Panels’ budget plans unsettled
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Capitol Talk: Virginia's Budget
The General Assembly money committees roll out competing alternatives to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's share-the-pain budget-balancing plan. Uncertainty surrounds both because of the steep recession and...
P. KEVIN MORLEY/TIMES-DISPATCH
Senate Finance Committee member Walter A. Stosch (R), right, confers with Sen. William C. Wampler, Jr. (R). At far left is Sen. R. Edward Houck (D).
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Budget differences, similarities
Here are some differences and similarities in the House of Delegates and state Senate budget-balancing plans:
Mental health—The House would authorize state treatment for another 400 mentally retarded Virginians. The Senate would not expand the pool of those eligible.
The House favors continued operation of the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton and the Southeastern Virginia Training Center in Chesapeake.
The Senate would delay closing the Chesapeake center but would cut funding by 50 percent for the facility in Staunton and the Southwestern Virginia Mental Health Institute in Marion. The House provides no funds for the Marion center.
Medicaid—The House increases Medicaid funding for nursing homes by 1 percent. The Senate cuts it by 3 percent for nursing homes, doctors and dentists but raises it by the same amount for personal-care aides.
Prisons—The House rejects the Kaine administration proposal to allow early release of some nonviolent inmates. The Senate would expand the proposal somewhat, relying on home incarceration and electronic monitoring.
Higher education—The House embraces a new policy that would require colleges that now have 30 percent of their undergraduates from out of state reserve at least 70 percent of their future increased freshman enrollment for in-state students.
Virginia Military Institute, Norfolk State University and Virginia State University would be exempt.
The Senate would not change the ratio but would set slightly higher fees for out-of-state students.
Tuition—The House and the Senate do not include caps on tuition at public colleges and universities. The Senate includes an additional $4 million in financial aid.
K-12 education—The House and the Senate give local school systems the option of not buying textbooks in the second half of the two-year spending cycle.
Both favor limits on support staff at public schools, a proposal the Senate says could save $368 million.
Pay raises—Neither the House nor the Senate provides pay raises for state employees, saving $164 million. Both help workers with health-care costs. The House adopted an early-retirement plan for teachers.
Rainy-day fund—The House and the Senate rely on a $500 million drawdown from the state’s rainy-day fund as well as $100 million from stepped-up collections of sales-tax revenues from the biggest retailers.
Reserve funds—The Senate, in identifying $85 million in new funds, sets aside $44 million as a reserve. The House comes up with $243 million but reserves only $65 million.
Published: February 9, 2009
Virginia lawmakers are rewriting Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's share-the-pain budget-balancing plan, relying -- in part -- on money they don't have.
The House and Senate money committees yesterday afternoon unveiled competing proposals -- fraught with uncertainty because of the recession and a pending handout from Congress -- to erase a shortfall that is expected to swell beyond the current $3.2 billion when January revenue collections are tabulated.
Del. Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, acknowledged the question marks, calling it "a halftime budget."
For the Richmond area, the two packages are a mixed bag.
Neither increases state-worker salaries. Both include a new criminal-justice training center in Hanover County. The Senate, however, would close a juvenile prison in Hanover. The House wants to merge Richmond's aviation museum with a similar facility in Hampton.
The Senate is recommending, in effect, a hiring freeze for state police by postponing two training sessions for prospective troopers.
Complicating the budget process -- and perhaps pushing it beyond the General Assembly's scheduled Feb. 28 adjournment -- is uncertainty over how much money Virginia will receive from President Barack Obama's economic-stimulus package.
Robert Vaughn, director of the House Appropriations Committee, said Virginia stands to lose $800 million under the U.S. Senate's version.
Through communications director Lynda Tran, Kaine warned legislators not to rely on funds from Washington for long-term needs, particularly with the state likely facing additional declines in tax collections.
The House panel adopted its version of the budget without debate, 23-0.
As Kaine did when rolling out his version of the budget in December, both committees looked for savings in programs that previously were spared, including public education and health care for the poor.
In addition to shuffling dollars to pay for their priorities, both committees fell back on bookkeeping gimmicks to generate additional funds.
By cutting here and finding new revenues elsewhere, the House was able to add funding for K-12 education, higher education, public safety and mental health. It also set aside $65 million in a reserve fund to prepare for more bad budget numbers.
Though they take different approaches, the House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees rely on a one-time burst of $100 million that would come through stepped-up collections of sales tax from the biggest retailers.
Senate Minority Leader Walter A. Stosch, R-Henrico, criticized that feature as "borrowing money against the future."
The Senate Finance Committee is made up of nine Democrats and seven Republicans; the vote on its version of the budget was 9-4, with three abstentions. Stosch and the other six Republicans on the panel, including Sen. John Watkins of Powhatan, abstained or opposed the panel's revisions to the two-year, $77 billion budget. Both committees also are depending on an amnesty program next year that would allow Virginians to pay back taxes without penalty, possibly generating $36 million.
Senators clashed sharply over the loss of an additional $155 million, through higher state cigarette taxes, to close a hole in Medicaid, which underwrites health services for the poor.
The tax increase, proposed by Kaine, was killed for the year in the Finance Committee on a largely party-line vote last week.
Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, said the defeat forced spending cuts elsewhere to prevent deeper reductions in Medicaid.
Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, accused Democrats of using the proposed doubling of the tobacco tax as "bribery and extortion" to protect funding for health care.
Putney, the leader of the House Appropriations panel, noted that he has been in the General Assembly for 47 years.
"I must say this has been one of the most challenging of any of them," he said.
As usual, the Sunday budget sessions drew a horde of lobbyists who lined up in the hallways to get summaries of the two budgets.
Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or
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Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or .
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Reader Reactions
Try this book keeping gimmick. How much did we get last year (income) That is how much we spend this year. done complete finished. No guessing/no slight of hand/no guessing involved. If we don’t get enough income we don’t spend. sound hard to do, just ask any family in Virginia how they do it.
‘bookkeeping gimmicks’—They have written a budget dependent upon money they don’t have which in turn is dependent upon money the federal government doesn’t have either. The bottom line is the people with the money (us) end up paying for it all either in state or federal taxes. This is a cute way to make an end run on the state constitution’s mandate that we must have balanced budgets in Virginia.
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