Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995 TAG: 9502230064
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: BRIAN KELLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Originally introduced by Del. Jim Shuler, D-Blacksburg, both bills were wrapped into other legislation. Both now await consideration by the governor.
Neither measure was particularly high profile, though the School Board salary bill caused some feather-ruffling last month among board members.
The first, House Bill 2250, which the Senate approved Wednesday, would clear up a technicality in state law that forbids one regional authority from joining another. It would allow the newly formed Montgomery Regional Solid Waste Authority to join the New River Resource Authority in its plans for a new landfill in Pulaski County by the late 1990s.
The Montgomery authority, formed in December, is composed of the county, Blacksburg, Christiansburg and Virginia Tech. It is to take over control of the Mid-County Landfill from the Montgomery County government by July 1.
The New River authority is composed of Pulaski County, Radford and the towns of Dublin and Pulaski. The merger effort has been in the works for more than a year and more work is yet to be done.
The bill, introduced by Del. Clarence Phillips, D-St. Paul, makes it clear that if an authority was created with the intention of joining another, no further approvals from the individual authority members will be necessary. That means the Christiansburg and Blacksburg town councils and the Montgomery Board of Supervisors won't have to vote on the plan again.
The measure on school board salaries, House Bill 1429, wrapped Montgomery in with the authorizations for raises in Fauquier, Washington and Westmoreland counties. Del. W. Tayloe Murphy Jr., D-Warsaw, introduced it. The Senate gave its final approval Monday.
The bill would authorize salaries of up to $3,600 a year for Montgomery School Board members. That would double the current $1,800 a year.
The bill is only an authorization. Before any pay raise could take place, the School Board would have to vote for it and the Board of Supervisors would have to agree to fund it. Montgomery School Board members last received a raise in 1984.
Several School Board members questioned the bill last month when Chairman Roy Vickers revealed he'd asked the Board of Supervisors to endorse it in a private conversation with supervisors' Chairman Larry Linkous. The board members questioned Vickers' unilateral action, but an effort to rescind the pay-raise request failed by an 8-1 vote.
Meanwhile, a bill that would grant an exception for Blacksburg's Warm Hearth Village to the state's moratorium on the issuance of certificates-of-need for new nursing home beds still awaits Gov. George Allen's signature. He has until Friday to accept or reject the bill.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB