. In approaching the issues outlined here, we advocate taking a thoughtful, long-term approach to gain deeper community understanding and con- sensus. Answers must be based on innovative and creative thinking rather than short-term "survival" solu- tions. Success in improving our quali- ty of life, we believe, will depend on how well we involve and integrate the ideas of many sectors of the popula- tion. We will be using the information in this report to help us shape our com- munity responsibility activities over the next several years i.ncluding our lending, grantmaking and volunteer efforts. Our hope is that this informa- tion will also be useful to others in the private and public sector as ways to set community priorities. l Policy Choices Asked to consider public policy choices that would provide more money for certain programs at the expense of other programs, general public respondents were much more likely to approve these priority shifts than were leadership respondents.* · Community leader respondents included: appointed government offidals, 34 percent; elected government officials, 25 percent; govern- merit staff, 13 percent; business executives, 13 percent; civic/non-profit executives, 15 percent. PERCEPTIONS: Policy Choices General Public ~ Community Leaders To pay for special instruction for learning disabled students by reducing dollars spent uniformly on all students To pay for medical research leading to discoveries benefitting us all at the expense of ~unding comprehensive health insurance to assure affordable medical care for everyone Agr~ To pay for programs that increase convict-ions and detection at the expense of programs aimed at prevention To pay for emergency food, shelter, and health services for the poor by reducing funding for job training programs To favor a trade-off towards attracting companies and jobs by relaxing rigorous environmental ~~~~ standards To build a new mass transit system at the expense of the existing infrastructure To pay for more local museums, art galleries and theaters to reach more people instead of funding more neighborhood recreationalsports facilities PAGE 2