DATE: Tuesday, August 19, 1997              TAG: 9708190027

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial

                                            LENGTH:   58 lines

STATE NEEDS OSTRICH CAMPAIGNS

L.F. Payne may not have the right answers for Virginia, but in marked contrast to other candidates for state office, the Democratic contender for lieutenant governor has begun asking the right questions.

With less than three months to go until Election Day, the campaigns for governor of Republican James S. Gilmore III and Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. have turned into a contest to see who can promise the most personal-property tax relief. Gilmore is winning.

But all such promises are premised on wishful thinking - that economic growth will continue unchecked for years, creating huge budget surpluses that won't be required to meet new or existing needs.

State needs already exist that are going unmet. Payne has had the temerity to suggest that there's been too little discussion of ``investment in the years to come - particularly in the areas of work-force development, education and transportation.''

Anyone who has visited Virginia schools knows that the physical plant is crumbling. Virginia Beach, for example, has a backlog of dozens of schools in need of costly renovation or replacement. Statewide, it's estimated that $6 billion will be needed just to maintain buildings - let alone pay for the huge ongoing costs to bring technology up to date and keep it there.

Any employer who has tried to hire Virginia graduates is aware that students are leaving schools unprepared for the modern workplace. In an increasingly competitive global economy, the race is going to go to the cheapest workers or the technically most sophisticated. We can't compete for providing cheap labor with the Third World, therefore we must compete with the rest of the world on the basis of smarts. That implies expenditures for early childhood education, upgraded apprenticeship programs, technically relevant vocational education and community-college programs tailored to meet the needs of employers.

Anyone who has tried to commute to work - or move freight - in and around Hampton Roads or Northern Virginia knows how badly the state needs new roads, bridges, tunnels and mass transit to move people and products in a timely, therefore competitive, way.

More billions will be needed for that, and if Virginia doesn't improve its transportation infrastructure other states are going to run us off the road in the quest to attract new jobs and industries.

The question candidates ought to be addressing is how to meet those needs. In Payne's words, candidates and voters must begin worrying about ``what kind of Virginia we want in the next century.'' Instead, the gubernatorial candidates are largely inviting voters to consider what kind of tax cut they want in 1998.

That sounds attractive now, but 20 years from now, when Virginians who have been ill-educated in crumbling schools sit gridlocked in traffic on their way to ill-paid jobs while other states progress, they may wish they'd paid more attention to the needs of Virginia in the state races of 1997.

During the next three months, we intend to use this space to ask the same kinds of questions Payne has begun to pose. What are the needs of Virginia? How can the state best pay for meeting them? Which candidates are willing to tackle these crucial issues? Do their plans makes sense?

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