Gov. Bob McDonnell is anticipating a possible showdown today with returning lawmakers over his proposal to prune further spending to help troubled kids.
The Republican is recommending trimming an additional $10 million for services for at-risk youths. Over the past two years, because of the recession, the program has been cut by $86 million.
"There could be some debate over the health-care issues," said McDonnell spokesman J. Tucker Martin, declining to elaborate.
The General Assembly meets today to approve or reject McDonnell's proposed revisions to legislation passed this winter. He is recommending amendments to 122 bills as well as 96 modifications to the pending twoyear, $83 billion Virginia budget.
McDonnell did not veto any of the 821 bills sent to him from January to March -- a move that Republicans and Democrats interpret as a symbolic bow to bipartisanship by a governor who marks his 100th day in office Monday.
The so-called reconvened session could shape up as another test of the nascent administration's influence by testing McDonnell's sway over fellow Republicans who control the House of Delegates and his ability to pick off votes in the Democrat-dominated Virginia Senate.
Local-government groups, such at the Virginia Municipal League and Virginia First Cities, are pressing lawmakers to resist McDonnell on additional cuts to the Comprehensive Services Act for At-risk Children and Families.
The organizations, in memos to lobbyists and legislators, said the proposed cut would be a burden on cash-strapped localities and force them to make up the dollars they would lose from the state.
"To quote the robot in the old TV show 'Lost in Space,' 'This does not compute,'" said a Virginia Municipal League e-mail, adding that the proposed reduction allows "the state to waltz away from its commitments."
The McDonnell administration is proposing the cut, in part, to control spending on a program, the annual cost of which has ballooned from $100 million a decade ago to more than $300 million.
In the run-up to the session, McDonnell is getting a boost from old allies.
The Family Foundation, a conservative grass-roots organization, is urging the General Assembly to resist pressure from Planned Parenthood to reject McDonnell's recommendation to limit public spending further on abortion. McDonnell opposes abortion in nearly all instances.
McDonnell also proposed shutting down legislative ethics investigations of delegates or senators who leave the General Assembly but turning the cases over to the attorney general's office.
House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry, wants lawmakers to reject the recommended change to his bill, which grew out of a conflict-of-interest scandal that cost then-Del. Phillip A. Hamilton of Newport News his seat last year.
Armstrong said his measure, as originally written, would bring transparency to the ethics-policing process.
Hamilton, a Republican, was second-in-command of the House Appropriations Committee. He was tarnished by published reports that he secured state spending for an education program for which he was hired as a consultant.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com.
Staff writer Olympia Meola contributed to this report.
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