
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 6, 1990                   TAG: 9003062229
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION, WILDER CONFER

Gov. Douglas Wilder met Monday with the state's congressional delegation, seeking a closer relationship and help in improving the state's fiscal health.

"We have no plans to increase our taxes," Wilder said as the meeting got under way. "We've had to scale back programs, defer initiatives and trim some more."

But when the legislative session ends Saturday, the budget will be balanced, he said, and the state will have set aside money to pay for previously unfunded projects in the second year of the budget.

Republican Sen. John Warner warned that defense cuts next year could affect the state's economy. But, Warner said, Virginia "is better positioned as a state to take the blow" because more of the state's military complex is research-oriented.

"I'm going to give him a very pragmatic view about the available funds from Uncle Sam to the state," Warner said.

Democratic Sen. Charles Robb said the meeting represented an opportunity for the state and federal representatives to match priorities.

The state's entire congressional delegation attended as well as the cabinet secretaries and several state senators and delegates. The meeting, Wilder's first with the delegation as governor, was closed to the news media.

Wilder said it was too early to discuss what benefits could come from a so-called "peace dividend" resulting from defense cuts, his spokeswoman Laura Dillard said.

The group agreed there will be no peace dividend this year and that there's a question as to whether the funds will be used to pay for social issues or to cut the deficit, she said.

She said one concern was that the $10 billion federal highway trust fund be used for road work instead of other areas such as offseting the deficit.

Another concern was the increasing number of federally mandated programs the state is responsible for with no federal funds to foot the bill, Dillard said.

"They all agreed to do as much as they possibly could to garner as many funds as they possibly could," she said.

"We went away with the feeling that there will be a consensus in the Congress and the state house to lobby for funds."

by CNB