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This session,
it’s budget, budget, budget
by
Peter
Galuszka
Related
stories:
- Mark
Warner: on the budget crisis and plans for a "debate"
to set funding priorities
- A
quiet man takes a raucous job
When
the General Assembly begins its upcoming session on
Jan. 8, the primary item — perhaps the only item
— for consideration will be Gov. Mark R. Warner’s
emergency measures to handle the remaining $1.1 billion
budget shortage.
What
isn’t known is whether legislators will pull together
and resolve the crisis or fall into the same kind of
internecine warfare that they did two years ago. Back
then, infighting, primarily by Republicans, stymied
the budget’s approval and helped create today’s
painful deficits.
The
smart money seems to be on the former scenario, however.
The atmosphere is so grim that many of the players just
won’t be able to posture. “The size and depth
of our fiscal challenges are so great that we don’t
have time for partisan politics,” Warner told Virginia
Business. Del. Vincent F. Callahan (R-Fairfax County),
chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, notes
that the budget crisis is so vast that there really
won’t be much else on the agenda.
Contending
that “no one will have shrunk government more and
in less time,” Warner has already taken draconian
steps to reduce the nearly $2 billion budget deficit.
In October, Warner cut 1,850 jobs and took other steps
to trim $858 million, such as cutting educational programs
(page 8), shuttering some Department of Motor Vehicles
driver’s license offices and curtailing other state
services. The next shoe to drop is Warner’s plan
to deal with the remaining $1.1 billion deficit, issued
last month, and the General Assembly’s response
to it.
To
be sure, Virginia is hardly alone among the states when
it comes to budget shortfalls. Most have seen tax revenues
dip dramatically after last year’s recession. Yet
Virginia’s plight has been made worse by the battles
in 2000 between GOP legislators and Jim Gilmore, the
former Republican governor, over Gilmore’s insistence
that the car tax be cut. Recent press reports assert
that funding for such state agencies as the Virginia
Department of Transportation was already on the ropes
during the last years of the Gilmore regime, but the
information wasn’t made public.
In
his first session as governor last year, Warner did
manage to keep the peace as the enormity of the budget
woes became clear. Warner did this by working closely
with Del. S. Vance Wilkins, Jr. of Amherst, a powerful
Republican who was house speaker. Yet Wilkins resigned
suddenly in June following disclosures that he paid
$100,000 in a legal settlement to a woman who claimed
he had made sexual advances. With Wilkins gone, Warner
must forge an alliance with Wilkins’ mild-mannered
replacement, Republican Bill Howell of Stafford County
(page 21).
Looking
for the bright side, Warner says the budget crisis has
created an atmosphere of urgency that is allowing the
state to take big steps that would be mired in controversy
in calmer times. Indeed, Warner sees the budget woes
as helping set the stage for a statewide debate on what
voters, the business community and officials really
want from state government and what they are willing
to pay for. For instance, Warner says, Virginians need
to determine how many top-drawer universities they really
want and should be prepared to fund them. Meanwhile,
the governor says, he’s taking other steps to run
Virginia on a more business-like basis, such as consolidating
computer purchases to get a better price.
Other
budget issues are certain to come up, such as whether
to raise the 2.5-cent state tax on cigarette packs —
the lowest in the nation — and whether to boost
sagging revenues in the employment compensation fund.
Whatever happens during this session, nothing is likely
to stray far from the budget mess.
Return
to Virginia Business - January 2003
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