Home
PROVIDENCE - Rhode Islanders would much prefer the reinstatement of a 40-hour workweek for state employees, a cutback in public employee pension benefits and government shutdown days to some of the other proposals under discussion for closing the state's massive deficit, including local aid cuts and layoffs.
At least, that was the finding of a Brown University public-opinion survey that also found Republican Governor Carcieri's job-approval rating sinking to a new low of 34 percent.
The poll measured the depth to which Rhode Islanders are concerned for their own financial well-being and the state's; uncovered the stunning fact that two-thirds of those surveyed say they have a friend or family member who recently lost their job; and gauged the lengths to which people feel their public officials should go to eliminate the state deficit.
For example, Carcieri's emergency budget-repair bill for this year hinges, in part, on a $74 million mid-year cut in non-school aid, including the one-year suspension of a decades-old revenue sharing program.
He has also proposed a $40-million cut in school aid that was supposed to match the local savings he anticipated from cutbacks in teacher pension benefits, but actuaries have since warned the state that his projections may be optimistic.
Against this backdrop, the latest Brown poll found: a vast majority (72.5 percent) of Rhode Islanders are opposed to raising the income tax for anyone except the highest-earners and firmly against slashing either municipal aid (60.9 percent) or school aid (71.3 percent).
The poll did not ask where the public stands on a proposal from Carcieri's tax-study group to actually cut income taxes and do away with the corporate tax in the hope those moves will bring more jobs and businesses to Rhode Island.
More people than not (50.5 percent to 37. 5 percent) oppose Carcieri's bid to drop a requirement, adopted in the wake of a fatal school bus accident, that every school bus run have a bus monitor to watch out for the safety of children getting on and off the buses. The proposal was one of several the governor included in his local aid package, at the request of the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns.
But with so many feeling personally threatened or touched by job losses, those for and against state employee layoffs in this economy were evenly split: 41.5 percent for layoffs, 42 percent against.
A much clearer majority (63.9 percent) favored stretching the state employee workweek from 35 hours to the more traditional 40 hours. Close to two-thirds believe the state should replace the increasingly costly defined-benefit pension plan that most public-employees across Rhode Island have today with a 401(k) style plan.
But they were more divided on whether to eliminate the 3 percent guaranteed annual pension increases for these retired public employees, with 46.4 percent supporting the repeal that Carcieri has proposed, 40.5 percent opposed and others unsure.
The survey, conducted between Feb. 7-10 by Brown's Taubman Center for Public Policy, was based on telephone interviews with 451 randomly selected registered voters. It has a potential plus-or-minus margin for error of 4.6 percentage points.
There was no immediate response from Carcieri's office to the poll results, which found the job-approval ratings of most of the state's politicians dropping over the last year, including several of those hoping to succeed him in 2010.
A year ago, for example, 30 percent of those surveyed thought Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts was doing a good to excellent job. That number has dropped to 21 percent.
Similarly, Gen, Treas. Frank Caprio's approval rating has dropped from 40 percent to 34 percent, and Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch, from 50 percent to 47 percent.
The state's legislative leaders remain in the teens, with House Speaker William J. Murphy snagging a 14 percent approval rating, and new Senate president M. Teresa Paiva Weed, 15 percent.
In an interview today, Patrick Crowley, assistant executive director of the National Education Association, said what "leapt out'' at him was the number supporting an income tax hike for high-wage earners - 60.9 percent, and an increase in the state's recently reduced capital gains tax, 44.9 percent.
Referring to what has happened since lawmakers cut income taxes for the wealthiest Rhode Islanders on the premise that would spur the creation of more jobs here, he said: "I think people recognize that the economic policies we have tried in this state over the last decade haven't worked and it is time to try something different.''
He also questioned the savings to be had from moving all state workers to a 40-hour workweek, if they are paid more for working the extra hours, which he suggested was implicit in any such proposal.
As for Carcieri's job-rating plunge, Crowley, who doubles as the lead author of the advocacy blog Rhode Island Future, said: "People are simply responding to the lack of leadership he has shown as the economy has soured.''
The poll did not ask where the public stands on a proposal from Carcieri's tax-reform panel to do away with the state's corporate tax in the hope this move - and other tax cuts - would bring more jobs and businesses to Rhode Island.
In his State of the State address, he promised to submit "a new tax plan" to the General Assembly later this month, as part of his proposed budget for the year that begins July 1.
Carcieri did not provide details, but offered a broad outline, saying that the plan would "bring income-tax relief to all Rhode Islanders," phase out the state's corporate income tax and eventually eliminate Rhode Island's estate tax.
