Va. Senate stalls on budget; House approves its version

The Virginia Senate, led by Democrats' "no" votes, on Thursday failed to pass its version of Gov. Bob McDonnell's two-year, $85 billion budget.

The vote was 20-17 on Senate Bill 30. To pass, the budget requires 21 votes — a majority of the 40 elected senators.

The move, for now, leaves the legislature with one budget document to consider — the House version that delegates passed easily Thursday on a bipartisan 79-21 vote.

In the Senate, all 20 Republicans voted for the budget, and all Democrats present at the time of the tally voted against the bill — the outgrowth, it appears, of refusal by Republicans to share power in the evenly divided chamber.

"I think we've already given (Democrats) a great deal," said Sen. Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City, the Republican leader.

He said he would be willing to continue discussions on policy decisions and budget amendments "morning, noon and night." He added: "We are not prepared to have any discussions at this time about the politics. That decision has been made."

Sen. A. Donald McEachin, D-Henrico, chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus, dismissed suggestions that the Democrats' refusal to support the spending plan was strictly about power sharing. He said the Senate budget contained cuts that would put 4,500 people out of nursing homes.

"You can't expect us to fund a budget that takes money out of public schools in the form of a tax credit and sends it to private schools, not when we're funding education on a per-pupil basis at levels lower than we did in 2007," he said.

Senate Republicans spent much of the afternoon meticulously going over Democratic amendments to the budget, and after discussion, approving them — an apparent gesture to demonstrate that Democrats had plenty in the document to like and to deter claims that the budget failed to address some of the Democrats' concerns.

But Democrats held firm and denied passage of the spending plan.

McDonnell said in a statement that "essentially, with their vote today, (Senate Democrats) appear to have put committees ahead of communities. This is not the Virginia way."

He added that in the next five days, before the House version of the budget reaches the Senate floor, "I ask my friends in the Senate Democratic Caucus to express publicly what specific issues they have so that a timely, balanced, fiscally responsible Senate budget may be adopted next week."

While Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a Republican, has cast tiebreaking votes on some legislation, he issued a memo in which he interprets the Virginia Constitution as not allowing him to do so on the budget.

The House of Delegates advanced a spending plan that includes a McDonnell-proposed provision to divert more of the state's sales tax to transportation.

It's a troubling aspect of the bill for Democrats who object to funneling money to roads that would otherwise go to the general fund to pay for things such as public schools and police.

"I think that the 'no' votes were not super-hard 'no' votes, but we are very concerned about the diversion of the sales tax from human services and education to paving roads," said Del. Mark D. Sickles, D-Fairfax. "VDOT has a $5 billion-per-year budget. This adds 1 percent."

Under the House plan, the increased contribution would shuffle nearly $95 million to roads over the two years.

The House's fiscal plan restores millions in cuts in McDonnell's introduced budget to public education and the health care safety net and opens new slots for community-based care for residents with disabilities.

It includes a 2 percent pay raise for state workers if revenue estimates are met, but members junked a request by McDonnell to ask state employees to contribute an additional 1 percent of pay toward their retirement.

On the floor Thursday afternoon, members agreed to partially restore regional salary supplements for school support staff in Northern Virginia and to give funding to research programs at several universities.