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Howell |
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND
--Efforts to broaden unemployment eligibility in order to get more federal stimulus money are back after being killed last year by the state legislature.In order to get about $125 million more in federal money, Virginia would have to change its unemployment law so that more categories of workers, such as part-time workers and workers in training programs, are eligible for benefits.
Last spring, then-Gov. Tim Kaine and Democratic lawmakers pushed for the state to make the changes to get the money. House Republicans rejected the proposal, saying it would be a burden on businesses already hard-hit by the recession.
This session, Democrats have re-introduced the issue. But Republicans say it will suffer the same fate as last year.
House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong, D-Henry, has introduced one of the bills, and there are also some in the Senate. Armstrong's bill says that workers who have exhausted their unemployment benefits would be eligible for up to 26 more weeks of benefits if they're enrolled in training programs. It also makes part-time workers eligible.
A Senate bill from Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Russell, has similar provisions, and about 17 other lawmakers, all Democrats, have signed on.
If the bills passed, Armstrong said, the state might not have to raise unemployment taxes on businesses as much as it is.
State law requires businesses to pay more into the unemployment compensation fund when the fund gets low, and the fund is not just low, it's dry. Virginia has been borrowing money from the federal government to pay unemployment benefits for several months now.
The state unemployment tax that businesses pay on each employee went up Jan. 1, from an average of $95 per employee per year to an average of $171 a year in 2010. It will increase again to $234 in 2011 and $263 in 2012.
Armstrong said he doesn't want to leave federal money "on the table" or see it go to another state.
"This $125 million would be very helpful in this economy," he said.
Armstrong said he hopes Republicans who killed similar bills last year have had a change of heart.
"I don't put bills in expecting them to fail," he said. "We'll see."
But House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, does not sound like a man who has changed his mind since last year.
"I don't think it's any more necessary now than it was then," he said of Armstrong's bill. "It's a permanent fix with temporary money that will soon run out."
Howell said adding new categories of eligible workers is a permanent change--technically, the state could change the law back later on, but Republicans last year said that in practice that would be politically difficult. They consider the eligibility changes a permanent burden on struggling businesses, which are "already looking at a significant increase" in unemployment taxes, Howell said.
Chelyen Davis
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
