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House Appropriations Committee Chairman Lacey Putney (left), I-Bedford, leafs through the budget bill along with Dels. Beverly Sherwood, R-Frederick, and John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, at the Virginia State Capitol yesterday. |
RICHMOND--
With Congress reportedly reaching a deal on the federal stimulus bill, the state Senate yesterday decided to postpone planned action on its version of the state budget.The General Assembly's procedural resolution called for both houses to vote on their budgets by last night.
But senators said that because they now expect to have better numbers on the stimulus money and updated state revenue numbers by next week, they think it's more prudent to wait.
"What's come up is that the stimulus package in Washington was agreed to. The governor has assured us we would have the new numbers, the revenue forecast early Monday morning," said Sen. Dick Saslaw, D-Fairfax, Senate Majority Leader. "It didn't make any sense to go through all the things today to wind up with a budget that has a life span of 96 hours."
State revenues are expected to show a further downturn. But the stimulus money is expected to equal or surpass that loss, and Gov. Tim Kaine hopes the federal money will keep Virginia from having to make deeper budget cuts. Already, he and legislators must cut about $3 billion to cover dropping revenues.
Saslaw said the Senate finance committee's subcommittees, which handle different areas of the budget, will meet and redo portions of the budget based on the new numbers.
"Our budget process is almost starting all over again," Saslaw said.
Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, said the delay is the wisest course.
"We can produce a much better package," after waiting for the final revenue numbers, Houck said.
He said while the Senate finance subcommittees will work more on the budget, as Saslaw said, it won't be a wholesale rewrite.
"There'll have to be some adjustment, but I don't think it's going back to zero and starting again," Houck said.
Senate Republicans said they had earlier urged the Democrats to delay doing the budget, given the revenue uncertainties, and were glad an agreement to postpone had been reached.
The Senate and House presented their own different versions of amendments to the two-year state budget on Sunday.
The House voted on its budget yesterday, spending hours going through objections to various amendments.
But House Appropriations committee chairman Del. Lacey Putney, I-Bedford, did acknowledge that the upcoming revenue and stimulus figures will require changes to that budget.
Repeating a comparison he made earlier about this being a "halftime budget," Putney said, "the second half will represent a whole new game with field conditions that have deteriorated."
House Republicans criticized the Senate's decision to postpone, even as they pointed out that the budget vehicle in the end is always the House budget bill.
The Senate bill is "a show bill," said House Majority Leader Del. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem.
"I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. [But] you can't say it's OK," Griffith added. "You've got to go with the schedule. If we waited for every piece of data to come in, we might be waiting till May or June."
Griffith said the schedule and deadlines were agreed to by legislative leaders weeks ago.
"We were going down a slippery slope if we decided we'd just move this date to wait for new data," he said, adding that January revenue numbers always come in the midst of the budget process. "If we want to be constantly delaying things and not getting our work done, this is the start of that."
The House's budget debate primarily involved minority Democrats protesting individual budget items, such as a ban on giving state money to Planned Parenthood, a ban on providing any state money for abortion services, and a provision regulating clinics that perform more than 25 abortions a year.
Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, proposed a floor amendment that would revoke a state police policy on nondenominational prayers at public functions--a similar bill has already passed the House--but it failed.
Democrats also protested the fact that an increase in the cigarette tax, proposed by Kaine in the original budget bill, was eliminated in the House version of the budget.
The House never had a separate bill to raise that tax, although the Senate did--and it failed in the Senate finance committee.
Chelyen Davis: 804/782-9362
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
