Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 21, 1993                   TAG: 9312210089
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MIKE HUDSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM LEFT OUT OF STATE BUDGET

However, Wilder recommends that three other Roanoke-based programs - the Art Museum of Western Virginia, Center in the Square and the Science Museum of Western Virginia - continue to get the same state funding they received in 1993.

Under Wilder's budget plan, the transportation museum - which received $110,000 this year - would get no funding from the state's general budget in 1994 or 1995.

The same thing happened last year: Wilder left the transportation museum out of his budget. But Roanoke Valley legislators pushed through an amendment for $110,000.

Two Roanoke delegates, Democrats Clifton Woodrum and Victor Thomas, said they expect the transportation museum again will end up back in the state's budget.

"We'll just have to put in another amendment," Woodrum said. "It's second verse, same as the first. . . . I think the Transportation Museum is a crucial part of what we have here in Roanoke."

The museum had been hoping for a $200,000 appropriation from the state in 1994.

"We would be happy to receive $110,000 again," Kay Houck, the museum's executive director, said. "We'd be happy with any support from the state."

Under Wilder's proposal, these programs would get the same funding in 1994 and 1995 as they did this year: Art Museum of Western Virginia, $65,000; Center in the Square, $161,915; and Science Museum of Western Virginia, $178,978.