Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210574
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
The spending plan also would cut state agency budgets by another $104 million to help close a $2.2 billion gap in state revenues.
Those spending cuts could lead to more layoffs or furloughs for some state workers.
"It's left up to the agencies," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hunter Andrews of Hampton said after he and the five other budget negotiators emerged from several hours of secret meetings.
The legislators handed out a one-page statement about the compromise between House of Delegates and Senate budget plans. They gave few other details to reporters.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Ball Sr. of Henrico said the compromise gives Wilder the reserve he sought. It also requires that Wilder use the reserve to avoid further spending cuts or layoffs if tax revenues continue to decline through the summer.
Wilder has threatened to veto the budget if it does not include a $200 million reserve fund with no strings attached.
Wilder also had sought authority to force the state's 100,000 employees to take up to 15 days unpaid leave over the next 16 months. State workers have been angry about the plan and legislators refused to go along.
The budget restores $45.8 million in state aid to education, includes another financial aid to public and private colleges of $12.6 million and keeps state employee health insurance benefits at their current level.
A plan to increase welfare benefits was dropped, said Del. Earl Dickinson, D-Louisa.
The Senate budget had proposed cutting the reserve to $100 million.
Sen. Howard Anderson, D-Halifax, said the bigger reserve was established through the deeper agency spending cuts and increasing the price of RF&P Corp. stock that the state plans to transfer to its employee pension fund.
The compromise proposes that the Virginia Retirement System pay nearly $49 a share for the stock. The House and Senate plans had proposed $38 and $43 a share.
Each $1 increase in the price of a share would raise about $3 million for the state, Anderson said.
In other General Assembly action, a bill that would give police more power to enforce the state's seat belt law appeared headed for a conference committee.
The House voted 81-17 Wednesday to reject the Senate's attempt to revive the bill. A Senate bill allowing police to ticket a seat belt violator without first stopping the motorist for another offense was rejected last week by a House committee. The Senate revived the bill as an amendment to a House bill making seat belt violations a traffic offense.
"I feel like an innocent victim of a legislative mugging," said Del. Robert Harris, R-Fairfax and sponsor of the bill.
The bill will go to a conference committee if the Senate insists on its amendment.
The House voted 56-41 to kill a bill increasing the penalty for giving guns, switchblades or Bowie knives to children. The Senate bill would have changed the penalty from a $250 fine to a maximum of a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
A bill expanding the law barring guns from school property cleared the Senate by a 29-8 vote. Current law applies only to people who carry guns. The bill would allow prosecution of people who store guns in school lockers or transport them onto school property in their vehicles.
Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg, said that "over the last 20 years, I would have been guilty not dozens of times, but hundreds of times under this bill" because he carries hunting weapons in his truck.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
by CNB