Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 13, 1990 TAG: 9003133413
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Why, the regular session of the 1990 General Assembly, now history, managed with Gov. Wilder to put together a $26.4 billion biennial budget that balanced. The governor and the legislature managed to do it without raising taxes; in fact, depending on your definitions, they cut a tax or two. And they came up with a $200 million contingency fund for the second year of the biennium.
Among the few legislators who didn't come away with a cozy feeling that all is well was state Sen. Dudley "Buzz" Emick, D-Fincastle. But Emick has this funny habit of saying what's on his mind; maybe other legislators simply weren't saying what they really thought.
Emick, a member of the Senate Finance Committee that (with House Appropriations) writes the budget, voted against it on the floor. If his pessimism about budget gimmickry and the legislature's reliance on optimistic revenue forecasts proves unwarranted, he said, then he can be chided in future years. But if they prove warranted, he said, he'll have the right to chide his colleagues.
We sympathize. We hope we're wrong. But to us, the budget work just completed doesn't look so marvelous. To us, it looks like a Band-Aid. Maybe an uptick in the state's economy will improve the state's fiscal health and the Band-Aid will suffice. But if no uptick is soon forthcoming, the 1990-92 budget passed on Saturday could make things worse.
A few particulars:
Higher education took a big budget hit. Higher tuition rates are supposed to help compensate. For a year or two, perhaps they can. Over time, though, reduced state appropriations could strangle the goose that lays the golden egg - that is, the academic reputations that enable Virginia's colleges and universities to command high tuition rates. And ultimately, a poorer system of higher education would stall one of the engines that has driven the state's economic growth.
During the session came news that even the massive transportation program initiated by former Gov. Gerald Baliles is proving too little to keep up with the state's needs. The governor and the legislature said we'll think it over. Wise caution, perhaps, but still not auguring well for the fiscal future.
The 1990-92 budget was balanced in part by dipping into a loan fund for school construction to the tune of more than $20 million, and even more deeply into anticipated lottery revenues, for items heretofore included in the general-fund budget. Necessary, perhaps, as an emergency measure, but hardly cause for satisfaction.
If the $200 million contingency for the second half of the biennium was a Wilder "victory," he can't afford many more. He called for a fund to meet unanticipated expenses; what he got was a fund earmarked for state-worker pay raises in the 1991-92 fiscal year. That left the state virtually without provision in case retired federal employees win a suit seeking repayment of back taxes paid by them. If they win, it could cost the state double the $200 million or more.
Even some of what was done right can be praised only with reservation.
In repealing the sales tax on non-prescription drugs, the governor and assembly at least had the sense to defer its implementation until July 1, 1992. It's not our favorite tax, but now wasn't the time to put its repeal into effect. Unless state revenues improve, however, the repeal could turn out to be a false promise.
A giveaway tax break for retirees, adopted at a special legislative session last year, was replaced by a less generous one. The replacement measure also has the virtue of greater fairness, by tying the break to amount rather than source of retirement income. Left unanswered, though, was another question: the justice of giving tax breaks to older Virginians that aren't available to younger Virginians with similar incomes.
Such a botch was made of a proposed solid-waste tax on business that its death may have been a blessing. But though the tax is dead for now, the environmental problems driving up the cost of solid-waste disposal remain very much alive.
A session that began in fiscal gloom ended in more harmony and good cheer, Emick excepted, than most observers had expected.
Sometimes, that's good. Other times, it means hard questions have been put off for the future, when all they are is harder.
by CNB