Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 25, 1991 TAG: 9103250025
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
By tapping trust funds, Gov. Douglas Wilder and the legislature are avoiding tougher choices that would cut agencies further and result in more permanent savings, lawmakers said.
"There isn't a fund that was sacred," said Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville.
Wilder this year found about $1 billion without raising taxes or cutting deeper into General Fund state spending by taking huge sums from such sources as the lottery and the highway construction trust fund to the Literary Fund.
A portion of the funds, set up for purposes as diverse as aiding volunteer rescue squads, paying for law enforcement on inland waterways and recycling tires, are being used instead to make up for Virginia's $2 billion budget shortfall.
For example, Wilder proposed and the General Assembly agreed to take $175,000 from Virginia's Waste Tire Trust Fund. The fund comes from a $1 tax established on new tire sales to keep old tires out of landfills by establishing ways to recycle them.
Wilder's plan tapped $400,000 from Virginia's "Two for Life" fund, which was set up to aid rescue squads by adding $2 to the cost of a driver's license.
The budget took $1.2 million from boat license fees out of the state's game protection fund. The money was targeted for building boat ramps and enforcement on inland waters until Wilder decided it was needed more to fight the massive deficit.
UVa students pay $568 a year to cover athletic and student health and other activities fees. Every state college is forfeiting a portion of its student fees.
In addition to increasing tuition by double-digit amounts next year, the tapping of fees is taxing students to pay for the state's deficit, UVa officials and area lawmakers said.
"If it were a private company, this would be embezzlement - taking money out of trust funds," Del. George F. Allen, R-Charlottesville, said Friday.
Wilder said last week that the one-time transfers from various funds outside the state General Fund would not be paid back.
Wilder's biggest transfer is $552 million from lottery proceeds that had been designated for state building projects. Tapping three years of lottery proceeds leaves Virginia years behind in its schedule to finance new construction.
"I just don't ever recall so many dedicated trust funds having been hit," Allen said. He said lawmakers set them up them for specific purposes and never would have enacted them if their purpose had been to fill the state's General Fund.
Other transfers include nearly $9 million from the college building authority, $88 million from the state Literary Fund and $49 million from the U.S. 58 corridor development fund.
Virginia's 1990-92 General Fund budget had been set at $13.4 billion last year and now is about $12.4 billion. That is 5 percent larger than the state's last $11.8 billion biennial budget.
by CNB