Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 17, 1992 TAG: 9202170126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE and GREG SCHNEIDER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
ASSEMBLY BILLS BOOST SPENDING
The Virginia Senate would spend about $100 million more than the House of Delegates, most of it to help poor school districts, under separate budget plans advanced Sunday by their respective money committees.The Senate Finance Committee reduced Gov. Douglas Wilder's $28 billion, two-year budget by $57 million, including cuts to some of his health care initiatives for the poor and the young, and then recommended spending about $215 million more on various programs. About half of the extra spending is for education and would be paid for by a proposed tax increase for the wealthy.
The House Appropriations Committee was kinder to Wilder, but its increased spending of about $96 million includes less for education than does the Senate proposal. Without the money from the Senate's tax on the rich, the House paid more attention to restoring some small but popular programs Wilder had cut.
Both budgets would restore partial funding to local libraries, the Virginia Tech Cooperative Extension Service and state tourism advertising. They also would resurrect the Virginia Commission for the Arts, which Wilder had proposed reducing to a shell, and continue contributions to public television.
"It is not our desire to be pallbearers at the funeral of Big Bird," said Sen. Stanley Walker, D-Norfolk; Sesame Street and other shows had been threatened by Wilder's planned cuts in aid to public TV stations.
But Wilder's new child health initiatives didn't fare as well. The Senate and House committees scrapped his plan to provide health insurance for poverty-stricken babies, saving about $4 million.
Wilder also proposed extending Medicaid to cover all low-income children under age 18; it now covers those aged 10 and under. The House approved the proposal, but the Senate lowered the age limit to 14, saving $11 million. Medicaid is a government-backed health insurance program for the poor.
For the second year in a row, the committees devised a scheme to get money out of the state employees' retirement fund to help in tight budget times. This year, the extra money will be used to cover a 2 percent pay raise for state employees on Dec. 1.
The state makes payments toward each employee's retirement and invests that money to create the Virginia Retirement System. By finding a way to inflate the value of the system's assets, the committees decreed that the state doesn't have to contribute as much new money to keep the fund afloat.
The House said it could save $88 million that way, and the Senate figured a more conservative $47 million. That money would cover only one year of a state employee pay raise; for the second year, both committees proposed an innovative program that would offer pay raises to employees with cost-saving ideas. State employees haven't had a raise since July 1, 1990.
Public school teachers wouldn't get a raise in either proposed budget. But the Senate set aside more than $115 million for new education programs, including $41.6 million in additional aid to local school systems over the next two years.
Another $51.1 million would go to local school systems based on the number of students in the federal free lunch program. Senators say the money will help address the problem of disparity in spending between the state's rich and poor school systems.
But rural legislators say it could cost $500 million to put all schools on an equal footing.
If that's the case, the House budget falls even shorter, dedicating only $17 million to localities based on participation in the free lunch program. The House would spend another $16 million on grants for maintenance and construction programs.
The two chambers could be headed for a showdown because the Senate's generosity in education is tied to $106 million it expects to raise by increasing to 6.25 percent the tax rate for Virginians with a taxable income of $100,000 or more. That proposal has uncertain prospects in the House.
The new retirement system accounting and tax bills already approved by at least one house provided more than enough money to close a $60 million budget gap left by the defeat of Wilder's plan to put a new tax on doctors, hospitals and nursing homes.
The House and Senate plan to vote on the budgets Thursday. After that, senior members of each chamber will get together to put together a compromise spending plan in the final days of the session.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY