Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993 TAG: 9302050186
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BONNIE V. WINSTON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
LEGISLATORS TARGET MONEY FOR TEACHERS
A slight improvement in the state's economy is expected to generate $40 million in additional taxes lawmakers can apply toward a pay raise for public schoolteachers, several House money-committee members said Thursday.The additional money also may at least partially preserve Gov. Douglas Wilder's proposed $30 million "rainy day" fund. Some lawmakers had seen the fund as a way to satisfy two priorities among members of legislative money committees: teacher raises and the restoration of funds Wilder proposed to cut from public libraries and the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service.
But efforts to shift to local governments $20 million in state taxes on real estate sales may get caught up in a late-developing fight, several lawmakers suggested.
The House Appropriations and Senate Finance committees have until midnight Sunday to finish work on the revised 1993-94 budget. Each chamber must act on its version of the budget by Thursday.
New revenue estimates to be used in refiguring the budget will be announced this morning at a news conference called by Wilder.
The governor's office was mum Thursday about the projections. Wilder was expected, however, to brief the chairmen of the money committees beforehand.
The extra money is little more than a drop in the bucket to state lawmakers, who have submitted requests for more than $1.6 billion in new spending.
Some expect that the "rainy day" fund still may be raided to meet some of those requests; Wilder has urged its creation as a hedge against a new economic downturn.
"Schoolteachers are our mandate," said Appropriations Committee member Del. Earl Dickinson, D-Louisa County, who noted that it would take up to $17 million to grant schoolteachers 2 percent raises, effective in July.
"What happens to the balance depends on whether you consider the sun to be shining or is it a rainy day," Dickinson said. "We're hoping to give $3.4 million to the extension program, $4 million to libraries and $1 million to tuition assistance grants" for students in public colleges.
In $241 million worth of budget amendments Wilder proposed, more than half was targeted to whopping demands in the state's prisons, public schools and the Medicaid health program for the poor.
The governor also recommended 2 percent pay raises for state employees and public college faculty and staff, effective in December. But he allowed nothing for schoolteachers, whom he claimed have been getting raises and benefit increases steadily from their local governments.
Wilder also proposed cutting, by 50 percent, aid to the more than 300 public libraries in Virginia. And in budget hearings around the state, lawmakers were told that more than 60 extension agents were likely to be laid off if Wilder's proposed cuts to that program took effect.
He also proposed deferring until after 1994 a long-promised pass-through to cities and counties of $20 million in taxes on real estate transfers.
Several delegates said Thursday that returning that money to localities may be caught up in a fight for additional funds for improvements to U.S. 58.
Southside lawmakers are expected to try to block return of the tax money if other funds aren't found to back a second round of bonds for the road improvements.
Rural support for the real estate tax switch in the late 1980s was tied to Northern Virginia's support for the road across Southside.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1993