State legislators warned area Chamber of Commerce members that there is little money in the state budget for some of the business group's priorities.

The region's lawmakers--Senators Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, and Richard Stuart, R-Westmoreland, House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and Delegates Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, Mark Cole, R-Spotsylvania, and Albert Pollard, D-Lancaster--participated in the Fredericksburg Regional Chamber of Commerce's annual pre-session panel.

Chamber members outlined four priorities: replenishing and protecting the state transportation trust fund, avoiding cuts to education funding, establishing a different threshold for BPOL taxes, and automatically conforming state tax code to federal tax changes.

Almost all of the legislators said they would support a constitutional amendment to protect the transportation fund from being spent on other things.

Stuart said he agreed that transportation money should be spent only on transportation, but that he could see using the fund for short-term loans to other areas of government, as long as it was paid back.

As far as replenishing the fund, the Republicans mostly said it would be replenished when the economy improves, thus increasing revenues.

Houck said it could be done through additional revenue, such as tax increase, but said the political dynamics in the General Assembly make that virtually impossible.

The chamber wanted the legislators to promise to fully fund educational needs, but with budget cuts of at least $3.5 billion looming, the lawmakers said education can be only partially protected.

"If it was a simple solution, you bet," said Orrock, himself a teacher, on protecting education from cuts.

Pollard said education makes up such a large portion of the general fund budget that he doesn't think it can be balanced without some cuts to education.

One proposal has been to cap the amount the state spends on support staff in schools.

Howell said he supports that.

Houck, a former educator, said nothing is more painful to him than education cuts because Virginia is already in the bottom half of states for spending on education. When you add local and federal money, Howell said later, Virginia ranks higher.

"K-12 [education] will simply have to be part of that equation," Houck said.

"There's no way we can come up with $3.6 billion without touching K-12."

Houck also repeated his criticism that increasing revenue seems such an off-the-table topic with Republicans, who control the House and now the governor's mansion.