ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 15, 1997 TAG: 9701150099
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Sen. Jack Reasor said Tuesday that even though he will sponsor Gov. George Allen's bill to cut the unemployment tax paid by businesses, he has not decided whether he will support it.
Reasor, D-Bluefield, said he agreed to carry the Republican governor's bill ``to get the issue on the table.''
Reasor is chairman of a joint legislative subcommittee that oversees the state's unemployment insurance trust fund. He stated repeatedly during a meeting Tuesday that the panel's mission is to maintain the integrity of the fund.
That means making sure the fund does not have either too little or too much money, he said.
Virginia has $900 million in the fund, enough to pay four years of unemployment claims at the current jobless rate. Allen says the state can reduce the tax without jeopardizing unemployment benefits.
``I'm not prepared to say whether the amount in the fund is too much,'' Reasor said after the subcommittee's meeting.
The panel heard from John Taylor, director of a conservative think tank that first raised the possibility of a tax cut.
``Virginia's fund has reached a fairly significant surplus,'' Taylor said. ``There's no need to continue to watch the fund grow at the level it's growing.''
In the last fiscal year, the state collected $322 million from employers through a special tax and paid $214 million in unemployment benefits.
Administration officials have said Allen's proposal could save employers tens of millions of dollars over the next six years. They have not pinpointed a more specific figure.
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