ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 12, 1996 TAG: 9604120075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
NOTE: Lede
Roanoke Valley Democrats are crying partisan politics in the wake of Gov. George Allen's budget vetoes this week.
Two of his four line-item vetoes of items in the state's1996-98 budget eliminate funds destined for the Roanoke Valley.
They are:
$3.2 million in direct funding for Virginia CARES, Virginia Community Re-Entry Systems Inc., an inmate readjustment program based in Roanoke.
$950,000 for the College of Health Sciences in Roanoke.
$50,000 for Rusco Windows Co. Inc. to help the Roanoke County company defray the cost of moving to a new factory.
The second and third items were contained in one budget amendment and therefore could be eliminated with a single veto.
"Sounds like the governor may have had his sights set on budget amendments that had Dick Cranwell's name on it," Del. Richard Cranwell, D-Vinton, said Thursday. "It's the worst kind of politics, the kind that's making everybody in Virginia mad. It's political gamesmanship."
The budget items that Allen vetoed late Wednesday had been sponsored by Cranwell, who is House majority leader.
"This is nothing more than a personal vendetta by the governor against Dick Cranwell," said Del. Clifton "Chip" Woodrum, D-Roanoke. "I think it's petty. No other governor has stooped to this level."
Ken Stroupe, Allen's press secretary, said Cranwell's patronage of legislation "doesn't mean the governor is obligated to support it."
"The bottom line was that these projects were siphoning money out of a job creation fund for pork-barrel spending that was not at the top of the governor's priorities," he said.
In addtion to his four line-item vetos, Allen vetoed nine bills and amended 160 others. The General Assembly will reconvene Wednesday for a one-day session to consider the governor's vetoes and recommendations.
A veto override takes a two-thirds vote in each chamber.
Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, while expressing some surprise at the vetoes, declined to call them an issue of "Roanoke vs. the governor."
Funding for the College of Health Sciences - a private college for training health-care workers - was a hard sell under the economic development label, Griffith said. And the Virginia CARES veto meshed with the philosophy of the governor's staff - "to have everything competitive," he said.
"I think the governor's staff was concerned that to allow [the college funding] to go through without some discussion would set a bad precedent and allow other private colleges to apply to the state for money under economic development as opposed to education," Griffith said of the College of Health Sciences' funding request.
The college's funding was identified in the budget, along with the $50,000 for Rusco, as money to assist Roanoke and Roanoke County "in retaining major employers."
In a memo to members of the House of Delegates outlining his reasons for the vetoes, Allen wrote that "neither of these expenditures can be justified on economic development grounds. We should guard against diverting limited resources which could otherwise be leveraged to create much more significant investment and many more new jobs."
The $950,000 - to be spread over two years - was to help the College of Health Sciences become independent of its parent, Community Hospital of Roanoke Valley. Community decided to get out of ventures not directly related to providing patient care.
The college has been unable to find a new partner since it learned last spring that the hospital will stop an annual subsidy of $350,000 after 1997. The state money would have allowed it to operate at its current level.
Last month, the college held a surprise "Thanks a million!" reception for college President Harry Nickens to celebrate the General Assembly's passage of a budget that included the $950,000 and a gift of land in West Roanoke County from American Electric Power Co. for the college's new home.
Thursday, Nickens was gearing up for a campaign to override Allen's veto. His secretary, he said, was preparing envelopes that will carry his letter to legislators appealing for preservation of the $950,000.
Gubernatorial vetoes rarely are overidden in Virginia.
Still, "it's not over," Nickens said. "We have overcome a number of obstacles and challenges before. We'll deal with this one in a constructive way."
"My philosophy is 'If you close this door, I'll open another. If you close both doors, I'll come through the skylight or the sunroof'."
About $350,000 of the college's annual $4 million budget comes from Community. A year ago, the hospital said it would continue the subsidy only through May 1997.
While Nickens was disappointed at the veto, Lin Edlich, director of Virginia CARES, said Thursday that she was "furious" at Allen's action.
"I've never ever experienced this kind of partisan game that would affect the lives of so many people, low-income people," she said. "He spouts welfare reform, and yet he does not support those programs making welfare reform work."
Virginia CARES is a 20-year-old program that provides education, counseling, and services in employment, housing and family and community relations for an estimated 3,000 offenders and ex-offenders in 31 prisons and 16 communities.
Allen had proposed to "de-fund" Virginia CARES and transfer its funding - an annual $1.3 million - from the Department of Criminal Justice Services to the Department of Corrections' Division of Community Corrections.
The General Assembly's budget preserved the $1.3 million for each year of the biennium and added another $1 million.
With Allen's veto, Virginia CARES would remain under the Department of Criminal Justice Services but would have to bid for funding along with other community corrections endeavors - day reporting centers, electronic monitoring and boot camps, Edlich said.
"The problem is we have no funding past June 30," Edlich said. "We wouldn't even be in business to be able to compete for this funding.
"The requests for proposals may be let July 1. But they will not let the funding until we go through the bidding process, which could take three to four months."
In his memo to members of the House of Delegates, Allen wrote that the funding for Virginia CARES "singled out a particular organization to receive a noncompetitive grant for pre-release and post-incarceration services to prison inmates. Virginia CARES "and any others offering the needed services should be afforded the opportunity to compete on a fair and equal basis" for funding.
Rusco, which last week moved into a new factory at Valley Techpark industrial park, had hoped to defray some of the factory's costs with the $50,000 in state money.
"If this [money] is something that is taken back, it would certainly impact us," President James Brock said Thursday.
Brock had not been notified that Allen vetoed the money. If that is true, he said, the plant will put the 75-employee company further in debt. It is too late to scrub or scale back the new plant because it already is operating, Brock said.
Staff writers David Poole and Jeff Sturgeon contributed to this story.
THE GOVERNOR'S VETOES
Gov. George Allen exercised his line-item veto to eliminate several proposed spending items from the state budget - three of them intended for programs based in the Roanoke Valley. He vetoed other bills outright.
Here are the highlights of what he did:
Vetoed provision forcing Allen to apply for $6.7 million in federal Goals 2000 education money if two-thirds of local school boards request it.
Vetoed $950,000 for the Roanoke-based College of Health Sciences.
Vetoed $50,000 for Roanoke County to for economic development.
Vetoed $3.2 million for the Roanoke-based Virginia CARES program, which assists released prisoners return to society.
Vetoed bill that would have allowed state employees with more seniority to displace, or ``bump,'' employees with less seniority in the event of layoffs.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The General Assembly reconvenes on Wednesday for its one-day "veto session." It takes a two-thirds vote in both houses to override the governor's veto. In practice, the legislature rarely overrides gubernatorial vetoes.
LENGTH: Long : 152 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Gov. George Allen\Has it in for Cranwell? color. KEYWORDS: GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1996by CNB