Finance Committee reviews Kaine’s proposed cuts

A General Assembly budget-writing committee, taking its first public look at Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's proposed budget reductions, found little to dislike today.

But state Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, whose Senate district includes Brunswick County, objected strenuously to a proposal to shut down the Brunswick Correctional Center. She even extracted a promise from the state's Secretary of Finance to attend a town hall meeting in Lawrenceville to explain why the state targeted the prison. The prison employs 300 people, half of whom will be laid off.

"Brunswick County is not like Northern Virginia," Lucas told Richard D. Brown. "You can't go down to the other end of the county and find a job."

Speaking to the Senate Finance Committee, Brown stood his ground.

The Department of Corrections has been good at finding jobs for other laid off prison workers, he said, noting that a number of prisons are in nearby counties.

"If you don't change this, I won't be able to drive down Route 58 anymore," complained Lucas, who lives in Portsmouth at the eastern end of the lengthy district. The route extends through large parts of Lucas's 18th senatorial district, including Brunswick County.

Lucas found an ally in Sen. Janet D. Howell, D-Fairfax, who complained that local officials had been given only last-minute notice about the planned closing.

Brown told the committee that state revenue collections continued to lag in August and he foresaw little chance for a rebound until the first quarter of next year, even though the economy appears to be pulling out of the recession.

Because of declining tax revenues, Kaine earlier this month projected a budget shortfall of $1.3 billion for the two-year period ended next June 30. To make up that deficit, Kaine proposed a series of cost-cutting steps. They include the shutdown of the prison in Brunswick and another in Botetourt County, cutting aid to higher education, using federal stimulus funds, layoffs of 593 full-time workers, a day of unpaid furlough and suspending for one quarter the state's contribution for employees to the Virginia Retirement System.

The Finance Committee took a close look at the VRS measure, but gave little hint at how the legislators will react to the proposal when the General Assembly convenes in January. Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, chairman of the committee, said he has received more questions about this than any other Kaine proposal.

The state pays employees' contributions to the retirement fund. Kaine has proposed suspending these payments for a quarter, to produce savings of $104 million. Employees groups, who have gone without a pay raise for two years, say they plan to fight the proposal.

With highway funds declining, Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, told Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer that VDOT should be putting more money into local road and bridges construction.

Homer said revenue reductions of $4.6 billion over the next six years have forced the state to seek federal highway funding rather repair or build secondary roads.