THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 14, 1996 TAG: 9607120033
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: OPINION
SOURCE: Margaret Edds
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 81 lines
Paul Timmreck recalls February 8, 1991, as the kind of day that sends chills down a bureaucrat's spine.
Still a tenderfoot secretary of finance, he and a small group of state money officials flew to New York that day to defend the commonwealth's fiscal integrity to major bond-rating companies.
In the aftermath of the hastily arranged excursion, which came as Virginia was sinking into recession, Standard & Poor's assigned the Virginia economy ``a negative outlook.'' The firm did not mess with the commonwealth's precious AAA bond rating, however.
Score one for fiscal integrity in the Old Dominion. - and for a bureaucrat who since 1990 has helped inspire confidence in Virginia government on Wall Street.
That war story and others come to mind these days as the lanky numbers-cruncher who has served as fiscal chief in the Cabinets of two governors heads for a new challenge at Virginia Commonwealth University.
VCU's gain is a loss for the rest of us.
Timmreck is the sort of apolitical public servant who, in the long tradition of Virginia government, has steadied the ship of state through rough political seas.
His departure raises questions about how long the tradition can continue in a state where partisanship has evolved from dalliance to passion.
If it cannot, that would be one more reason to re-evaluate Virginia's quaint practice of limiting governors to one consecutive term. No other state bestows that encumbrance on its chief executive.
While there are attractive features to the arrangement (governors don't have to spend their terms running for re-election), there are also limitations. Chief among them is the lack of continuity at the top.
When men and women in key government posts span administrations, it matters less if there's a new face in the governor's suite every four years. If the top layers of government are politicized, as they have been increasingly in recent years, it matters more.
On the fiscal side, for instance, it may be difficult for financial officers who've resisted tax cuts in one administration to justify them in another. Timmreck faced such pressures as he moved from Democrat Doug Wilder's administration to Allen's.
Humdrum revenue estimates and dull debt projections suddenly take on explosive overtones when budget debates intensify. Demands to make a case rise.
Timmreck himself could testify to that truth, were he not too circumspect to do so. In the 1995 General Assembly, when Gov. George Allen was proposing to remake Virginia government with a $2.1 billion tax cut, Democratic tempers flared. Some in the party leadership accused Timmreck of selling out.
``I did not agree with that,'' counters former Senate Finance Chairman Hunter Andrews, who worked closely with Timmreck when he served as the committee's first professional staff director from 1979 to 1982. ``He was doing his duty. He's a straight arrow.''
Still, there are Democrats who believe Timmreck's departure partly reflects the fact that he is too linked to a Republican administration to survive another change of party at the top.
For his part, Timmreck dismisses memories of the political battles with a wry grin.
Recalling the pell-mell race from Wilder's recession crisis to Allen's ``revolutionize-government'' juggernaut, he quipped, ``I get a perverse satisfaction'' out of adversity. ``My dad would say that builds character.''
In an interview, Timmreck refused to reveal his personal opinion of the most controversial element of his tenure, the failed Allen tax cut. ``I prefer to remain silent on that issue,'' he said.
But he described his philosophy as public servant this way: ``Nobody elected Paul Timmreck to office. They elected a governor to office. . . . I best serve that governor as an honest broker to help him or her achieve their priorities.''
Quickly taking the conversation back to safer territory, Timmreck offered parting thoughts on Virginia's award-winning financial management. Virginians are well-served, he said, by the ongoing accuracy of our revenue forecasts, by a debt-capacity model that guards against excess borrowing, by the constitutional requirement for a rainy-day savings fund.
Such nuts-and-bolts talk is what Timmreck knows best. It's where he's comfortable, and it's the reason Virginians can only hope there's a grey-suited clone waiting in the wings. MEMO: Ms. Edds is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB