THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040301
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PORTSMOUTH LENGTH: Long : 109 lines
They came looking for raises for college professors and court clerks.
More money for social services and the arts.
But more than anything, they wanted books. More free books.
About a dozen residents and officials lobbied legislators Wednesday to increase funding for local libraries, calling them society's great equalizer and citing Thomas Jefferson to help the cause.
They were among roughly 80 residents who outlined their financial wish lists to members of the Senate Finance and House Appropriations committees at a 3 3/4-hour budget hearing at Willett Hall.
The meeting is one of a handful to be held across Virginia within the month to get public comment on Gov. George F. Allen's proposed budget for the 1996-98 biennium. The General Assembly will convene Wednesday to begin considering the plan.
Allen has not proposed cutting the libraries' budgets; he wants to keep current funding levels, but supporters urged the legislators to increase state funding.
``I'm speaking for ordinary people, the ordinary people who use the libraries,'' said Erna Benjamin, a resident of Gloucester. ``We need libraries to educate, inform and even to entertain.''
Don Booth, a Smithfield resident, said the libraries provide the only economical way to satisfy his wife's ``six-book-a-week habit.''
``Thomas Jefferson said, `I can't live without books,' '' Booth said. ``. .
Steve Story, chairman of the board of trustees of the Norfolk Public Library, said that, with previous budget reductions, ``our collection has been cut drastically in the last five years.''
Story said the country needs libraries well stocked with books and computers to avoid ``breaking down into a two-class society - one of information-haves and one of information-have-nots.''
Several of the speakers gratefully noted that, unlike Allen's previous budget and those of his predecessor, L. Douglas Wilder, this year's plan avoids deep cuts. ``It is, indeed, the most positive state education budget since I've been here,'' Portsmouth school Superintendent Richard D. Trumble told the 10 legislators.
Even so, speakers asked for more funding in some areas and the elimination of cuts in others:
Education. Timothy J. Sullivan, president of the College of William and Mary, and Arthur A. Diamonstein, rector of the Board of Visitors at Old Dominion University, lobbied for more money for faculty raises. Allen's budget provides no raise this year and a 5 percent increase in 1997.
Sullivan said William and Mary now ranks among the bottom third of similar schools in terms of faculty salaries. It ``has fallen to the 27th percentile of its peer institutions with regard to faculty salaries; the figure, I'm embarrassed to say, is 14 percent for entering faculty members. . . . Simply put, we cannot provide the best by investing the least.''
Gino Canale, director of academic services at Norfolk State University, made a special pitch for his school: ``At this point, we are 3 1/2 million dollars behind other comprehensive universities in the state (in per-student funding). That needs to be taken care of.''
For public schools, Shirley George, president of the Education Association of Norfolk, a teachers association, pushed for more money for teachers, who would get an average 3 percent raise in 1997 under Allen's plan. The average teacher's salary in Virginia - $33,998 in 1994-95 according to Virginia Education Association - is about $3,000 under the national average, she said.
Trumble also questioned Allen's proposal to spend $23 million to create new standardized tests to better gauge students' abilities. That money, he said, might be better spent on materials to help teach kids.
Health care and social services. About a half-dozen employees of Manning Convalescent Home, a Portsmouth nursing home, criticized Allen's plan to cut 35 percent of the state's support for ``specialized care'' in nursing homes.
The program was intended to avoid the higher costs of acute care in hospitals. The Allen administration says it hasn't been as economical as expected, but Robert Manning, the administrator of the nursing home, said the cut would force Manning ``to reduce staff, and we will be compelled to be more selective in admissions.''
Melinda Boone, chairwoman of the state Association of Community Services Boards, which offer a range of services including mental health and substance abuse counseling, worried about Allen's plan to cut $7 million in state aid to the boards, replacing that money with Medicaid funds. The state, Boone said, should be allotting more, not less, to social services. Already, she said, the association reports more than 10,000 Virginians on waiting lists for services.
The arts and public broadcasting. A handful of speakers sought more money for arts groups. Barney Annas, chairman of Virginians for the Arts, said Virginia ranked 55th out of 56 U.S. states and territories in per-capita arts funding, outperforming only Texas. ``This is shameful,'' he said.
John Keeling, an ODU business professor who is vice chairman of WHRO's board of directors, complained about Allen's proposal to cut half the funding for public broadcasting by the end of the two-year biennium. The General Assembly turned back a similar proposal last year.
``We're at a loss to understand his rationale for reducing educational technology resources, especially those available through public radio and television,'' he said.
Among the other items sought by speakers: improved pay for voter registrars and court clerks, and a state-funded group to help train parents of austistic children. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
VICKI CRONIS/The Virginian-Pilot
Del. Robert B. Ball, left, outgoing chairman of the House
Appropriations Committee; Del. Alan Diamonstein, and Del. J. Paul
Councill Jr. listen to a speaker at Wednesday's budget hearing in
Portsmouth.
by CNB