Juneau -- Senate President Drue Pearce unveiled the preliminary results of a new public opinion poll today to Governor Knowles, the Legislature, and to the media. The poll asked Alaskans what they think are the important issues for the legislature to address this session.

"As I prepared to come to Juneau, I felt there was a real need to have timely information about what Alaskans statewide think are the important matters facing the state," said Senator Pearce.

Key findings in the poll show a strong public resolve to cut the budget and opposition to state employee pay raises. Support is strong for the use of general obligation bonds to finance construction and/or improvements for Alaska's primary and secondary schools, transportation infrastructure, and water, sewer and public health facilities. Most Alaskans give their schools an above average rating.

Senator Pearce's office received preliminary poll numbers and a summary late Wednesday. Moore Information based in Portland, Oregon conducted the poll.

The final documentation on the poll data will arrive later in the month. The executive survey and the poll will be available to the public at this web site: http://www.akrepublicans.org/pastlegs/.

• Executive Summary of Poll Responses
  
• Questions and Responses - 57 K
  (in Adobe Acrobat ".pdf " file format)

| Top | Senator Pearce's Page |

TO: Senator Drue Pearce

FROM: Bob Moore, Moore Information - Public Opinion Research

RE: Executive Summary of Voter Survey Results

This memo contains an executive summary of results of a survey conducted January 3-5, among a representative sample of 400 likely voters in Alaska. The potential sampling error is plus or minus 5% at the 95% confidence level.

Here are the key findings:

Most Important Issue

Alaska voters are concerned about state government spending. Indeed, when respondents were asked what issue they felt was most important for the Governor and state legislature to be working on, government spending was most likely to be assigned highest priority (by 39%). Others were most concerned about education (20%), jobs and the economy (18%), family values (7%), crime and public safety (6%) and protecting the environment (4%).

State Spending

There was other evidence of the electorate's concern about spending in the poll. For example,

• 57% support continued efforts to cut the state budget, while 34% believe the budget has already been cut enough and 10% have no opinion on this issue;
• 56% support, while 33% oppose continuing the state legislature's five-year plan to reduce the state budget deficit by $250 million;
• Governor Knowles' proposal to increase gas taxes by nine cents per gallon to pay for road maintenance is opposed by a 56-38% margin; and
• Voters support efforts by the state legislature to cut spending by privatizing some state government services by a 65-22% margin.

In addition to questions on spending, the survey covered a variety of other topics.

Negotiations with State Employees

Alaska voters oppose Governor Knowles' plan to increase pay and benefit levels for all state employees by a wide margin (66-24%). This reaction is due in part to the fact that only 11% of the state's voters believe state employees are underpaid. In addition, voters oppose pay and benefit increases, even after being informed that unions have threatened to strike. Further, if the Governor proposes pay and benefit increases for state employees, 69% want the Governor to force unions back to the bargaining table to renegotiate. Finally, on this issue, 72% of voters want all aspects of labor negotiations to be made public. Currently, negotiations between the state and state employee unions are kept secret until the final agreement is announced.

BP-Arco Merger

Most Alaskans are not positive about BP's proposal to buy Arco. Indeed, just 24% believe the merger would be good for the state, while 46% think it would be bad and 31% have no opinion. Further, the agreement the Governor signed with BP on the buyout is favored by just 23%, but opposed by 40%. The remaining 38% have no opinion on this issue.

Education

Turning to education, Alaska voters are positive about the schools in their communities. In fact, 47% give schools an above average rating, while 30% believe they are average and only 13% rate them below average. These grades are consistent with those from a 1999 national survey conducted by the Gallup organization, in which 49% rated schools above average, 31% rated them average and 14% rated them below average. Importantly, while there is no consensus about the major issue facing schools today, just 18% believe that additional funding is the best way to improve schools. At the same time, 72% believe that increased standards and better teaching would be more beneficial than additional funding.

Turning to teacher performance, teachers receive higher marks than schools in general. Indeed, 56% of voters give teachers above average ratings, while 24% believe teachers do an average job and 9% see teachers doing a below average job. However these high ratings do not translate into support for a pay raise for teachers. Just 18% of voters believe teachers in their community are underpaid. On another education-related issue, the issue of safety, schools in Alaska are considered safe by 87% of the state's voters.

Public Works Projects Are Popular

Alaska voters widely favor issuance of new general obligation bonds to finance a variety of public works projects.

• 70% support issuance of bonds for construction and upgrades to primary and secondary schools (24% oppose, 7% no opinion);
• 67% favor use of bonds for road, harbor and airport improvements (26% oppose, 7% have no opinion); and
• 67% favor issuance of bonds for water, sewer and public health facilities (24% oppose, 10% have no opinion).

Sell State Lands

More than two in three voters (67%) favor selling state lands to private individuals in order to promote resource development and raise additional revenue for the state (25% oppose this, and 8% have no opinion).

Subsistence

Finally, amending the state constitution to provide rural Alaskans with a subsistence hunting and fishing priority is favored by a 55-37% margin, with 9% undecided.