Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 23, 1994 TAG: 9412230131
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They urged their state lawmakers to restore proposed funding cuts to Virginia Tech, Radford University and area museums. The governor's suggestions for "penny-wise, pound-foolish" cuts in income and business license taxes should be killed, they said.
"Southwest Virginia, and Roanoke in particular, is taking the brunt of the governor's political ambitions," developer Dave "Mudcat" Saunders told a group of political, cultural and business leaders at a morning news conference outside the First Union Tower.
"We've opened the [Christmas] packages. All we have is switches and lumps of coal," Saunders said.
The Allen administration argued that Western Virginia will benefit under the budget plan because the governor has proposed adding $20 million next year to programs that will bring jobs to the state.
"The whole thrust of this budget is to stoke the flames of economic development in this state. ... What Southwest Virginia and Roanoke have been demanding is more attention to economic development, and that's what we feel we've given them," Budget Director Robert Lauterberg said.
Regional resentment was stirred by the governor's budget announcement on Monday.
Allen has proposed cutting a program important to the Hotel Roanoke Conference Center, the city's major economic development project. And Education Secretary Beverly Sgro justified canceling Radford University's much-ballyhooed New College For Global Studies by arguing there is little international activity in Western Virginia and it's doubtful there will ever be.
"I guess they think we should grow things and shut up," Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke, said on Tuesday. "I'm not going to put up with that kind of an attitude."
The Republican governor has proposed slashing $400 million from the 1995-1996 state budget. The savings would allow $140 million in income tax and business license tax cuts and a start on an ambitious prison building program.
It also would slice spending for higher education. Virginia Tech would lose $13.3 million. The state would save $2.4 million by axing Radford's College for Global Studies.
Allen's proposal cuts state funding by half to a variety of museums and cultural centers. Center in the Square, which has highest attendance of any museum in the state, would lose $156,000 next year. The Virginia Museum of Transportation would lose $50,000 and Explore Park $200,000.
"Of course there were some tough decisions made in the budget. But [programs] had to be prioritized in order to pay a tax cut to every working Virginian and to eliminate the gross receipts tax on business, which is very harmful to economic development," Lauterberg said.
The speakers at the news conference offered only a smattering of evidence that the cuts would have a harsher impact on Western Virginia than on other areas of the state.
G. Baker Ellett, a Cabinet aide in the Wilder administration, said proposed reductions to some Richmond-based museums are proportionately far smaller than cuts to cultural attractions here.
For example, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond would lose between 5 and 20 percent of its current state funding next year, he said.
Even in tourism development, an area the governor would beef up by $3 million, Western Virginia would get the shaft, said Saunders, a member of the Governor's Travel Services and Tourism Advisory Board.
"For every $9 that comes in, $8 [would be spent] east of Route 29 and $1 goes west of [U.S.] 29," he said.
Others questioned whether major cuts in the state budget are needed at all - except for Allen to fulfill political promises of $2 billion in tax cuts over the course of his four-year term.
"Virginia has a balanced budget. There's no crisis in the commonwealth at the present time," said Roanoke Mayor David Bowers.
Thursday's protesters also said Virginia's tax burden on citizens is not so high that huge tax cuts are needed. Virginia ranks near the bottom of all 50 states in total tax burden on its citizens, and hasn't increased income or sales taxes for more than 30 years, Saunders said.
Bowers called the promised cuts in income and business levies "political plums of the season that are enticing to everyone. But the reality of it is, it's going to impact negatively on the people of Virginia and the progress of Virginia," he added.
by CNB