Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 4, 1993 TAG: 9301040046
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TEACHERS' ISSUES MAY TOP HEARING
Strap on your kneepads; the General Assembly is coming to Roanoke to invite your begging and groveling over this year's state budget.Be prepared to stand in line behind some schoolteachers.
Eleven members of House and Senate money committees will hold a public hearing at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Virginia Western Community College.
There won't be a whole lot to talk about, this being just the time for midterm adjustments to the two-year budget adopted last spring.
Most of the $242 million available for spending in 1993 already has been swallowed up by schools, prisons and Medicaid, but Gov. Douglas Wilder has recommended some changes that might pique your interest.
Tops on that list is that state employees and college faculty should get a 2 percent pay raise in 1993, while public school teachers get zero. Wilder reasoned that teachers have received raises from their localities in the last few years while other state employees have gotten nothing.
That doesn't sit well with teachers' groups, which dominated the first two hearings in Northern Virginia and Harrisonburg and are expected to be prominent at the three remaining - on the Peninsula, in Roanoke and in Richmond.
Other topics include:
Wilder's plan to set up a $30 million "rainy-day fund" for unforeseen expenses. A constitutional amendment doesn't require this until 1995, but the governor wants to beat the deadline.
Because of tight finances, Wilder wants the state to keep $20 million in taxes on real estate sales that were supposed to be returned to localities. That would cost Western Virginia a little more than $1 million.
The governor also suggests spending $104 million to build three new prisons.
Expect sympathy from the senators and delegates on some of these issues. The Senate Finance Committee, for example, already has talked about finding some funds for the teachers.
There's no need to hold back. The legislators are in town and it's your money.