THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, June 5, 1995 TAG: 9506050029
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONY WHARTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
If Gov. George F. Allen and Republicans in the legislature think Virginians are in a cut-spending mood, they may want to look at a new survey showing many residents are willing to increase spending on schools and drug abuse prevention.
The fourth ``Quality of Life'' survey by Virginia Tech researchers paints a complex picture of Virginians, not easily labeled liberal or conservative.
Some of the survey's key findings:
Consistent with past years, 87 percent consider the state a good or excellent place to live. But just 57 percent felt it was a good or excellent place to find a job, and 54 percent said Virginia is a good or excellent place for reasonably priced housing.
Slightly more than half said the state is not spending enough on grade schools, and 48 percent said it is not spending enough on drug abuse prevention. Fewer than 5 percent of those surveyed thought the state was spending too much on either of those.
Yet the number of Virginians who think too much money is spent on prisons continued to climb from previous years, rising to nearly 24 percent in 1995.
Almost 82 percent of Virginians want Congress to increase the minimum wage, 76 percent want a national balanced-budget amendment and nearly 70 percent support a woman's right to an abortion.
Researchers noted that many of these issues received similar responses across the state, in urban and rural areas.
``I don't think you're surprised when there is a difference, but most of the time you do not find it,'' said Deborah Strickland, deputy director of Virginia Tech's Center for Survey Research.
The issue that split the most between the ``urban crescent'' and central and western Virginia was prayer in the schools, where more rural Virginians wanted it than urban residents.
The survey results matched in many ways the things that citizens have said in informal conversations sponsored by The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star during the past year. They were not scientific samplings. But in different parts of the state, people have repeatedly said they want more money spent on education, drug abuse treatment and social programs that would tend to reduce crime.
As recently as last week, a group of Fairfax residents, both Democrats and Republicans, said the governor and the legislature are wrong if they think taxes need to be lowered or spending cut.
Those Virginians said they would even agree to higher taxes if they knew the money would be spent on grade schools and colleges.
The Virginia Tech survey also found complex views on crime and the death penalty.
In answer to a question on the death penalty, nearly 80 percent of Virginians said they supported it for convicted murderers. But when asked about life imprisonment, with no parole for 25 years and the requirement that the prisoner send money to victims' families, 57 percent supported that alternative.
Strickland said she senses in the survey that Virginians are somewhat less anxious about crime than in years past. For instance, 38.9 percent felt crime is increasing in their community, but that figure has steadily dropped since 1992, when it was 47.6 percent.
``That might have something to do with wanting to shift the money to things that are preventive in nature, rather than incarceration,'' Strickland said.
Virginians are moving quickly into the 1990s, based on several lifestyle questions in the survey.
For example, 46.5 percent of Virginians have a personal computer at home, which is ahead of the national average, and 41 percent of those computer owners use modems to connect with other computers.
Nearly 77 percent of all Virginians also reported that they recycle.
The survey of 807 Virginians was conducted in March and April. ILLUSTRATION: "QUALITY OF LIFE" SURVEY RESULTS
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
SOURCE: Virginia Tech
KEYWORDS: SURVEY by CNB