Civitas Poll: Support for Ending Membership Payroll Deductions

Raleigh, N.C. – Nearly half of North Carolina voters think the state should stop collecting membership dues via payroll deductions dues according to a new poll released today by the Civitas Institute.

Forty-six percent of voters said they think organizations should collect their dues directly from members.  Thirty percent of respondents thought organizations should continue to be able to collect dues through payroll deductions and 23 percent of respondents said they do not know or have no opinion.

Currently state statutes allow only certain organizations to collect membership dues via payroll deductions.  The state collects dues for the State Employees Association of North Carolina (SEANC) and the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE).  In April, Senator Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) introduced legislation (SB 727) that would eliminate the dues check-off option for active and retired school employees.  The legislation has passed the Senate and will be considered by the House later this week.

“It’s evident a high percentage of voters don’t like state government performing administrative functions for private organizations,” said Civitas Institute senior policy analyst Bob Luebke.

There is bipartisan voter agreement on this issue as Unaffiliated (52 percent – 17 percent), Republican (48 percent – 31 percent), and Democratic (42 percent – 36 percent) voters think certain organizations’ dues should be collected directly from members.

“State government needs to watch every dollar it spends.  Since no compelling reason exists for the state to provide administrative functions for private organizations, lawmakers should listen to the people and stop providing services and economic advantages to certain organizations. It makes no sense,” added Luebke.

The Civitas Poll is the only regular live-caller poll of critical issues facing North Carolina.  For more information on Civitas polling see http://www.nccivitas.org/category/poll/.

Full Text of Question:

“Currently North Carolina statutes allow only certain membership organizations to collect their membership dues via payroll deduction.  Some people want to end this practice and make the groups collect their dues like other membership or interest organizations. Do you think certain organizations should…”

Continue to be able to collect dues through payroll deductions – 30%

Have to collect dues directly from members like other groups – 46%

Don’t Know/No Opinion – 23%

Click here for full results and crosstabs.

*Sample Size: 300

This poll of 600 registered general election voters in North Carolina was conducted May 10-11, 2011 by National Research, Inc. of Holmdel, NJ.  All respondents were part of a fully representative sample of registered voters in North Carolina.  For purposes of this study, voters interviewed had to have voted in two of the past four general elections or were newly registered to vote since 2008.

The confidence interval associated with a sample of this size is such that: 95 percent of the time, results from 600 interviews (registered voters) will be within +/-4% of the “True Values.” True Values refer to the results obtained if it were possible to interview every person in North Carolina who had voted in two of the past four general elections or were newly registered to vote since 2008.

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