Brown U. Poll: Taveras approval rating hits 60% in Providence

WPRI.COM

Ted Nesi

Updated: Sep 26, 2012 10:42 AM

Brown University is out with a new poll of Providence residents that shows first-term Mayor Angel Taveras is gaining popularity in the city.

Taveras’s approval rating is 60% among city voters, up from 47% a year ago, according to the new poll. The mayor’s fellow Democrat President Obama is even more popular, with a 68% approval rating in Providence. The telephone survey of 425 registered city voters was conducted Sept. 13 to 22 by Brown’s Taubman Center. Its overall margin of error is plus or minus 4.7 percentage points.

Taveras is doing significantly better than his predecessor David Cicilline was toward the end of the previous mayor’s second term. Cicilline’s approval rating was 41% in Brown’s September 2009 poll of city voters, down from 62% in an October 2006 survey.

Providence voters remain concerned about the city’s finances, with 86% characterizing its budget problems as serious or very serious, basically unchanged from a year ago. On pensions, nearly two-thirds of voters said they were aware of the issue. About the same share said retirees, current workers and future workers should share the burden of fixing the problem and also that city employees should switch to a 401k-style plan.

Other ideas were less popular: raising the retirement age (46% support, 44% oppose); raising health insurance co-pays (42% support, 46% oppose); eliminating cost-of-living adjustments (49% support, 35% oppose). As for the pension deal Taveras and retirees struck last spring, 45% of voters were satisfied with it and 21% were dissatisfied, while 24% chose neither option.

Providence’s economy remains a concern, with 82% of voters calling it not so good or poor. Voters were split on the city’s overall direction, with 38% saying it’s going in the right direction and 37% saying it’s off on the wrong track. Only 23% of voters said their families are better off financially now than they were a year ago.

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