Va. finance chief meets Senate critics on budget

Gov. Bob McDonnell, branded by Democrats as missing in action in Virginia's budget crisis, dispatched his fiscal team to a private session yesterday with Senate critics -- themselves divided over ways to erase a $4.2 billion shortfall.

Sen. Charles J. Colgan, D-Prince William, chairman of the Finance Committee, said he "didn't learn very much" during the 1½-hour meeting with Secretary of Finance Richard "Ric" Brown and two other administration officials about McDonnell's plans to balance the recession-wracked budget.

Brown did not return an e-mail seeking comment on the meeting with members of Senate budget-writing panel.

Sen. L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said she left the session fearing that McDonnell would consign cash-strapped local government to tougher straits. Lucas added, "It sounds like the biggest shell game I've ever heard."

Asked if he heard anything new from Brown about McDonnell's intentions, Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, replied, "Nope."

The Finance Committee's Democrats are split over further reductions in education and health spending, which McDonnell has signaled are unavoidable, while Senate Republicans are insisting that the budget preserve $950 million a year in car-tax relief.

While Colgan struggles to close those fissures, McDonnell's allies in the Republican-controlled House are rallying around a budget plan that could include possibly tapping into the fund that manages nearly $1 billion that Virginia received under a national settlement between the states and tobacco companies.

One scenario under discussion: using about $100 million from the account to support the improvement of U.S. 58, a transportation project prized in tobacco-rich Southside.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford, is anticipating at least $200 million a year in savings under his legislation that could reduce retirement benefits for new state and local employees.

However, the Virginia Retirement System estimates that the proposal would save only $22.1 million in the first year of the two-year spending cycle that begins July 1, and $52.7 million in the second.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or .

Staff writer Michael Martz contributed to this report.