At a time when the state's economic projections are rosy but rising fuel and housing prices are pinching the average resident, tax relief could be an area of prime focus when Gov. Linda Lingle delivers her State of the State address today.

The governor has proposed returning $300 million of a $574 million budget surplus to taxpayers and has promised details of her plan in the speech to be given before the state Legislature at 10 a.m.

The annual State of the State address — required at the beginning of each legislative session — is a chance for the governor to discuss statewide issues and introduce new initiatives for lawmakers to consider.

Some Hawai'i residents have their own ideas about what the governor needs to support to improve prospects for residents across the spectrum. They see a state where children need more comprehensive healthcare, public school students and teachers need goals they can achieve, workers need home prices to be within reach and the elderly need assistance paying long-term healthcare costs.

John Hart, assistant dean of communication at Hawai'i Pacific University, expects the economy to be the central issue in Lingle's speech. "Isn't it always?" he said.

Rising housing prices make prospects especially grim in a tourist-based economy, when many jobs are in the service industry, Hart said. "Where are the service workers supposed to live in an economy where the average house is $700,000?"

Fresh water, transportation and other sustainability issues also need to be addressed, especially since a rise in tourism and the Stryker brigade bound for Schofield Barracks this year are bringing more people into the state. In addition, "we have the perennial concerns like education that we give lip service to and don't seem to get anywhere on," Hart said.

She thinks the community needs to address issues in education before a ripple effect is felt throughout the state. If students can't feel good about themselves at school, Pollack said, she fears they will turn to drugs or crime.

Pollack sees a big problem in the state's standardized tests, which to her seem out of line with national tests. She noted that 169 of the state's 282 public schools earned a spot on the Stanford Achievement Test Honor Roll, but of the 120 schools on O'ahu so honored, 41 percent were unable to meet the state's own academic standards in the Hawai'i State Assessment.

"We need to really review the assessments, when they are administered, at what levels, and also look at alternatives and hybrids," she said.

Pediatrician Keith Matsumoto would like to see the governor address children's health issues.

While the state is already working toward getting every child insured, he sees further steps the state can take to improve the general health of children and save money on costly medical expenses.

Matsumoto, president of the Hawai'i chapter of the American Pediatric Association, would like to see the state adopt a home healthcare model with community-based medical care from a primary doctor.

Too often patients only visit a doctor on an "episodic basis," heading to a clinic or the emergency room as needed, he said. Immediate problems are treated, but long-term ones, such as obesity, can be missed with this kind of fragmented care.

"It's real important that we support this one-tiered system, where all children are covered, all have an identified medical 'home,' which I think would lead to prevention, holding the cost down and really creating a more gratifying relationship between the patient and doctor," he said.

On the other end of the health spectrum, Deborah Jackson, founder of Eldercare Hawaii, wants to see the state pay more attention to its aging population, of which almost half have an income of less than $15,000 a year.

"We have a large segment of the population who can neither pay for care nor do they qualify for government assistance either financially or by virtue of the care they need," she said.

She has heard of promising initiatives to provide tax credits for long-term care insurance and attempts to provide for long-term care services.

But, she said, "we still have our heads in the sand when it comes to realizing how this 'age wave' will affect every single aspect of our island society, all of our communities and our workplaces."